Vintage Native American Portraits

Posted by Miss Cellania in Pictures on November 23, 2009 at 1:27 pm

The Denver Post recently uncovered a collection of photographs taken by Durango, Colorado photographers William Pennington and Lisle Updike between 1915 and 1920. They were featured in the newspaper in 1974. From that article:

These pictures, bearing the stamp of their studio, were recently discovered in a long forgotten file of the Denver Post library.

The two young photographers supported themselves with their portrait business, but satisfied their artistic urges by traveling around the Four Corners area in a wagon taking pictures such as the ones appearing on this page.

“There was no money in taking pictures of Indians,” Updike, 84, said from his winter home in Phoenix, Arizona. His sons and grandsons now operate a chain of Updike studios in Utah and Arizona.

Updike died a couple of years after the original article appeared. The linked post features 16 of those prints. Link -via Cynical-C

(image credit: The Pennington Studio)

 
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You Name the Town WHAT?!

Posted by Alex in Travel & Places on May 6, 2009 at 1:46 am


Native Names, the Interactive Map. Graphic: Oliver Uberti, National Geographic

A lot of places in the United States have their names derived from Native American words (I’m looking at you, Punxsutawney!). But do you know what they actually mean?

Our friends over at National Geographic have put together this really spiffy interactive map of the United States, with the translated meaning of the towns, lakes, and other localities.

Here are my personal favorites:

- Malibu, CA: It makes a loud noise all the time over there
- Topeka, KS: Good place to dig potatoes
- Chicago, IL: At the skunk place
- Yosemite, CA: They are killers

But the strangest one has got to be Loleta, a small town in Northern California. It means "let’s have intercourse."

Of course, the town founders claimed that the name means "pleasant place at the end of the tide water" but not according to William Bright, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology at UCLA, who wrote in his book Native American Placenames of the United States:

LOLETA (Calif., Humboldt Co.). In 1893, a resident, Mrs. Rufus F. Herrick, chose the present name, supposed to be from the local Wiyot Indian language. The Indian name was in fact katawóio’t, but an elderly Indian played a joke on Mrs. Herrick by telling her that the name was hós wiwítak ‘let’s have intercourse!’ – the latter part of which she interpreted in baby-talk fashion as Loleta (Teeter 1958).

Ouch! Link: Blog post | Interactive Map – Thanks Marilyn!

What are your favorites?

 
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