NOTES ON HILLERS' PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PAIUTE 



AND UTE INDIANS TAKEN ON THE POWELL 



EXPEDITION OF 1873 



By JULIAN H. STEWARD 



Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution 



(With 31 Plates) 



INTRODUCTION 



When, in 1869, Maj. John W. Powell made his first exploration 

 of the Colorado River, he encountered Ute and Southern Paiute 

 Indians in the territory that is now Utah and northern Arizona. 

 Fascinated at finding them nearly untouched by civilization, he de- 

 veloped a deep interest in ethnology which led to extensive field 

 studies and even ultimately to the founding of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology. During explorations, he took every opportunity to study 

 their language, customs, and mythology, to collect specimens of their 

 utensils, dress, and handicraft, and to procure photographs. 



Few explorers in the United States have had a comparable oppor- 

 tunity to study and photograph Indians so nearly in their aboriginal 

 state. The Ute, to be sure, had probably experienced something of a 

 cultural revolution when they acquired the horse from the Spaniards 

 in the Southwest long before the first white man visited their country. 

 They were already hunters and warriors, in many respects resembling 

 the tribes of the Great Plains, when Escalante passed through Utah 

 in 1776. After the 1820's, when fur trappers began to penetrate 

 their territory, the Ute acquired a few guns and other trade objects, 

 but were little affected by their casual contacts with the white men. 

 The Southern Paiute, meanwhile, living in the more arid country to 

 the south and west, remained, without horses or guns, entirely in 

 their aboriginal state. In 1847 tne Mormon pioneers arrived at Great 

 Salt Lake and within a few years planted settlements throughout 

 much of the desert. The Ute resisted this settlement, especially in 

 western Utah, and warfare began, reaching a climax about 1865. The 

 Ute were subdued, however, by 1870, and many of them moved to 

 the reservation which had been founded in the territory of one of 

 their bands, the Uintah Ute, in northeastern Utah. There were thus 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 98, No. 18 



