Shepherd of the Hills - Navaho

Minneapolis, MN: Gravure Engraving Company, 1913. Photogravure [31.5 cm x 21 cm] / [12.5" x 8"] on cream colored stock [45.5 cm x 35.5 cm] / [18" x 14"] Nice condition. Nice image of the Navajo silversmith, Many Goats. "The desert winds have blown across the face of this Old Navajo silversmith for many decades. His hair was silvery white, but his hearing and eyesight were still keen. His name was 'Many Goats' and he was well off owning large flocks of both sheep and goats. He was a silversmith. The coins are his stock of silver and go down his back and up under his arm. The most recent coin was 1897. If anyone wanted a buckle or bracelet he would take off enough coins to get the necessary silver." - Roland W. Reed

Roland W. Reed (1864-1934) was a photographer working in the American west, who was largely self-funded in his effort to document the vanishing indigenous peoples he encountered and sought out. Many of his images were staged to offer romanticized depictions of these people as he wanted to see them. Reed lived with and photographed the Ojibwe in Minnesota; the Blackfeet, Piegan, Flathead, Cheyenne, and Blood in northern Montana and southern Canada; and the Navajo and Hopi in Arizona. He had begun work on the publication of his collection with the title 'Reed's Photographic Art Studies of the North American Indian' at the time of his accidental death.