Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

Film-maker Paul Ratner developed a passion for researching old photographs of indigenous people while making “Moses on the Mesa”, a film about a German-Jewish immigrant who fell in love with a Native-American woman and became governor of her tribe of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico in the late 1800s.

“Many of the photographs I found were colored by hand, as color film was only the domain of experimentalists until 1930s (thanks, Kodachrome!),” Ratner writes on Huffington Post. “Painting on black and white prints was an art in and of itself, and many of the colorized photos exhibit true talent which preserved for us the truer likeness of the people many a hundred years ago thought were vanishing. Of course, Native Americans have not vanished despite the harrowing efforts of so many. They are growing stronger as a people, but a way of life they left behind is often only found in these photos.”

More info: filmsbygiants.com | Facebook (h/t: huffpost)

#1 Minnehaha. 1904

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#2 Bone Necklace. Oglala Lakota Chief. 1899. Photo By Heyn Photo

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#3 Blackfeet Tribal Camp With Grazing Horses. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter Mcclintock

#3 Blackfeet Tribal Camp With Grazing Horses. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter Mcclintock

#4 Eagle Arrow. A Siksika Man. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter Mcclintock

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#5 Chief James A. Garfield. Jicarilla Apache. 1899. Photo By William Henry Jackson

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#6 Blackfeet Girl. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass Lantern Slide By Walter Mcclintock

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#7 “Ringing Bell”. 1908. Minnesota. Handpainted Photo Print By Roland W. Reed

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#8 “Painted Tipis Of The Headmen”. Blackfeet. Montana. Early 1900s. By Walter Mcclintock

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#9 Handpainted Print Of A Young Woman By The River. Early 1900s. Photo By Roland W. Reed

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#10 Arrowmaker, An Ojibwe Man. 1903

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#11 Charles American Horse (the Son Of Chief American Horse). Oglala Lakota. 1901. Photo By William Herman Rau

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#12 Chief Little Wound And Family. Oglala Lakota. 1899. Photo By Heyn Photo

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#13 ”In Summer”. Kiowa. 1898. Photo By F.a. Rinehart

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#14 “Songlike”, A Pueblo Man, 1899. Photo By F.a. Rinehart

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century

#15 Cheyenne Chief Wolf Robe. Color Halftone Reproduction Of A Painting From A F. A. Rinehart Photograph. 1898

Rare Colour Photos Of Native Americans From The 19th And 20th Century