B&W portraits of indigenous tribes

Are you referring to private collections or corporate (like Time or National Geographic)?

I take it that you are particularly interested in the performance of Hasselblad cameras when it comes to photographing indigenous peoples in B&W on film?
A lot of fine ethnographic photography was done before Hasselblads appeared in1948. I am curious as to what Haselblads brought to this kind of photography that other cameras did not.

Peter, I'm interested in both and good question btw..
Andrew, Yes I'm interested in the Hasselblad performance, some of the books I have of pre 1948 have wonderful work done on plate cameras etc. But I'm looking generally for Hassey images, but not essencial..

it has nothing to do with Hasselblad cameras, but you might want to take a look at the images by Edward S. Curtis

Martynas, this is very helpful thank you. You have to wonder what Edward Curtis envisioned when taking these amazing images...

its hard to imagine what was on his mind... to spend over 30 years among different tribes taking pictures (wikipedia says he took over 40000 images, along ~10000 recordings of songs and other folklore on wax cylinders). it seems to me sometimes that those images extend beyond mere stopping of a moment. I'd say they defeat time.
here's an even more exhaustive and organised collection of his images.
http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/toc.cgi

Yes it defeats time...! wow...

It's important to understand that a number of Curtis' photos were historically and anthropologically incorrect. This was not always his fault - sometimes, all the original clothing was gone. He would dress his subjects in whatever he had when that happened. And sometimes he didn't want to spend the money when original settings were available. There has been a tendency to regard his work as accurate, and it's important to understand that it is not. They are fantastic photos, very iconic, but need to be taken in context of what was available to Curtis.

Regarding the original question, I have quite a few books of photos of indigenous people throughout the Western Hemisphere, most of which have texts by the photographers (and sometimes others) but the camera used is never discussed. This is as it should be, it is of no more value to the photos than what pen or typewriter was used when writing the texts. The photographers are always more committed to the subject matter and the resulting photos than to a technical discussion.

That's an interesting point Jeff, but not much use to me. I'm researching images taken with film primarily with Hasselblads of ethnographic subjects. If anyone can point me to names of photographers who have done this kind of imagery I'd be grateful.