The Top Hat and the Headdress

I hope my colleagues will forgive the quite literally 11^th hour post, but this material was really so engrossing that I found it difficult to put my finger on one aspect to convey here briefly.  In his article “Cultural Nationalism, Westward Expansion and the Production of Imperial Landscape: George Catlin's Native American West,” Gareth John theorizes the “ambivalent” depictions of Native Americans in Early American painting, and specifically the landscape painting of George Catlin as “a constituent component of an ambivalent imperialist iconography depicting American westward expansion and Indian policy during the first half of the nineteenth century” (176).  As with the long-raging debate in postcolonial studies over the “problematics” of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or in US literature of Huckleberry Finn, Catlin’s paintings reject an easy characterization of the depictions as celebrating hegemony or lamenting its horrific results.  

One difficulty present here involves the absence of photographic confirmation of Catlin’s depictions, evidence that we might compare with his painting in order to discern the shape of his visual distortion, if there in fact is one. John also points to Catlin’s commitment to realism, and certainly the artist was trying to show the veracity of his images by incorporating physical artifacts into his enormous exhibition. Interestingly, although Aaron’s Huey’s photographs might not have as much leg work to complete in order to convince 21^st Century viewers that they convey the “real” life of Pine Ridge residents, I see a comparison between the audio supplements to Huey’s photographs as confirming or complicating the Lakota narrative and Catlin’s artifacts.  Both inclusions attempt to convince viewers of the authenticity of what they are looking at; both also run the risk of indicting the unavoidable authorial subjectivity in depicting the “other” in the first place—the problem of representation.

I find one of Catlin’s painting particularly reflects the ambivalence of these paintings. In Pigeon's Egg Head (The Light) Going to and Returning from Washington, 1837–39 (below), Catlin combines both landscape and Native American subject to produce this comparative and, again, ambivalent image. 

The chief becomes the general, the pipe becomes the cigarette, the tall-standing figure becomes the leisurely fellow leaning back on his umbrella, the multiple feathers of Pigeon’s Egg Head’s headdress become the top hat with one single feather, the dyed red guinea fowl feather which might have caught his eye at the Washington milliner shop or might have been a gift from a politician.  The description from the Smithsonian website sees these contrasts conveying a clear message, “His tribesmen rejected his descriptions of the white man's cities, and his persistence in telling ’evil lies’ eventually led to his murder. Catlin's message—civilization destroys Indian culture—doesn't get much clearer than this.”  While I agree that Catlin does not offer these images in celebration of Pigeon’s Egg Head’s assimilation, I wonder about the fact that the chief is shown by himself and not with, say, the individuals who likely encouraged (or manipulated) him to take on the trappings of American Military garb. Does this lay the blame for assimilation squarely on the chief, showing his new manner as a sign of his weakness against the temptations of “civilization,” as the Smithsonian has it?  The background of these paintings also display differences. While the ground both versions of the chief stands on remains the same, the sky above the district shows more smog and cloudiness that that over the tepees.  He seems to have brought the smoke of the city with him in the form of the cigarette. I have raised more questions than answers, but thinking back on the artifacts that accompanied Catlin’s exhibition, I wonder if the painting leaves at least one question unanswered that can never be: Who now has Pigeon’s Egg Head’s headdress and pipe?