GOOGA!
This 1962 picture of Haida artist Robert Davidson at age 13 caught my eye, not least because he looks a lot like his nephew, Haida archaeologist and great guy Allan “Googa Boy Lefty ClamBone Monica Sunshine” Davidson. Here’s Allan tending to his espresso pot at Richardson Island. Very shareable. I am pretty sure this was before I accidentally tossed a grub into his cup.
Posted in archives, First Nations, Haida Gwaii, history
Tagged Haida, Haida Gwaii, history, Northwest Coast
Indian Fort at Cadboro Bay, 1849
The Royal BC Museum was ahead of the curve in putting significant parts of its collection. One thing I like is their small but relevant collection of maps and charts. The 1849 chart inset to the left shows an “Indian Fort” in Cadboro Bay, for example. There is a good selection of Admiralty Charts from the mid 19th Century, Pemberton’s 1861 map of Victoria (the “Bay” in this section is the real “James Bay”, now landfill under the Empress Hotel , where the bridge shows is now the causeway), and a 1911 map showing the Economic geography of Haida Gwaii (which interestingly includes Sea Otter as part of the fauna “on the west coast” since that species is thought to have been extirpated much earlier). It is always surprising and sobering to see just how quickly remote areas were divided up and labelled according to their perceived economic value in a way that borders on propaganda, but there is realism too check out the instructions to family men. Now the bad news: the price of being first is often not being very good. I suspect when these went online bandwidth was a realy problem. Each chart is split up into 100kb segments and it is not possible to download the entire thing at once. The full size images must exist, so how about a quick project at the RBCM to make them downloadable in their entirety? Same goes for the picture archives.
Posted in archives, Haida Gwaii, history, Northwest Coast, Vancouver Island
Tagged archives, charts, Gulf Islands, Haida Gwaii, history, maps, Northwest Coast, RBCM, Royal BC Museum, Salish Sea, Victoria BC
Makah codfish spear (or, more accurately, harpoon)
The University of Washington has a superb digital collection online, transcending all kinds of different historical, archaeological and popular culture niches. Searching on “artifact” brings up some 583 images (some of which are links to text etc). These are downloadable and have stable URLs to which one can link. The resolution could be higher, but the pictures are sharp and clean, at least for those ones they have apparently taken themselves, and they don’t plaster watermarks all over them. Good work. The amount of metadata is impressive, and the fact that is is clickable renders this site a fantabulous timewaster of the highest order. To the left, I was just having a discussion with a student about harpooning fish. I am under the impression that harpoons were used on large lingcod – after the lingcod were lured to the surface using a cunning little shuttlecock-shaped rising float. This picture is labelled “Makah codfish spear” though it is self-evidently a harpoon and lanyard. More (vindication) coming from this excellent site as time goes by.
Posted in anthropology, Archaeology, archives, history, Northwest Coast, pics, Washington State
Tagged Archaeology, archives, artifacts, fishing, Washington State
Salmon Petroglyph at Jack Point. From Lundy (1974: 111)
There is a wonderful trend of institutions putting old, grey literature online. One widely used platform for doing this is called “dSpace”, though the approach exists under other names. Some of the best of this material are graduate theses and dissertations. These are freely available if you walk into the University library, but may be essentially unavailable in any other form. Unlike a lot of digital initiatives, the majority of these are not limited to students and faculty, but can be accessed by anyone – provided you know they are there. Consider Doris Lundy’s monumental MA thesis on NW Coast Rock Art, obtained in 1974 from SFU. Most of this 350+ page thesis was never published in any form. Now you can download the whole thing from SFU (4 meg PDF). Despite being a rocky scan, the entire text is searchable. There is some digital protection applied but I found it simple to save a copy to my hard drive. The image to the left is the famous salmon petroglyph at Jack Point near Nanaimo in Snuneymuxw territory. This is the petroglyph that would be painted with ochre and adorned with eagle down by ritualists if the salmon runs were late or meagre – one of the only such works which has specific beliefs recorded for it.
Let me know if you have problems downloading this: it works for me on and off campus, so I presume anyone can do it.
Posted in Archaeology, archives, dSpace, Northwest Coast, Vancouver Island
Tagged Archaeology, dSpace, fishing, Northwest Coast, petroglyphs, pictographs, rock art
2018 edit: it appears the PDFs are now only available through the Internet Archive here.
The Native Voice is the official organ of the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia, an organization which has been active since 1931 and continues to do good work, especially in relation to aboriginal fishing rights, and aboriginal fishers themselves. The NBBC has put PDF copies of many editions of the Native Voice online from the years 1947-1955. These archived issues offer a fascinating glimpse into the the mid-20th century state of First Nations politics, and everyday life besides.
To the right, for example, click on the text image to go to an issue wherein the NBBC riffs (positively, in this case) on a Ruth Benedict article.
The Dionysians Strike Back
It is rare to see such responses (positive or negative) to the Anthropological Literature. Scroll lower in that article for 1947 ‘News from Ahousat”, a statement on segregation in PRince Rupert cinemas, and an odd “humour” column which seems rather offensive and patronizing in retrospect. I am looking forward to trawling, or trolling, through these archives as the days go by. Kudos to the NBBC for not only putting these documents online, but for the excellent, clear digitization — clearly someone took care making these files.
Posted in anthropology, archives, First Nations, Miscellaneous
Tagged archives, First Nations, fishing, history, Native Brotherhood, Native Voice, NBBC, Northwest Coast, Ruth Benedict
Ground stone wants to be flaked stone.
Billing itself as “personal history – collective memory”, the Burnaby Archives is a professionally presented and slick website. As usual, the parochial frame extends only to non-aboriginal settlement. Curious about whether the land on which Burnaby sits was occupied in more ancient times? Well, they do link to 42 objects associated with aboriginal people. Wondering if there might still be aboriginal people there today? I couldn’t find anything. I sure wish small town archives, and not so small ones as well, would wake up to the millennia of history under their feet. Time did not start in 1892, Burnaby, much as some might like to think it did. Or maybe it is just the prominent epigraph this site cites: History is made with documents. Documents are the imprints left of the thoughts and the deeds of the men of former times. For nothing can take the place of documents. No documents, no history*.
No archaeology means a big honking hole in history, we might add, a hole shaped like colonial guilt.
Elongate contracting stem point from Burnaby.
Having said that, two unusual artifacts are illustrated on their site. Above left is a very distinctive ground stone point with a zig-zag motif. I don’t recall seeing another one like it. It almost appears to be a ground stone point designed to resemble a flaked stone point, something of a skeuomorph. To the right is an elongate, contracting stem flaked point or “dagger” that appears to be about 14cm in length. In size and appearance it is not the most common artifact in the world.
PS: Heritage Burnaby — your web site is nice and all, but breaking direct links to pictures is pretty lame. Has there been that much bandwidth from hot-linked pictures? Or are you so possessive about these artifacts you hold in trust for the Stó:lô, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations? Higher resolution would be nice as well — surely you have more than 72 dpi, 30 kb versions already taken?
* Incongruously cited as, “Charles Seignobos, Histoire de la civilisation contemporaine (1920). Translated by Eamon de Valera in a letter from prison to his personal secretary enjoining her to safeguard his papers.”
Posted in Archaeology, archives, Lower Mainland
Tagged Archaeology, archives, Burnaby, Heritage Burnaby, Northwest Coast, skeuomorph, skeuomorphs, Vancouver
Chilliwack Museum Accession number 1957.019.084
The Chilliwack Museum (map) has a large, searchable collection of photos online, which they ruin with a huge watermark in the middle. Seriously, guys, these are ancient artifacts that you are lucky to be curating. And, your pictures aren’t very good in the first place – many out of focus, or with extensive shadowing. In any case, for archaeologists, you can click for artifacts made of, or records containing the word, “stone” (they have a huge number of celts, mauls and abrader stones, as you might imagine since the Fraser Valley is known for these, perhaps because of extensive plowing of former woodlands). Oddly they don’t seem to have any aboriginal artifacts made of bone, shell, or antler. Search term “Sto:lo” returns one empty field. Further they make it almost impossible to link to a specific record or picture. I am putting in a picture I downloaded from their site of an unusual artifact – a ground stone point with a very unusual morphology and material. They list it made out of serpentine, but from what I can tell, it shows signs of being readily worked, and so may be a softer verson of serpentine, perhaps soapstone. The shape is like a bronze age arrowhead or something — highly unusual. Too bad there isn’t a better picture available. So, all in all, Chilliwack Museum people: you put a lot of time and energy into a resource that is not particularly useful nor does it readily promote the heritage of the Fraser Valley. I suggest you rework your URL system, remove the watermarks, and update your keywords by adding Sto:lo to appropriate records. Double-check your raw material “horn” as well. You have a fantastic collection, share it!
Posted in Archaeology, archives, Cultural Resource Management, Lower Mainland, pics
Tagged Archaeology, archives, Chilliwack, Northwest Coast
Visitors to the Tomb of Chief Joe Capilano ca. 1917
Stumbling on the Vancouver Public Library’s photo site the other day got me poking around smaller museums and archives for archaeology and First Nations related stuff. It turns out there’s a lot out there. First up is this picture I found at the West Vancouver Museum and Archives. They have a searchable collection, within which a fair number of digitized historic photos. A fair amount of stuff is under “First Nations” and “Indian”. To the left is a remarkable picture of Chief Joe Capilano’s tomb (map). It’s quite a slab, house-shaped (though not a shed roof house!), but surely it is as close to a mortuary house as it is to traditional Christian mausoleum. Joe Capilano was a leader of the Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish) nation, to whom he was known as Sa7plek.
Sa7plek: Chief Joe Capilano
Apparently, he recieved the title of ‘Chief” (via recieving the name Kiyapalanexw (Capilano), in order to facilitate his trip to Ottawa and to London, to meet King Edward VII. The name bestowal was in the belief that he would need a title in order to speak “Chief-to-Chief” with the Prime Minister and the King, or so says wikipedia. These smaller archives have fairly idisoyncratic interfaces and often the context given is poor. Nonetheless, I will occasionally, or even frequently, post pictures or other material from them.
Posted in archives, Lower Mainland, Miscellaneous, pics
Tagged archives, Capilano, Northwest Coast, Squamish, West vancouver
"Archaeologists at Beach Grove, 1962"
The Vancouver Public Library has a nice collection of historical photos online, though the resolution is not great. Interestingly, there are a number of historical archaeology pictures I had never seen before. I’m sure someone knows these faces, presumably they include Duff and Borden? Another picture from Beach Grove (map) shows someone sitting at an ASAB desk (Archaeological Sites Advisory Board). When surveying at the Milliken Site in about 1986 I remember finding an old desk that was presumably Borden’s – reputedly he had a desk at his digs. Also, there was a bookshelf out there, in the middle of the woods above the tracks. The VPL site also has a few pictures of the Eburne (Marpole) midden, including this disturbing closeup one of the human remains visible in the link above.
You can go here and enter the search term “archaeol*”
Posted in Archaeology, archives, Lower Mainland, Northwest Coast, pics
Tagged Archaeology, archives, beach grove, Northwest Coast, vancouver public library, VPL
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Northwest Coast Archaeology 
