Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Doctoral Thesis

“We have a calendar...incidents that happened between a dry tree and a green tree...That’s what the story is. ... Dry tree represents winter and green tree is spring or summer. That’s where they tell what happened for the winter and the spring.” - Kiowa elder

The Kiowa are known to have traditionally documented their history using pictographs on buckskin. The Comanche handed down their history orally through storytelling. In the 20th century photographs, some taken by them and some by outsiders, began to play a part in documenting tribal history across the Americas.

This study explores the role of cultural perspective in the teaching and learning of history, in part using photographs. It examines how Kiowa and Comanche elders in Oklahoma interpret photographs of tribal life during the post-allotment period (1887-1945). It reports how they would use photographs to communicate their historical perspectives. The study addresses several educational concerns, including how history is taught within a cultural context, and the use of visual media to interpret and communicate history. The educational significance of using photographs to teach history goes beyond school curricula to all contexts where historical information about Native Americans is disseminated.