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LAST OF THE NOBLE SAVAGES

At 8:00 P.M., Nov. 16 1981 I had my first showing of the "Last of the Noble Savages" photographs. They were shown at the Troy Hayner Cultural Center, 301 West Main street in Troy Ohio. These photographs were my attempt to capture the Kentucky Highlander as the Noble Savage instead of the attribute of Capitalist Culture he was becoming.

I printed a small booklet that illustrated and listed the thirty photographs in the show. The following two pages are from the booklet.

"Last of the Noble Savages" photographs taken - 1973-1976 by: Jack Bowman

In 1969 1 worked for the Kentucky State Highway Department as an engineer helper. I searched for the common factor that brought the eastern Kentucky community leaders together. These were the politicians, but more so, they were the people that controlled the functioning of life in the hills once it got beyond an individual basis.
I found that the correlation was that at one time all the local leaders had been fox hunters. The Kentucky Highland fox hunters hunt at night with their dogs running while they set at a camp somewhere in the wilderness. They were all friends in the darkness. A darkness illuminated by a campfire.
I then, in the early 70's,set about to capture the feeling - the experience of these friends in the darkness. The theme of the hunting party gathered around a campfire or in the act of hunting was an eternal theme. It has gone unused in the field of art since the cro-magnon cave paintings.
I began photographing in 1973 and continued through 1976. 1 did not have particular photos in mind. I got involved in the experience and photographed it as it happened.
Many times I experienced cold, wet, and physical misery. I have been stopped with absolute exhaustion, but the eternal man always came forth and started me again. This eternal man that has erased the artificial line between man and nature. This artificial line called civilization. However, the fire and light will always separate man from the other animals. No matter how dim or weak the light may be, the fact that he controls it makes him man.

The Kentucky Highlander is this eternal man, the top predator. Yet, He is usually portrayed as a poorly fed, underprivileged, under-clothed, apathetic individual.
I have portrayed him using his primitive means of control. He cooks by primitive means, He can obtain his food by hunting and fishing, a primitive means. He sees in the darkness by primitive means. He travels by primitive means. He numbs his thoughts of civilization with alcohol.
Arnold Toynbee, the English historian, said of the modern Kentucky Highlander, "The modern Appalachian has.. failed to hold his ground and has gone downhill in a most disconcerting fashion. In fact, the Appalachian Mountain people' today are no better than barbarians. They have relapsed into illiteracy and witchcraft. They suffer from poverty, squalor and ill-health. They are the American counterparts of the latter-day White barbarians of the Old-World-Rifis, Albanians, Kurds, Pathans and Hairy Ainus; but, whereas these latter are belated survivals of an ancient barbarism, The Appalachians present the melancholy spectacle of a people who have acquired civilization and then lost it."
Toynbee, if not all correct is definitely not all wrong. In taking the last statement of comparing the Highlander to the Rifis, Albanians, Kurds, etc. He also says they are unique in the world in that they are the only people who have acquired civilization and then lost it. If this is true, or if it is true only on a limited scale, and civilization turns sour for the remainder of the world as it did for the Kentucky Highlander then his survival experience may be a major factor in the shaping of tomorrow. Instead of them being the last of the noble savages they may be the first of many noble savages to come.

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