Edges of Empire

India

In this photograph Native Converts to Christianity taken by William Johnson, an Englishman, in India 1855-1862, four Indian women are staged and photographed to convey to a European audience what women who convert to Christianity look like, portraying an image of health, civility and comfort through their choice of clothing, jewelry, posture and physical appearance. The foliage in the background denotes that the women are in a tropical setting. People depicted by Europeans in a tropical climate usually wore little to no clothing because it was hot but in the eyes of Europeans this predisposed them to a barbaric image. The fact that these women are not only covered but nicely clothed in colored fabric and enjoying the luxury of jewelry shows that they are civilized in a western sense. Physically the women do not appear to be ill or overworked, having bright complexions and normal weight, displaying overall health and content portraying that as well as not having to work hard they also have enough to eat. The women have straight posture and most have downcast eyes giving the audience the sense that they are modest and chaste, the most important values of a civilized woman. The woman looking into the camera is holding necklaces that appear to be rosaries underscoring their religious intent but also revealing promiscuity that Europeans obsessed over toward oriental women. The women in the photograph are placed in a way that suggests they were posed leading to insinuate that the particular women were chosen and asked to wear certain clothes to capture what the photographer believed native converts to Christianity looked like, not what they were like in reality. This portrays to a European audience that their influence and introduction of Christianity to the native population, in particular women, positively affected them allowing them the opportunity to live a healthier and more civilized lifestyle.

Title: Native Converts to Christianity  

Photographer: William Johnson 

Mexico

In this photograph Cooking for Mexican Army taken by Walter Horne, in Mexico 1910-1920, a snap shot showing women and a child preparing a meal in a temporary camp portrays the communal lifestyle they held and the conditions they lived in due to the Mexican Revolution inflicting stress on women and children signified by their facial expressions, posture and scenery. The women and child are on the ground preparing a meal using the bare minimum of cooking utensils, and a makeshift fire. This denotes that this group of people are not only traveling but traveling light showing that they would have to move at a moment’s notice. The date that this photograph was taken reveals that the women and children were experiencing the effects of the Mexican Revolution, supporting why they are cooking on the ground and look anxious. During this time, it was safer for families to travel with the men and prepare food while they were off fighting than stay home where they could be killed or raped. This is a stressful burden to put on women in Mexico, having to care for the family in an ever changing environment as well as live in fear of being attacked. The stress of the situation is apparent in the two women’s faces that are clearly unhappy and the body language of the young child who is not playing but sitting still. The tone of this photo is somber, successfully capturing what it was like to be a woman in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, displaying how war can drastically change something as simple as preparing a meal. A European audience would be appalled when viewing this photo, depicting families forced to live on the go, eating and sitting on the ground, casting a negative representation of the Mexican Revolution.

Title: Cooking for Mexican Army  

Photographer: Walter Horne 

Images courtesy of the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.

Both of these photographs touch upon the roles and depiction of women during the era of colonization. The photograph, Tortilla Maker, shows a woman sitting by herself while making tortillas. It appears as if she is waiting for someone to come home. The question arises as to whether she is simply fulfilling her womanly duties to cook for her family, or if she is a tortilla seller, as the woman is the seller of her product in the Indian photograph. The East Indian Milk Seller displays a woman carrying a bucket of milk on her head to sell. Both photographs depict the expectations that a woman had when it came to providing for her family. Whether the tortilla maker is selling the tortillas, or rather just making them for her family, the conclusion is that she is making them for someone else in order to either feed them, or sell them to produce an income. The Indian woman is holding the milk bucket on top of her head, probably to sell the milk to others in order to make a living. Many women had to find jobs that were easy enough to do, so they could still fulfill their other expected womanly duties simultaneously, such as cleaning the house and caring for the children.

Brahmin Women of the Konkan (1855-1862)

Photographer: William Johnson

This photograph by William Johnson displays two Brahmin women standing in the foreground, in front of a large building. The women are dressed in long draping saris. The details of the saris are difficult to detect, however the two women are of Brahmin status, which permits the assumption that they are delicately decorated and made from high quality material. They are adorned with bangles and necklaces along with a bindi each woman wears on her forehead. It is expected that the women are married due to their accessorized jewelry and bindis. The woman on the right of the photograph is standing with her body facing the viewer while her gaze is off to the left. Whereas, the woman on the left is looking to the right, only exposing her profile and slightly covered by a bush. The two women stare off fairly expressionless, which raises the question, “what are they looking at?” In photographs, direct eye contact is an indication of power and a lens into the soul. In Indian culture, it would be inappropriate for a woman to make direct eye contact. In addition, women were not the dominant gender and were not supposed to be portrayed as powerful, therefore these woman politely shift their gaze. As a method to display the women as significant status, they stand elegantly with proper posture.

Mexican Children (1910-1917)

Photographer: Walter H. Horne

Three young girls are portrayed in this photograph taken by Walter H. Horne. The three girls are the main subject of the photograph and stand in front of a weathered brick wall. They are dressed in white tops and long ragged cloths tied around their waists for skirts. Two of the three are holding clay pots and the youngest looking of the three is standing a bit more timid than the others. The three girls might be sisters they have similar features and long dark hair. The tallest girl in the middle is presumably the oldest. She glares into the lens with head tilted downward almost in a sultry manner while the clay pot balances on her shoulder. On the right, the girl holds a bowl leaning against her hip. She stares at the viewer as if she is afraid or possibly confused. The girls standing barefoot on dirty ground and the rips in their cloths suggest that they are low status. This photograph was taken around the time of the Mexican revolution. These girls are probably working to help maintain the home. It is printed on a postcard, which assumes the photograph is meant to be viewed by a large public audience.

Courtesy of DeGolyer Library

Photo #1: Un Centavo, Senor! (Mexico)

The photograph’s sole subject, a child, poses with few possessions: a torn shirt, tattered hat, dirty pants and raggedy rucksack. The very ground which the child stands on is soiled, covered in mud and debris. The photograph’s title, “Un centaro, Senor!” (“One cent, Sir!”) mirrors the child’s pose, the subject reaching out to the viewer for assistance. This title also works to mock the condition of the colonized and the subject’s clear violation of European’s understandings of acceptable standards of living. It is important to note that this photograph is a postcard, designed to be sent back to the metropole and enforce patronization of the colonized.

Photo #2: Part of Malabar Hill, Bombay (India)

In this photograph, two children sit upon a rocky hill. Their apparent lack of resources is striking; the two skinny frames rest near an empty basket. One child sits shirtless on a mound of dirt, the other leaning against a boulder. The children both slouch on the rocky terrain, hopelessly looking towards the viewer. The orderly, whitewashed house in the background juxtaposes the condition of the children. The house is surrounded by a whitewashed fence, separating the rock-strewn hillside from the palm tree comfort of the estate. A man stands in the background; cleanly dressed, he neglects the children and walks along a trail. These striking images of children worked to promote the idea that the colonized needed the support of the colonizers, and helped to extend the reach of colonial control.

Works Cited

Un Centavo, Senor! ca. 1908-1924. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

Johnson, William, and William Henderson. Part of Malabar Hill, Bombay. ca. 1855-1862. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

In “Parwarree Hamalls, or Bearers”, William Johnson creates a photograph capturing the Westernized view of the Orient. Overall, the photo depicts Indians as very barbaric. The photo consists of two Indians in a restful standing position, leaning on what appears to be a large piece of furniture. They are both shirtless, wearing only a small piece of white cloth wrapped around their pelvis area, acting as a substitute for underwear. Johnson depicts Indian men as barbaric since their lack of clothing makes the men seem uncivilized. They are also both barefoot in an outside setting on a texturized dirt floor, implying the men are unclean, lacking the dignity to wear proper shoes and western clothing. Both men have wiry facial hair and turbans placed on their heads; however, their hair is sticking out of them in an unkempt manner. The Indian’s unkempt hair supplements Johnson’s depiction of their unclean and uncivilized nature. In terms of their stance, both men have their arm on their hip along with a bent leg. One man has a bent arm, rested on the piece of furniture. The men’s posture illustrates Johnson’s portrayal of the mean as pensive and rested, and thus lazy. This photograph is constructed through the lens of Western Perception, a euro-centric mindset that could falsely depict the Orient Culture. Because Johnson constructed this photograph, biases inevitably arise. Thus, questions are raised regarding the context of the photograph: What conditions contributed to the men’s unkempt appearance? Was this their pattern of daily life?

In “Charbonnier”, Cruces y Campa captures and portrays an indigenous workingman in Mexico. The photographed man is surrounded by a field full of grass. He is barefoot and wears overbearing course white attire. The clothing appears to be traditional clothing rather than westernized and his barefoot nature makes him appear more barbaric. All the man’s differentiating features are heightened, which contrasts them to the European population. He wears a hat, perhaps to shade himself from the sun, implying he may be outside often for his profession. He is also carrying a hefty basket noted by his slanted position, and thus is most likely a part of the working class. The man is looking straight at the camera, suggesting that the picture is staged, and not a natural depiction of the working class. Many questions are raised through this photograph about the background and portrayal of the man. What were the working members surrounding this man doing within the scene? What is not depicted in this frame? What was Cruces y Campa’s purpose for taking this photograph?