Although we know that Edward S. Curtis had no qualms about staging scenes and manipulating his subjects in order to tell his special story (a noble race of people who were rapidly riding down the trail of oblivion), it is impossible to view these photos without becoming fascinated and, ultimately, taken in. In part, this is because of Curtis’ technical skill. A photographic devotee from his teenage years, Curtis was a master of the photogravure method, and his choice of sepia matched perfectly the elegiac nature of his project. The book itself is a handsome production, something of a composite of other publications in the “native nations” series. My favorite pictures are of the masks. These startling creations tend to resist the romanticizing element in much of Curtis’ work. They give the viewer a striking sense of the “otherness” of native culture. These images are more comprehensively collected in another volume of the series titled Hidden Faces. ( )