One photo captures a building designed to look like an iceberg. A
two-story structure made from logs is beneath the fake ice. At the top
of the building stands a sign that reads “ESKIMO.” Below it is the main
entrance, in front of which stand “real” Eskimos, “real” dogs, and
“real” dogsleds. This is Pay Streak, the amusement section of the
otherwise very serious Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle
in 1909. Millions of people came here to celebrate the past (the gold
rush that transformed Seattle from a tiny town to the center of the
Pacific Northwest) and the future (the trade in the Pacific Rim). A
poster of the image, whose photographer is unknown, hangs in the Burke
Museum’s politically charged exhibit Alaska-Yukon-Pacific
Exposition: Indigenous Voices Reply.
This is the exhibit’s mission: to generate sparks from a
confrontation between living Native Americans and historical
representations of their culture, which was coded as uncivilized or
barbaric. But these sparks are weak and throw little light on this
unhappy area of our history. It’s not that the art by the living Native
Americans is bad—separated from the show, each of these
photographs, sculptures, and installations could easily exert a strong
impression. But in this context, the context of a reply to or
confrontation with the past, their force is reduced by something in the
old photographs that is as deep as it is troubling. These old
photographs are no longer just about white people who
wrongly/arrogantly see themselves as civilized and others as
uncivilized. That is just the surface of something stranger and harder
to grasp.
This is the surface of the old pictures: The year of the exposition,
1909, is still in the 19th century (which ends with the start of World
War I). European and North American faith in progress has yet to be
broken. Western culture thinks of itself as the cutting edge of a
universal project to make the earth a better place for human life.
These assumptions dominate the exposition—particularly Pay
Streak, which has an international flavor: Chinese Village, Street of
Tokio, belly dancers, and “Hindoo” amusements.
This is beneath that surface: In the picture of a group of Igorot
people dancing and drumming on a stage in the Igorrote
Village—one of the most profitable attractions of Pay
Streak—we see a crowd of fully dressed Americans staring at the
half-naked dancers from the Philippines. (The photo, at left, was taken
by Frank H. Nowell.) But the barbarians are not innocent. This is their
job, to re-create the simple traditions of a culture that has already
been commodified. What the people of today see in the picture is not
the barbarism of the dancers but the glaring (indeed embarrassing)
barbarism of the audience. These brutes lack our developed or refined
sense of political prudence and cultural caution. We of today would not
be so easily open about our status and position in the world. Because
the arrogance and smugness of the people in the picture is so apparent,
so exposed, they are more naked than the half-naked men and women on
the stage. Those on the stage are performing and aware of this fact,
whereas the Americans are not (“Barbaric Dress Causes Flurry on Streets
in University District,” reads a headline from the Seattle Daily
Times). This makes the Americans (who see the performance as real)
the ignorant savages.
In photo after photo of this exhibit, the primitive shifts from the
object of the gaze to the gaze itself. And here is the troubling part:
What exactly is our position, we who relocate the primitive or barbaric
in these pictures? Are we not making the same mistake as the European
Americans in the image, gawking at brutes? We look at our ancestors the
same way they looked at the belly dancers, or the Eskimos, or the
“Hindoos.”
The Americans in the picture are savages to us because they
foolishly think they are better or higher than the performers. This
situation, however, is not good. It can only mean one thing for us: We
(those who gaze at the gaze that has the other as its object) are
doomed to be the next barbarians. Meaning, in the future, this exhibit
will be the new locus of shame. When will it end, this progress of the
primitive? 
I’m sure Charles there were many whites of that time(not in photo) who were appalled by the spectacle. Such as the popularity of reality TV and it’s repugnance. You are right in that regard, we haven’t progressed much. more revealing is the fallacy of progress…
Nah it’s not that there were so many whites appalled by this, it’s that every people, from every land, has raped, killed, exploited, enslaved, and taken land from every other people, pretty much whenever they could.
the native americans all made war on each other, they made war on the whites, they lost that war.
the whites all made war on each other, they made war on the native americans, often different tribes of whites were aligned with different tribes of native americans, too, everybody made war.
in africa the zulus came down from the north and took over what is now south africa from other africans. then a white tribe from europe called the boers took over their land.
ditto the scandinavians enslaved tens of thousands when rampaging in asia and europ in viking longboats.
arabs enslved blacks, blacks enslaved blacks, arabs and blacks enslaved whites, romans and greeks enslaved everybody and you can bet your ass if the persians had beaten the greeks they would have killed 90% of the men enslaved the rest and taken off all the women as sex slaves.
the civilization a tribe of whites conquered in mexico was composed of many native americans tribes that had all just been conquered by one tribe headquartered in what is now mexico city, and boy oh boy, it WAS barbaric…..
so we’re all guilty.
and yes people in prior ages and centuries were all racist.
while it’s good to recount the many forms this took, including a funny exhibition like this one at the alaska yukon thing, the notion that only whites or only europeans have the bloodiest hands is basically wrong, factually.
and it’s also wrong to suggest we haven’t progressed much, in fact the last #00 years have seen an EXLOSION of progress in ending slavery ending wars ending aggresson ending genocide and moving to world peace.
that should read “since 1800” and end in “ending suppression of women, and ending genocide, all practices that have been around for a few hundrecds of thousands of years, and moving to world peace.”
celebrate divershitty!