Opening Aug. 23, Sweet Briar College will exhibit “Family Portraits: Virginian Indians at the Turn of the 20th Century,” in Benedict Gallery through Jan. 20. More than 30 photographs depict members of six tribes of the Virginian Indians in portraits, school pictures and tribal gatherings.
Pamunkey school children and teacher, Richmond, Virginia, c. 1920. Courtesy of Virginia Historical Society, Foster Collection.Native Virginian community leaders, including Monacan Chief Kenneth Branham, Pamunkey Chief Warren Cook, Chickahominy Chief Stephen Adkins and Deanna Beacham, program specialist for the Virginia Council on Indians, will give a gallery talk at 4:30 p.m., Sept. 14, in Tyson Auditorium adjacent to Benedict Gallery.
The exhibition is an update of one originally shown in 1993 as a research project by Katherine Schupp Zeringue, SBC Class of 1994, under the guidance of art galleries director Rebecca Massie Lane and anthropology professor Claudia Chang. It includes reproductions of candid, studio and ethnographic photographs taken of Monacan, Pamunkey, Nansemond, Chickahominy, Rappahannock and Mattaponi Indians in the early 1900s.
The show was part of SBC’s Ewald Symposium, which brought national Native American leaders, authors and activists to the College for three days of discussion. It featured Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller as keynote speaker, as well as Monacan Phyllis Hicks and Upper Mattaponi Ray Adams, who participated in the talks.
Falling Rock School in Amherst, 1914, Monacan Tribe. Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Virginia.Many of the photos are anonymous; others were taken by Smithsonian photographers James Mooney and G.L. Dill, and by the Foster Studio, which operated in Richmond from 1900 to 1925.
The photographs were selected from collections at the Virginia Historical Society, the Valentine Richmond History Center, the Library of Virginia, the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Virginia Special Collections. They are used with permission. Thirty-five of the 1993 images will be shown again, but with updated descriptions.
Then — as now — an important part of the project was the participation of those whose forebears are pictured, said SBC assistant professor of anthropology Lynn Rainville. She took on revising the labels that accompany the photos, as well as funding for the project through a grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
“We have a better-informed perspective now,” said Rainville, who collaborated with the Virginia tribes and with Deanna Beacham, the program specialist for the Virginia Council on Indians, to amend the descriptions.
Falling Rock School in Amherst, 1914, Monacan Tribe. Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Virginia.“The original labels were taken verbatim from the home collections and reflect the scholarship of an earlier era,” Rainville said. “Some of the old labels contained biased and inaccurate terms.”
For the original research in 1992, Katherine Schupp wrote to the Virginian tribal chiefs for help identifying people in the photographs. Two chiefs responded and the new information was given to the lending institutions, who expressed gratitude for her efforts to find the lost information.
The intent is again to have “native voices in the labels themselves and to have Native Americans [participate] in the planning of the project,” Rainville said.
She became aware of the photographic exhibit when she floated the idea of hosting a symposium on the heritage of the Monacan, whose ancestral homeland is present-day Amherst County. She is discussing that proposal with tribal leaders for a date in 2008.
Family of George Major Cook, King William, Virginia, c. 1899, Pamunkey Tribe. Photographed by D.L. Gill. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.“Family Portraits” was updated to coincide with Jamestown’s 400th anniversary year, as well as Virginia Archaeology Month in October and National American Indian Heritage Month in November.
Rainville became interested in the state’s indigenous peoples after hearing several speakers talk about their past and present at the Virginia Forum, a conference on state history, in April. Her recent research focus is on 19th-century social and cultural history and material culture of Amherst County, especially as they relate to the former Sweet Briar plantation.
With an emphasis on the “everyday life of non-elites,” much of her work involves ante-bellum and post-bellum African-American history in Amherst and Albemarle counties. Over time, Rainville realized she had been overlooking the distinct history of the Monacan. She wanted to ensure that she was “telling the story correctly,” she said.
Although the photographs are posed, Rainville believes elements in them, such as clothing and settings, help tell that story, and also distinguish the exhibit from other collections of the period. Photographers often focused on the rituals of Native American culture, posing their subjects in ceremonial regalia — which may or may not be accurate for their tribes.
At the gallery talk on Sept. 14, Branham, Cook and Adkins will speak about the history of their groups, and Beacham will speak on working with descendant communities.
The Virginian Indian story is full of injustices, but it’s also important to realize it is a history that did not end in the 17th century, Rainville said.
“[The exhibit] will contribute to an understanding of native heritage in a region of Virginia where local communities sometimes know more about national historic events — such as the Trail of Tears — than the ongoing lives of native peoples within their communities.”
An
online version of the exhibit compares the 2007 image descriptions to their 1993 counterparts to demonstrate how the content changed after discussions with descendant communities and the incorporation of new scholarship.
Gallery hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Friday, and 1 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For more information, call (434) 381-6547 or e-mail
lrainville@sbc.edu.
