Sígesh – Apache

This is an example of Edward Curtis’s early style of portraiture, which tended to be formal and static. By photographing the Apache girl in profile, he illustrates a particular method of dressing and tying one’s hair. More broadly, it reveals his connection to an impulse in photography, common at the time, that used serial portraiture in the attempt to objectively document different social or ethnographic types. Curtis titles this portrait of a young girl, Sigesh – Apache. In Apache, sigesh means “the gifted one,” a person who fills a special role in social life. In one Apache community Curtis frequented, he was thought capable of “stealing souls” by capturing them within his camera and in his photographic images. Those who were deemed gifted were thought particularly susceptible. Although Curtis advocated for recognizing the value of traditional Native lifeways, he willfully dismissed many of the wishes and cultural protocols of the people he was attempting to document.