Curtis intended to capture native tribes with his camera before they became assimilated into modern Anglo-American culture. However, there are several images in The North American Indian that reveal the artist’s efforts to shape his photographs of “authentic” Indian life. In some of his portraits, for example, Curtis dressed his sitters in traditional tribal garments that were no longer worn or were reserved for special rituals.

Even after staging and taking an image, Curtis sometimes manipulated his work to perpetuate the ideal of a primitive Native American culture. Prints made from the original negative for In a Piegan Lodge show a clock on the floor between Little Plume and his son Yellow Kidney, amongst the traditional native wares including a pipe and a tobacco cutting board. Curtis removed the clock from the negative before printing it for The North American Indian to suggest that the tribe remained untouched by the outside world.