320 pages, 9 x 11 1/2
Paperback
Release Date:01 Jan 1991
ISBN:9780872731226
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Objects of Myth and Memory

American Indian Art at the Brooklyn Museum

UBC Press

The Brooklyn Museum has played a major role in presenting andinterpreting North American Native art. Its commitment to this fieldbegan in 1903, when R. Stewart Culin was appointed to head its newDepartment of Ethnology. During three trips to the Northwest in 1905,1908, and 1911, Culin collaborated with Dr. Charles F. Newcombe andbought several pieces from Newcombe's own collection, includingobjects from the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Salish as well as someTlingit, Tsimshian, and Athapaskan pieces. By 1912 the museum'scollection included more than 9,000 pieces.

Objects of Myth and Memory is the first publication devotedto this fascinating and influential early collection. It includes twointerpretive essays on Culin's career as well as 250 individualentries which illustrate and annotate his most importantacquisitions.

A visually stunning book, Objects of Myth and Memorypresents masterworks of North American Indian art in a precise socialand historical context and offers fascinating glimpses of thecollecting process.

This convincing and solid collection encourages assessment and reassessment of contact narratives. … Ten scholars from various fields, including history, anthropology, linguistics, and literature, engage in this informative work. …Edited by University of Victoria historian John Sutton Lutz, the chapters in Myth and Memory integrate a number of global indigenous perspectives. Lutz's extensive insight regarding native and newcomer relations provides a solid basis for editorial expertise of this compendium. Corinne George, Simon Fraser University, H-Canada
The essays provide a fascinating surf of ‘first contacts’ from New Zealand, England, southern Africa, and the Pacific Northwest, from the eighteenth century to today […]. A plentiful range of new approaches to the genre of the contact narrative distinguishes this impressively interdisciplinary collection, with contributions from historians, anthropologists, linguists, and literary critics. Sophie McCall, Canadian Literature, No.197, Summer 2008
Myth & Memory injects an interesting and crucial ‘new’ narrative into the historical record. Kelly Chaves, The Northern Mariner, Vol.XIX, No.1
Exhaustive research by the authoris into the extensive Culin archives held by the museum has produced a fascinating story of a museum career and of a collecting history. Choice

Acknowledgments

Myth Understandings; or First Contact, Over and Over Again /John Sutton Lutz

1 Close Encounters of the First Kind / J. EdwardChamberlin

2 First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Encounters on the NorthAmerican West Coast / John Sutton Lutz

3 Reflections on Indigenous History and Memory: Reconstructing andReconsidering Contact / Keith Thor Carlson

4 Poking Fun: Humour and Power in Kaska Contact Narratives /Patrick Moore

5 Herbert Spencer, Paul Kane, and the Making of “TheChinook” / I.S. MacLaren

6 Performing Paradox: Narrativity and the Lost Colony of Roanoke /Michael Harkin

7 Stories from the Margins: Toward a More Inclusive British ColumbiaHistoriography / Wendy Wickwire

8 When the White Kawau Flies / Judith Binney

9 The Interpreter as Contact Point: Avoiding Collisions in TlingitAmerica / Richard Dauenhauer and Nora Marks Dauenhauer

Notes

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

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