A glimpse of life on the reservation

By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN

Updated 1527 GMT (2327 HKT) May 22, 2015

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A young boy named Stephen is dressed up during the Veterans Powwow at Montana's Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

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A horse walks in the snow in Newtown, Montana.

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Young boys play together in Fort Belknap Agency, the reservation's capital.

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Richard, a tattoo artist, with his son in front of the only gas station in Hays, Montana. Hays is a small community near Fort Belknap's southern end.

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A small shed advertises the sale of fireworks in Fort Belknap Agency.

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A young basketball team at the Red Whip Gym in Fort Belknap Agency.

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Peter Bigstone, a notable Assiniboine elder.

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A buffalo killed during a hunt.

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The Fort Belknap Casino was opened to attract tourists and give locals a way to earn money. It is one of the few businesses that supplies jobs for people on the reservation.

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Mia Jo Wing, a Gros Ventre tribe member, during the Veterans Powwow. She was awarded "Miss Fort Belknap" twice already.

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New housing in Newtown.

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Mila Wing, 4, sits on her bed with her favorite toy, a stuffed horse.

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The Milk River is the natural border on the north side of the reservation.

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Story highlights

German photographer Felix von der Osten spent time at an Indian reservation in Montana
He set out to show the "beauty and richness of the culture" and arouse curiosity in viewers

(CNN)Growing up in Germany, everything Felix von der Osten learned about Native Americans came from the books of 19th-century German writer Karl May.

May's most beloved characters, a noble Apache leader named Winnetou and his cowboy blood brother Old Shatterhand, are said to be more popular today in Germany than the works of Thomas Mann, the 20th-century Nobel Prize-winning author of "Death in Venice."

It wasn't until von der Osten drove through South Dakota last year, bearing witness to modest homes and trailers on tribal land in the majestic Black Hills, that he realized how one-dimensional his perceptions were.