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Diamond Jenness (1886- 1969)

Inthe spring of 1913 DiamondJenness, a youngNew Zealand-born anthropologist, was invited to participate in a four-year scientific expedition to the Canadian Arctic. He ac- cepted, and so began an illustrious 65-year career devoted to the study of Canada’s native peoples. Diamond Jenness - ethnologist, linguist,archeologist, musicologist, and physical anthropologist - ranks among the prominent Canadian social scientists of this century. ARCTIC PROFILES 109

Born on 10 February 1886 in Wellington, Jenness attended from this field work have been recognizedby scholars as “the local schools and colleges, graduating from the University of most comprehensive descriptionof a single tribe ever Wellingtonin 1908 withFirst Class Honours in Classics. written.” Upon graduation he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where heAfter serving with theCanadian Expeditionary Force’ in planned to continue readingin Classics. However, a friendship France during World War I, Jenness returned to Canada to struckwith Marius Barbeau (later to becomea celebrated marry Frances Ellen Bleakney andto take up a position with Canadianfolklorist) sparked Jenness’s interest an-in the National Museumof Canada. He continued to write up his thropology, an interest that ultimately led to a Diplomain An- research from the Canadian Arctic Expedition and also con- thropology in 19 1 1 and an Oxford M.A. five years later. ductedseveral “salvage ethnology” programs among the Jennessquickly found his curiosity about Sarcee, Carrier, Sekani, Ojibway, and Coast Salish Indians- blossoming into a vocation. In 191 1 he was appointed Oxford groups thought at the timebe to doomed to cultural extinction. Scholar to Papua,New Guinea, wherehe spent twelve months Ihe Indians of&&, the partial fruit of this labour, is still studying the Northern Entrecasteaux.Upon his return to New considered the definitive work on the aboriginal peoples of Zealand, he was askedto join the Canadian Arctic Expedition, Canada. an ambitious government-funded scientific enterprise under Duringhis tenure with the National Museum, Jenness the direction of the well-known arctic explorers Vilhjalmur published two seminal articles on northern archaeology. The stefansson and R.M. Anderson. In June,1913, Jenness found first paper identified a new prehistoric culture in the eastern himself aboard the refitted whaling vessel KarZuk steaming Arctic - the - which Jenness believed to have northward to the and beyond to the .preceded the Thule Culture (the ancestors of the contemporary The voyageof the Karluk was destined to be a tragic one. InInuit) by a milleniumor more. The second paper hypothesized the autumn of 19 13, the small vessel became locked in seathe the Old Bering Sea Culture of the Bering Strait area, a com- ice off the northern coastof . Unable to free itself, the plexwhich Jenness believed not only preceded the Thule ship drifted helplessly westward towards the Siberian Sea, Culture in the western Arctic but which was ancestral to it. where it was finally crushed in the ice off . Consideredradical at the time of their publication, these Eight men perished in their bid to reach the mainland. By a theories are now widely accepted, having been vindicated by stroke of fortune, Jennesswas not aboard theKarluk when she carbon-14 dating and subsequent field research. drifted off, he, Stefansson, and several othershad left the ship Jenness’s interest in the Arctic never waned.As late as 1968 eadiir on a routine hunting trip. Abandoning the hopeless taskhe was still articulating his concern for the struggle to of searching forthe Karltrk, which was lost to sight when they survive. Among his last works was a series of five volumes returned,the hunting party headed for Barrow,Alaska to publishedby The ArcticInstitute of North America that rendezvous with the remaining two vessels of the expedition, reviewedgovernment policies toward the Inuit of Alaska, the Alaska and the Mary Sachs. Canada, and : Jenness spent his first arctic winterat Harrison Bay, Alaska, Numerous universities awarded Diamond Jenness honorary wherehe learned to speak Inuktitut, gathered information doctorate degrees during his lifetime. He was also named a about Western Eskimo customsand folklore, and experienced Fellow of such societies as the Royal Society of Canada, the at first-hand the precarious existence of the northern hunter.Royal In Danish Geographical Society, and The Arctic Institute thespring of 1914, heset out along the coast to the of North America. In 1%2 the Royal Canadian Geographical expedition’s base camp at Bernard Harbour in the Coronation Society awarded him its highest accolade, the Massey Medal. Gulf region. Here he engaged in one of the most important Hismost prestigious laurels, however, were granted goals of the Canadian Arctic Expedition - the study of the pthumously, four months after his death: in March 1970, Copper of , a people first brought to Diamond Jenness’s adopted country presented his widow with the attention of the “civilized world” by Stefansson only four the Companion of the Order of Canada Medallion. years earlier. When Jenness arrived in the region, only a FURTHER READINGS handfulof Europeans had visited the landof theCopper Eskimo. Merchantshad onlyjust begun to ply their trade in theCOLLINS, HENRY B. and TAYLOR, W.E., Jr. 1970. DiamondJenness (18861969). Arctic 23: 71-81. area, andthe missionaries and Northwest Mounted Police JENNESS, DIAMOND. 1955. The Indians of Canada.Ottawa: National were yet to arrive. As a consequence, the Copper Eskimo re- Museum of Canada Bulletin No. 65. (Revised edition.) mained largely unaffected by contact with the outside world. . 1959. The peoates of the Twilight. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jenness,therefore, wascharged with recording a virtually SWAYSI, NANSI. 1960. The Man Hunters:Canadian Portraits. Toronto: pristine aboriginal wayof lifethat would change radically Clarke, Irwin and Co. within a generation. Jenness spent two years with these Central Eskimo people, James Helmer living for one yearas the adopted son ofthe hunter Ikpukhuak Department of Archaeology and his shaman wife Higalik. During that time he hunted and The University of Calgary traveled with his “family”, sharing both their festivities and Calgary, Alberta, Canada their famine. The monographs and publications that resulted T2N 1N4