Groepsportret van drie onbekende jagers op de Mentawai-eilanden 1891 - 1912

This photograph by Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis captures three hunters on the Mentawai Islands. In the image, the men are posing with their hunting bows, an act that blends indigenous tradition with the modernizing eye of the photographer. Nieuwenhuis, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was part of a broader colonial project. His work reflects the visual codes of ethnography that aimed to document and categorize cultures, often exoticizing them in the process. This image, now housed in the Dutch Rijksmuseum, gains new significance when viewed as a product of Dutch colonial expansion in Indonesia. It raises questions about the power dynamics inherent in such visual representations. To fully understand this photograph, we turn to sources like colonial archives, ethnographic studies, and postcolonial analyses. These allow us to reflect critically on the complex interplay between art, power, and cultural identity.