The poster for Women of the White Buffalo, a documentary about the Lakota people and their history, comes from a portrait that director Deborah Anderson took to raise awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). The photo features a Lakota woman, Delacina Chief Eagle, looking directly at the camera with wounded eyes, her hair disheveled, a feather hanging off to one side and a red handprint representing MMIWG smudged across her mouth.
That image, which was originally on display at the Beverly Hills Leica Gallery alongside other portraits, is loaded, leaning into tropes regularly used for settler consumption over the past century. Chief Eagle, a survivor of rape and abuse, is modelled to look the stoic Native wearing recognizable Indigenous iconography, from the feather to the handprint worn like war paint. The photo is provocative in a way that also serves its purpose.
