29

THURSDAY

Thanksgiving is a cornucopia of hopelessly inaccurate and pejorative visual archetypes of American Indians. But the amity-drenched first-supper images of Pilgrims and Indians (circa 1621) trading venison recipes while sitting around a picnic table festooned with gourds didn’t find a home in popular art until the 20th century, when Native Americans had all but disappeared from their homelands. When the first volume of photographic pioneer Edward S. Curtis’ The North American Indian was published (in 1907), many “Americans” got their first glimpse of traditional native life. Award-winning filmmaker and author Anne Makepeace is continuing the search for verity in Curtis’ some 40,000 images and 10,000 recordings. In her extraordinary and universally acclaimed documentary Edward S. Curtis: Coming to Light, Makepeace gives voice to descendants of Curtis’ subjects. Specifically, we hear actress Sheila Tousey (who narrates) and occasionally Bill Pullman as Curtis. Makepeace will screen and discuss the film with members of the Piscataway, the Gros Ventre, the Seminole, Muskogee, and Diné tribes at 7 p.m. at the National Geographic Society’s Grosvenor Auditorium, 1600 M St. NW. $15. (202) 857-7588. (Amanda Fazzone)