PHOTOGRAPHY: CROW INDIAN CRISIS -- In 1902, suffering from poor
health, Richard Throssel (1882-1933), who was born in the
Pacific Northwest and was of English, Scottish and Canadian Cree
heritage, moved to the Crow reservation in southeastern Montana,
seeking a drier climate. For the Crow tribe it was a time of
depleted buffalo herds, restrictive government policies and
lands reduced to 4 million acres from 39 million. Throssel
equipped himself with a camera and in about 1,000 photographs
documented Crow people like Long Otter, above, and their
traditions and challenges. In 1906 the tribe adopted Throssel.
In 1916 he became an outspoken advocate of Indian rights and the
need to protect tribal land from white settlement. He was twice
elected to the state legislature. An exhibition of 32 of his
historic portraits, commercial photographs and documentary
images, from 1902 to 1911, opens today at the Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian at 1 Bowling Green in
Lower Manhattan. ''Telling a Crow Story: