New Books on Bill Reid

Trickster’s turn: New Books on Bill Reid Gerta Moray Bill Reid: The Making of an Indian Maria Tippett New York: Random House Inc., . pp. Illus. paper. Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Modern Native Art Karen Duffek and Charlotte Townsend-Gault, editors Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, . pp. Illus. cloth. here is no doubt that Bill Reid emblem? Is he the token of a Canada Tis a significant figure in Canadian where art flourishes and liberal values art. His monumental sculptures make embrace racial diversity? Or is this his presence inescapable. They are the latest instance of the settler appro- widely admired in an age when public priation of the Aboriginal image to sculpture is often contentious and the signal the identity of a new colonial “fine arts” have fragmented into a state? And a decoy, perhaps, that host of special interest groups. From hides the ongoing expropriation of and the Raven and the First Men, -, disregard for Canada’s First Nations? at ubc’s Museum of Anthropology Reid’s career has continually raised such (moa) to the Black Canoe: Spirit of awkward questions. As a Canadian of Haida Gwaii, -, at the Canadian mixed Euro-American and Haida Embassy in Washington and its “jade” ancestry he began his life in a white cousin, for which Vancouver Airport urban setting and established a career paid million in – the highest as a professional broadcaster. When price ever for a Canadian art work – he trained in jewellery arts, joined Reid’s commissions have come from anthropological expeditions to salvage civic institutions, governments, and totem poles from depopulated Haida corporations alike. Now his work villages, and transferred the intricate appears on the Canadian twenty- nineteenth-century Haida designs he dollar bill. This kind of honour has was studying in museums onto golden been accorded to few artists in Canada: brooches and caskets for wealthy col- the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, Paul- lectors, the question arose as to whether Emile Borduas, and Jean-Paul Riopelle he was simply a “white man’s Indian.” are the only comparable examples. What sort of a “Haida” was he? And What are the aspirations symbolized was this really the “renaissance” of by Reid’s adoption as a Canadian Northwest Coast Aboriginal art that bc studies, no. , Summer 93 94 bc studies Bill Reid Books 95 the press and art world announced it to The essays are grouped around four be? main themes: () Reid’s understanding Throughout his career Reid wrestled of and influence on conceptions of with these questions. But by the end Haida art; () his relationships beyond of his life he had registered for Indian the studio with the communities in legal status and joined his mother’s which he participated – the First Haida people in their resistance to Nations, the museum and art worlds; logging and their reassertion of land () the construct of a Northwest Coast claims. His continuing prominence renaissance and Reid’s iconic position now will have the benefit of keeping within it; and () the legacy of a contentious aspects of Canada’s history European-defined modernity that has in view. Taking on the persona of shaped concepts of Aboriginality and Raven, Reid has become the trickster that continues to affect the histories, in the pack of cards of Canadian art. lives, and identities of Aboriginal It is timely, then, that two recent peoples (Duffek and Townsend-Gault books set out to assess his significance. ). First Nations writers contribute to Both start from the closure brought all sections of the book, and what they with Reid’s death in , which was have to say is salutary reading in a marked by the dramatic celebrations Canadian context that has for too of his life and achievements by the long depended on unilateral “new- museum world and by the Haida comer” accounts of the Aboriginal community, which buried him with population. traditional ceremony at his ancestral On the issue of Bill Reid’s claim to village of T’anuu. These events brought be “Haida,” which troubled him to the together members of Aboriginal and point where he repeatedly confessed non-Aboriginal communities, and that he was “to all intents and purposes a led to a symposium at moa for good wasp Canadian” (Bringhurst ), a critical and in-depth examination the Haida contributors are unanimous. of his legacy. Maria Tippett attended Miles Richardson, former president of the symposium and completed her the Council of the Haida Nation, states biography, Bill Reid: The Making of an that this is not even a question since, Indian in . And now papers from in Haida custom, lineage is traced the symposium itself are published as through the maternal line. Reid was Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Haida, and his upbringing without Modern Native Art, edited by Karen explicit knowledge of his Haida heri- Duffek and Charlotte Townsend- tage was “not a unique experience Gault. They offer excerpts from the amongst Haidas or amongst First heated debates on identity politics Nations people generally” (Duffek and and on the legacies of colonialism Townsend-Gault ). Or, as Guujaw that have dominated the worlds of art puts it: “Like me, that was what he and anthropology during the past two was – Haida – and there was nothing decades. There are contributions from he could do about it” (). Or in the representatives of the Haida Nation words of Gwaganad (Diane Brown): and from a range of First Nations and “We are going to show our respect for Euro-Canadian artists and scholars, him now. He was a very skilful Haida, many of whom have worked with Bill he was a very gifted Haida. He put the Reid and knew him well. Haidas up. Thank you, Iljuwas. Thank you, Bill” (). She acknowledges there 94 bc studies Bill Reid Books 95 were frictions between Reid and the plexus, had Martin, Hunt, and himself Skidegate community but reports their doubled up with laughter (-). In his delight in his antics: “He liked to be own turn, the Kwakwaka’wakw carver a trickster, he liked to be referred to, Doug Cranmer jokes, “When people in fact, by one of his honoured names asked me, ‘Did you work with Bill – Yaahl Sgwansung, which means ‘the Reid?’ I used to reply, in fun, ‘Yes, I Only Raven’ – given to him by Florence taught him everything he knew’”(). Davidson” (). This living up to his Many First Nations contributors name exemplifies what Loretta Todd, pay tribute to Reid’s role in winning the Métis/Cree film director, describes international recognition for North- in her essay “Beyond” as Reid’s final west Coast traditional art, and to realization that his idea of himself his concern with high standards and “would be nothing without the language with innovative extensions for the art. of his life – a language that preceded The paper by Kwakwaka’wakw artist him. And in that way, he was no longer Marianne Nicholson is an example alone” (). (-). A serious problem for the First Nations contributors used the First Nations, however, is the belief symposium to assert their own customs that Reid stated many times throughout and perspectives. As Gwaganad states, his career that the “real” traditional Haida protocol respects the feelings of Haida culture was now dead. Several the bereaved, prescribing that a year papers examine this narrative of a pass after someone’s death before she/ “dying culture” – one originated by the he is publicly discussed. Since that settler community. The most incisive time has passed, she can now speak analysis of its history and insidious about Reid. Intertribal courtesy, and logic, together with suggestions for a rivalries, are demonstrated by several way forward from the current situation, speakers: Ki-ke-in, a Nuu-chah- comes from Marcia Crosby, a historian nulth artist, describes the collegiality of Tsimshian and Haida ancestry. Bill and respect that Reid showed to him on Reid was born not at the end of Haida many occasions, despite their difference culture, she suggests, but in the middle in age and fame. Then he tells of an of this narrative structure. In his incident he heard from his teacher, seductively eloquent writings, as she Henry Hunt, Mungo Martin’s son- points out, his mourning for the lost in-law. Martin had replied to Reid’s “genius, personality, and individual and boasting about the superiority of the social complexity of the dead became Haida in everything by telling him the Reid’s point of reference for what con- story of the capture, enslavement, and temporary Haida life was not. Like humiliation of a Haida war chief who many non-Native experts, it’s clear he led a raid on Tsaaxiis (Fort Rupert) in believed he knew more about what it the nineteenth century. When the Haida was to be a ‘real’ Haida than did those managed to escape, he was chased by who lived in the twentieth century” some Kwakwaka’wakw boys from the (). By rejecting any cultural forms village who shot at him in the treetop other than the ancient visual forms, where he had taken refuge, and waited Reid brushes aside the period of assimi- for him to drop down after he had bled lation through which his mother and to death. According to Ki-ke-in this he himself grew up, and he ends by piece of verbal aggression, which hits erasing “the details of a time of great the reader like a punch in the solar change and half a century of aboriginal 96 bc studies Bill Reid Books 97 life, including his own” (). Crosby And while Reid argued that the value suggests that different questions now of his own art and of traditional Haida need to be asked – about the ongoing art existed as a modern art form of identities and identifications of Haida international value, and was thus people in the midst of assimilation, made for all human beings, he was when their “Indian” identity was indeed puzzled whether that might make it “a legally imposed on them from outside medium without a message.” Crosby’s but when their “Haida” identification reply is that “exploring the logic of could be freely chosen.

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