Women of the Desert

Women of the Desert

This orotone from my personal collection is an 11×14. In addition to printing this image as a master-print, Curtis chose to use it as a portfolio photogravure in portfolio one of The North American Indian.

The photogravure is in portfolio one and is plate 27. Curtis’s original explanation of the photograph is:

The Navaho women are, for the greater part, the owners of the flocks, and invariably, with the children, the herders. They are so thoroughly at home on their scrubby ponies that they seem a part of them and probably excel all other Indians as horsewomen.