This is a photograph taken in New Mexico in 1873 by an American photographer, Timothy O’Sullivan. The title of this photograph is “Aboriginal Life Among the Navajo Indians Near Old Fort Defiance”. Navajo Indians are the second most populous of all Native American peoples in the United States, and most of them live in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The Navajo tribe was a semi-nomadic people described as hunter-farmers. (Do you mean hunter-gatherers?) Men are in charge of hunting for food and protecting the camp and the women are in charge of the home and land. In this picture, you can see four Navajo Indians. Three of them seem to be women and one is probably an old man, so you could imagine that young females have been out in order to hunt for food. Also, the woman in the very front is holding a bow and an arrow, so she might be fixing it for hunting. Behind them is a Navajo house, Hogan, which is made of mad (mud?) and wood. This photograph focuses on the people and their dwellings, but when you look at the background, you'll see a vast stretch of untouched land and you can imagine their life without the intervention of modern life. According to Smithsonian Magazine, two years before he took this photograph, the artist Sullivan joined the geological surveys west of the one hundredth meridian, and this photo is part of the portfolio of the survey. His reports included information which is likely to be useful in the establishment of roads and rail routes and the development of economic resources. However, as you can see from this photograph which suggests that the indigenous peoples still maintain their traditional lifestyles, Sullivan seems to not only provide geological information but also emphasize that the West was a hospitable place for settlers. I think this photograph is really meaningful and interesting because it suggests the importance of respecting indigenous life even as modernization progresses.