This collection includes 10 copy negatives of E. Lucas Bridges photographs from Tierra del Fuego in Argentina made between 1900 and 1910. Bridges was the son of an Anglican missionary and grew up among the Selk'nam (Ona) indigenous people at the southernmost tip of South America. Bridges published The Uttermost Part of the Earth in 1949 documenting his family's experiences in Tierra del Fuego.
Scope and Contents:
This collection includes 10 copy negatives of E. Lucas Bridges photographs from Tierra del Fuego in Argentina made between 1900 and 1910. The majority of the images are of a Selk'nam (Ona) Hain, or Initiation ceremony. These images have been restricted. The remainder of the photographs include portraits of Selk'nam (Ona) men and women on Isla Grande de Terra del Fuego in Argentina. This includes portraits of Kautempklh and Paloa, Halah and his family, Te-al and Ishtohn, and an unidentified group. Many of these photographs were included in the 1949 book The Uttermost Part of the Earth written by E. Lucas Bridges. The book documents his family's experiences in Tierra del Fuego at the turn of the 20th century.
The copy negatives were made by photographing a set of Lucas Bridges prints. It's unclear whether this was done prior to the donation (by Bridges) or by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
N20227-N20036
Arrangement:
Arranged by catalog number.
Biographical / Historical:
Esteban Lucas Bridges, 1874-1949, was born to Anglican missionary father Reverend Thomas Bridges and mother Mary Ann Bridges in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Although his father resigned his missionary position in 1886, the family remained in Tierra del Fuego and built the Estancia Harberton on the coast of the Beagle Channel. From 1898 through 1914, Bridges, along with his brothers, opened new trails and visited frequently with the indigenous peoples of the region, often providing shelter from white settlers on their estancias. Many European colonizers between the 1870s and 1930 actively and knowingly decimated the Selk'nam population in the quest for gold and land. Although Lucas Bridges did much to try to help the local communities, by 1930 the Selk'nam community was reduced to about 100 members.
During World War I, Bridges went to England to enlist in the army. He married Janette McLeod Jardine in 1917 and following the war the couple moved to South Africa where they developed a ranch. Bridges returned to Argentina shortly before his death in 1949.
Provenance:
Gift of E. Lucas Bridges, 1932.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu). Some images restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); E. Lucas Bridges photographs from Tierra del Fuego, image #, NMAI.AC.144. National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
The S.K. Lothrop collection primarily contains negatives, photographic prints, and lantern slides made by Lothrop while employed by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Lothrop traveled on behalf of the Museum to New Mexico, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. The four New Mexico negatives in this collection date from 1915, before Lothrop worked for the Museum, and depict scenes around Zuni. During his 1924 trip to El Salvador, Lothrop photographed volcanos, archaeological sites, antiquities, the landscape, villages, and native peoples engaged in pottery and rope making, food preparation, house building, and ceremonial activities. The 1925 views particularly concentrate on Argentina (but also Chile and Peru). The Argentina materials include views made in the Tierra del Fuego (also part of Chile), including depictions of the daily lives and ceremonial activities of natives peoples of Tierra del Fuego--Selk'nam (Ona) and Yámana (Yagán/Yahgan); the Patagonia landscape; and excavations undertaken by the Museum's La Plata Expedition. The 1928 Guatemala views include depictions of Mayan ruins of Zaculeu and of Tz'utuhil Maya (Tzutuhil/Zutigil), Quiché Maya (Quiche), and Kaqchikel Maya (Cakchiquel) people engaged in weaving, rope making, canoeing, and ceremonial actitivies. The collection also contains photographs made by Lothrop before he worked for the Museum, including 1915 views of effigy mounds in Wisconsin and views at Hopi, Acoma, and Santa Clara; 1917 views of Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador; and 1918 views of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Nicaragua.
Samuel Kirkland Lothrop was an archaeologist and photographer who extensively traveled and worked throughout Central America and South America. George Gustav Heye originally hired Lothrop to research native Guatemalan and El Salvadoran textiles and pottery. He subsequently excavated on behalf of the Museum of the American Indian in such places as the Tierra del Fuego. Here he photographed indigenous communities who would not survive the twentieth century as a distinct culture group. In 1923, he also photographed the activities of the Hendricks-Hodge Hawikku Expedition excavations. In addition to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, the Peabody Museum and the Carnegie Institute sponsored his research and archaeological work.
Provenance:
Historically, the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation managed all photographic and related manuscript collections separately. This collection description represents current management practices of organizing and contextualizing related archival materials.
Restrictions:
Access is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment.
Rights:
Copyright: National Museum of the American Indian
Topic:
Indians of Central America -- Guatemala -- Photographs Search this
Indians of Central America -- El Salvador -- Photographs Search this
Fuegians -- Social life and customs -- Photographs Search this
Excavations (Archaeology) -- Argentina -- Photographs Search this
Genre/Form:
Lantern slides
Photographs
Negatives
Photographic prints
Citation:
S. K. Lothrop collection of negatives, photographs and lantern slides, 1915-1928, National Museum of the American Indian Archives, Smithsonian Institution (negative, slide or catalog number).
Die Insekten des Antarkto-Archiplata-Gebietes (Feuerland, Falklands-Inseln, Süd-Georgien); 20. Beitrag zur Kenntnis der antarktischen Fauna, von Dr. Günther Enderlein
Contemporary perspectives on the native peoples of Pampa, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego : living on the edge / edited by Claudia Briones and José Luis Lanata ; foreword by Laurie Weinstein
Birds of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & Antarctic Peninsula : the Falkland Islands & South Georgia = Aves de Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego y Península Antártica : Islas Malvinas y Georgia del Sur / Enrique Couve & Claudio Vidal
Title:
Aves de Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego y Península Antártica
Die Feuerland Indianer : ergebnisse meiner vier Forschungsreisen in den Jahren 1918 bis 1924 / unternommen im Auftrage des Ministerio de Instrucción pública de Chile ; in drei Bänden herausgegeben von Martin Gusinde
Archaeological and anthropological perspectives on the native peoples of Pampa, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego to the nineteenth century / edited by Claudia Briones and José Luis Lanata ; foreword by Laurie Weinstein
Die Vegetationsverhältnisse längs der Cordillera de los Andes s. von 41⁰ s. Br. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Vegetation in Chiloé, Westpatagonien, dem andinen Patagonien und Feuerland
A voyage towards the South Pole, performed in the years 1822-1824 : containing an examination of the Antarctic Sea ... and a visit to Tierra del Fuego with a particular account of the inhabitants / by James Weddell ..
