EDWARD S. CURTIS. The Mythic Stone - Hidatsa, 1908. 5.3x7.3" photogravure on 9.3x12.5" Japan Vellum paper. Print date 1909. From Volume 4, Apsaroke (Crow) & Hidatsa, of The North American Indian. Printed on plate recto: The Mythic Stone - Hidatsa /From Copyright Photograph 1908 by E.S.Curtis

Curtis wrote about this: "This stone, partially embedded in the turf on the beach south of the Missouri, nearly opposite Elbowoods, North Dakota, is pointed out by the Hidatsa and by the Apsaroke as the one dropped by the Sun upon the head of the truant wife. In common with other Siouan tribes the Hidatsa. have myths of a supernaturally powerful personage, who, in lowly form, rids the earth of many destructive creatures. [here it] relates the wonders of Kadhitwapishish, child of the Sun and a woman whom he had carried into the sky. Disobediently looking into the hole lefty by a turnip-root, she became homesick and lowered herself and the child to the earth by a cord of sinew. But the cord proving too short, they hung in mid-air, until the Sun, discovering their absence, dropped a stone, which struck the woman on the head. Her grip relaxed, she fell to the ground and was killed, but the boy was not harmed."

John Szarkowski, the legendary 20th century photography curator at MOMA used this highly acclaimed view in his celebrated 1981 exhibition American Landscapes: Photographs from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Colin Westerbeck Jr. wrote about this in his 1981 Art Forum Review, https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/198108/american-landscapes-66238

Very Good. Minor wear. Light brown discoloration margin edges.