Page 17 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

they were all after something. To the panoply of those he already knew—

trappers, soldiers, pioneers, cowboys, liquor sellers—he was now about to add
that of impresario. But Sitting Bull already had a little showbiz experience;
the previous year he had been exhibited among the waxwork figures of a
museum in New York. Once the flood of weasel words dried up, he negotiated
fifty dollars a week, plus an advance, all expenses to be covered by the
impresario, and above all, in a codicil that he insisted on adding: he would
retain exclusive rights over the sale of photographs of himself along with the

use of his autograph. John Burke didn’t prolong the negotiations, because
Sitting Bull was a choice attraction for the Wild West Show. So the contract
was signed, and the Indian chief joined the troupe.
His first performance was a photographic pose. Sitting Bull and Buffalo
Bill were escorted to a small booth where, with their feet on a carpet of straw,

they had to stand in front of an emaciated birch tree daubed onto a canvas that
supposedly depicted the untamed West. Sitting Bull looks somewhat ill at ease
in this decor, like a misplaced remnant of the Creation.
Suddenly no one moves, or barely, and for a few moments, during the
morsel of time needed for the tiny motes of light to settle on the large
chemical plate, Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill shake hands. The photographer
disappears behind his theatre curtain, and Sitting Bull feels a profound

solitude which thrusts him into that cold, godforsaken place where we stand
rigid for as long as our relics last. In that moment, he forgets everything. He
even forgets his dead brothers. The tepees, the fields, the encampments, the
long journeys, he forgets it all. The river bears away his memories in a roar of
foam. But as the light shines through the clump of trees, it’s not just his stiff
torso, his hardened, spare profile that is petrified like a great vessel of

nostalgia. It’s as if there were something awaiting him in the photograph. He
stands, at point-blank range, in the confusion of his selfhood, before the tiny
leather accordion and the photographer’s black hood. Hold it! The bulb is
raised, a hand squeezes. Through the small hole his soul looks out at him.
Pop! It’s done. The silhouettes of the old Indian and Buffalo Bill hover for a
few moments on the gelatine, amid the silver atoms. And then they’re fixed
for evermore on sheets of tickertape measuring seventeen centimetres by

twelve. In this famous photograph, Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill hold each
other by the hand for all eternity. However, not only does this handshake
mean nothing—it’s just a publicity stunt—but if it’s to be any use in the
advertising campaign, the photo has to contain two contradictory messages: