Max Schmidt On the other, it represents the complex relationship that exists between the researcher and his subjects, and, within this, it is a reminder that Schmidt’s perspective was always present and engaged with the reality he was there to study and document. 151 FIG. 13 (left): Umotina with a fi shnet, bukyé. Masépo, Paraguay, 1927–1928. FIG. 14 (above): Paresí house. Utiarití, 1927–1928. directorship of the Museo de Etnografía e Historia in Asunción, and until he retired in 1946, he conducted ethnological and archaeological research among the populations of the Gran Chaco and neighboring cultural areas. Today, that museum is known as the Museo Etnográfi co Andrés Barbero and is the repository for all of the photo negatives that were created during Schmidt’s ethnographic expeditions. In 2013, some of these photographs, accompanied by other documents, were published in a book titled Hijos de la selva (Sons of the Forest), edited by Viggo Mortensen for Perceval Press. With text by Federico Bossert and Diego Villar, the book tells Schmidt’s story and showcases a selection of the photographs he took in the Brazilian Mato Grosso and in the Paraguayan Gran Chaco between 1900 and 1935. The photos are reproduced from the original negatives and, wherever possible, are also accompanied by information sourced from the museum’s accession records, which were produced by Schmidt himself and later revised and organized by Branislava Susnik, who succeeded him as the museum’s director. Schmidt’s images demonstrate that he was one of the pioneers of ethnographic photography in South America. Their anthropological value is incontrovertible, as they clearly show the appearance and customs of the peoples he visited. His lens also captured the processes of transformation and acculturation engendered by modernization among these indigenous populations. He distanced himself from the era’s norms of physical anthropology, with its bland frontal and profi le images of individuals taken against a neutral background, but also avoided taking a colonial approach. In viewing the images, it is important to realize that Schmidt used photography to facilitate his integration among villagers and to persuade people to be his subjects by showing them photographs he had taken on earlier expeditions. The book’s editor and authors place emphasis on the aesthetic value of Schmidt’s photos, on his humanist and empathetic approach, and on his avoidance of reinforcing incorrectly anticipated expectations. His approach derives from the heart of anthropology’s double vocation. As Bronislaw Malinowski, the father of British anthropology, said, the anthropologist’s mission must be to assume an indigenous person’s identity while at the same time being able to distance himself suffi ciently to see things objectively. This twofold perspective is perfectly illustrated by the photograph seen on the book’s back cover, in which the anthropologist is seen as a kind of shadow projected onto the ground. The image has a double signifi cance. On one hand, it demonstrates that the anthropologist was there, alone and far from his own people, and that he was actively engaged in the observation and description of events. NOTES 1. Federico Bossert and Diego Villar, Hijos de la selva. La fotografía etnográfi ca de Max Schmidt, Viggo Mortensen (ed.), Perceval Press, Santa Mónica, 2013, p. 4. 2. Text cited in the preface to Bossert and Villar, op. cit., p. 14. With thanks to Diego Villar for providing the photos that were needed to make this article possible.
T76En_internet
To see the actual publication please follow the link above