In this classic 1916 photograph, ethnographer Frances Densmore appears to use an early phonographic device to make a recording of Mountain Chief of the Blackfoot Indians at the Smithsonian. The Minnesota native Densmore specialized in preserving Native American music, beginning her alliance of several decades with the Smithsonian in 1907. According to a post on the Institution blog, the photo was likely staged and wasn’t the actual recording session.

Densmore passed away in 1957 at age 90. A passage about Mountain Chief from The Vengeful Wife and Other Blackfoot Stories:

“Mountain Chief recalled that when the Assiniboines and Crees began to retreat, he mounted his horse and raced after those who were trying to cross the Oldman River. He ran down two enemy warriors on the trail, then dismounted to face a Cree armed with a spear who was starting to enter the water. Mountain Chief stabbed him between the shoulders with his own spear, took the man’s weapons and went back to his horse. Then he ran over another enemy who was armed with a gun; the man grabbed the bridle, but the Piegan swung his horse’s head around to shield himself then struck the man with the butt of his whip. As the Cree fell back, Mountain Chief jumped off his horse and killed him. ‘When I struck him,’ recalled the Piegan warrior, ‘he looked at me and I found that his nose had been cut off. I heard afterward that a bear had bitten his nose off.'”