Return to the Land of the Head Hunters - Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwaka''wakw, and the Making of Modern Cinema

Photographer Edward Curtis's 1914 orchestrally scored melodrama In the Land of the Head Hunters was one of the first US films to feature an Indigenous cast. This landmark of early silent cinema was an intercultural product of Curtis's collaboration with the Kwakwäkä'wakw of British Columbia-meant, like Curtis's photographs, to document a supposedly vanishing race. But as this collection shows, the epic film is not simply an artifact of colonialist nostalgia.

In recognition of the film's centennial, and the release of a restored version, Return to the Land of the Head Hunters brings together leading anthropologists, Native American authorities, artists, musicians, literary scholars, and film historians to reassess the film and its legacy. The volume offers unique Kwakwäkä'wakw perspectives on the film, accounts of its production and subsequent circulation, and evaluations of its depictions of cultural practice. Resituated within film history and informed by a legacy of Kwakwäkä'wakw participation and response, the movie offers dynamic evidence of ongoing cultural survival and transformation under shared conditions of modernity.

About the author

Edited by Brad Evans and Aaron Glass. Foreword by Bill Holm

Product details

• Authors: Brad (EDT)/ Glass Evans, Brad Glass Evans
• Assisted by: Brad Evans (Editor), Aaron Glass (Editor)
• Publisher: University Of Washington Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.02.2020
• EAN: 9780295746951
• ISBN: 978-0-295-74695-1
• No. of pages: 392
• Series: Native Art of the Pacific Nort; Native Art of the Pacific Northwest: A Bill Holm Center; Native Art of the Pacific Northwest: A Bill Holm Center Series; Return to the Land of the Head Hunters; Native Art of the Pacific Northwest: a Bill Holm Center SeriesNative Art of the Pacific Northwest: a Bill Holm Center SeriesNative Art of the Pacific Northwest: a Bill Holm Center SeriesNative Art of
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Ethnic Studies, Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Ethnographie, PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / History & Criticism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Ethnic Issues, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / Native American Studies