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What is depicted in Edward S. Curtis’s photograph The Vanishing Race?

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Curtis, Edward S. — Edward S. Curtis Self-portrait, photogravure by Edward S. Curtis, 1899; in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Edward S. Curtis’s 1904 photograph The Vanishing Race depicts a line of Navajo riders receding into the shadows of a canyon.1

Curtis used this image as a keynote for his broader project, The North American Indian, intending it to symbolize the passing of Native American peoples into what he described as the "darkness of an unknown future". While the photograph is a well-known example of his work, it is important to note that his representation of Native Americans as a "vanishing race" was an ideological construct of the era rather than an objective reality. This perspective reflected the attitudes of the dominant mainstream culture and was often used to characterize indigenous peoples as incapable of dynamic change, a narrative that has been criticized for its role in supporting damaging national policies.12