Merle was no hoosier on the subject, he had seen cameras before, even had himself snapped once or twice.
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"no hoosier on the subject"
Pynchon uses the term here to denote a "yokel" and not a "resident of Indiana". This makes sense in context as the rest of the sentence offers proof to how Merle isn't completely inexperienced with the idea of photography.
I mean, not a lot of evidence! Merle has seen some cameras and had his picture taken. I'm not sure I'd allow that as evidence as to Merle's expertise on the subject. I suppose, this taking place in the 1880s, just seeing a camera and posing for a photo once or twice makes you leaps and bounds more proficient on the subject than the average American hoosier on the frontier.
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