On the Little Bighorn - Apsaroke

Curtis is recognized as one of America’s finest photographers and ethnologists. He devoted more than thirty years of his life to photographing and documenting more than eighty Native American tribes west of the Mississippi. Curtis eventually compiled a twenty-volume series called The North American Indian. Each volume contained seventy-five hand-pressed photogravures and 300 pages of text describing the customs, history, lore, and everyday life of individual tribes. This photograph was taken near the beginning of this long documentation process. It depicts a group of Apsaroke (Crow) Native Americans settled along the Little Bighorn River in Montana, a short distance below where the Battle of the Little Bighorn took place.