The Franz Boas Papers, Volume 2. Franz Boas, James Teit, and Early Twentieth‐Century Salish Ethnography, 1894‐1922. Edited by AndreaLaforet, AngieBain, JohnHaugen, SarahMoritz, and Andie DianePalmer. 1056 Pages, 9 photographs, 13 illustrations, 3 maps, 44 figures, index. Hardcover. $120.00. EBOOK (PDF). $120.00. April 2024.
Year: 2024
Type: book-review
Abstract: The work under review is part of a large multi-volume project spearheaded by Regna Darnell, which involves publishing all of Franz Boas's professional correspondence.The first volume in this series appeared in 2015 and represented a collection of essays addressing various aspects of Boas's scholarly legacy (Darnell et al., 2015).The present volume is the first one that features the entire set of letters exchanged between Boas and James A. Teit (1864-1922), Boas's guide and research assistant in his work on the languages and cultures of the Interior Salish peoples of British Columbia and adjacent regions of Washington State and a talented lay ethnographer in his own right.James Teit was born into a merchant family in the Shetland Islands.In 1884 he traveled to Canada to join his uncle, who owned a trading outlet in the village of Spences Bridge on the Thompson River in south central British Columbia.As his uncle's employee, Teit came into regular contact with the local Nlaka'pamux people (previously known as Thompson Indians) living in the area and established excellent rapport with them.Three years later he married Susannah Lucy Antko, a member of the Spences Bridge band.Besides working at the store, Teit did various odd jobs when they were available such as ranching, hunting, fruit farming, and ferry work.Gradually, he became fluent in Nlaka'pamux language and well versed in the local Indigenous culture.After Lucy died of pneumonia in 1899, Teit married Josephine Morens with whom he had six children.In 1894, Teit encountered Franz Boas who happened to be in the region completing his work for the sixth field season of his study of the northwestern First Nations of British Columbia for the Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).Impressed with Teit's knowledge of the Nlaka'pamux people and his close relationship with them, Boas hired him and with his help "gained access to a cultural region that hitherto was not well represented on his ethnographic map" (Wickwire, 2003, 124).Prior to meeting Teit, Boas experienced difficulties establishing rapport with the local Indigenous people, which impeded his ethnographic research.However, with Teit's help Boas was able to collect a significant amount of ethnographic and linguistic data as well as take (the now questionable) anthropometric measures.He also instructed Teit in ethnographic research.During that first year of their collaboration, Teit turned out to be an excellent ethnographic assistant to Boas.He also enjoyed recording the information he was collecting among the local Indigenous people.By early spring 1895, he had already completed a 200-page report on the Nlaka'pamux and made the first of several important ethnographic collections.
Source: Anthropology & Humanism
DOI: 10.1111/anhu.12538
Author: Sergei Kan
Institution: Dartmouth College
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4404891466