Historic Pamphlets and Booklets on First Nations Topics

Skeena River pole ca. 1920s: On back: ""Named Waum Gana'o 14' high / erected 1845 / 4 Bottom figure, is of the big hog, upside down." Source: USASK."

The University of Saskatchewan has a comprehensive Indigenous Studies portal, with links to a massive corpus of published and unpublished documents – some of which are available online, free of institutional restriction.  One section which I found interesting was the large collection of pamphlets and booklets.  I know this web site isn’t always 100% archaeological – but you can’t separate the practice of archaeology from the social context in which it occurs. Among these pamphlets are:

• CBC Radio and Department of Indian Affairs 1939: The Indians Speak to Canada (transcript of a remarkable series of 1939 CBC radio broadcasts in which aboriginal people address the nation; Haida representative Rev. Peter Kelly starts on page 28; White Man’s Burden is found in the closing remarks by the Minister of Mines and Resources)

Other interesting reads include:

• Kamloops WaWa, 1894. (see the rest of the Chinook Jargon / Kamloops WaWa full text resources – someone should trawl through these for goodies.
• Diamond Jenness, 1932: Indian History as Revealed by Archaeology.
• British Columbia Heritage Series 1952: Haida
• British Columbia Heritage Series 1952: Tsimshian
• British Columbia Heritage Series 1966: Coast Salish
• British Columbia Heritage Series 1966: Interior Salish
• Indians of British Columbia, A Historical Review 1964.
• CN Rail 1923: Totems of Kitwanga and Northern British Columbia
• R.E. Bishop 1923: Sir Alexander MacKenzie’s Rock
• David Lambert,1960s: The Story of West Coast Designs on Hand Made Pottery. (suspiciously cheesey text featuring the words of “Ug”.
• Sharon Hitchcock, ca. 1970: Illustrated Legends of the NW Coast Indians.
• BC Department of Trade and Tourism 1942: Thunderbird Park (I never knew there was a replica Haida tree burial in the original Thunderbird Park (text, picture)
• Department of Indian Affairs 1969: Indians of British Columbia
• Ferdinand Schmitter 1910.  Upper Yukon Native Customs and Folk-Lore
• Smoke Tanning.  1974
• Report of the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs 1877
• R.N. Wilson 1921.  Our Betrayed Wards.  Subtitle: A story of “Chicanery, Infidelity and the Prostitution of Trust’. From page 1: A memorandum written in the interests of his friends and neighbors, the Blood Indians, by R.N. Wilson of Standoff, Alberta (Indian Agent from 1898 to 1911 for the Blood and Peigan Indians) as an effort to ventilate–with the object of securing redress–certain complaints of that people against the present administration of Indian Affairs.”
• Rev. G.H Raley 1935.  Canadian Indian Art and Industries: An economic problem of to-day.   Article by a clergyman who lived “amongst the Indians of Canada.” G.H. Raley calls for the formation of a federal government-sponsored Canadian Indian handicraft organization to sell Aboriginal handicrafts and providing self-supporting industries in Aboriginal communities. Article from the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, London, England.

I’m going to reiterate my familiar complaints: these documents should be downloadable as single PDFs, and they should be scanned at a higher resolution.  There are some curious errors, such as repeatedly placing the Skeena River and parts of the Plateau within Treaty 8.  Apart from that, the portal is a great resource and the pamphlet collection an interesting glimpse into popular and official representations of First Nations from the middle of the last century.

Kitwanga Poles, 1920s. Source: USASK.