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“Wearing the Mantle on Both Shoulders”: an Examination of The “Wearing the Mantle on Both Shoulders”: An Examination of the Development of Cultural Change, Mutual Accommodation, and Hybrid Forms at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams, 1834-1862 by Marki Sellers B.G.S., Simon Fraser University, 2005 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History © Marki Sellers, 2010 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee “Wearing the Mantle on Both Shoulders”: An Examination of the Development of Cultural Change, Mutual Accommodation, and Hybrid Forms at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams, 1834-1862 by Marki Sellers B.G.S., Simon Fraser University, 2005 Supervisory Committee Dr. John Lutz, (Department of History) Co-Supervisor Dr. Lynne Marks, (Department of History) Co-Supervisor Dr. Wendy Wickwire, (Department of History) Departmental Member iii Supervisory Committee Dr. John Lutz, Co-Supervisor (Department of History) Dr. Lynne Marks, Co-Supervisor (Department of History) Dr. Wendy Wickwire, Departmental Member (Department of History) ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of the relationships between newcomers of Fort Simpson, a HBC post that operated on the northern Northwest Coast of what is now British Columbia, and Ts‟msyen people from 1834 until 1862. Through a close analysis of fort journals and related documents, I track the relationships between the Hudson‟s Bay Company newcomers and the Ts‟msyen peoples who lived in or around the fort. Based on the journal and some other accounts, I argue that a mutually intelligible – if not equally understood – world evolved at this site. My specific concern is how the lives of these newcomers and local Ts‟msyen people became intertwined and somewhat interdependent. While not characterized by universal fellowship and trust, I suggest that it did involve shared participation in significant cultural activities, the repurposing or remaking of each other‟s customs, and jointly developed practices in which customs from both groups were intermingled. I propose that some of these practices, particularly those of law and marriage, can be considered as culturally hybrid. While this study acknowledges that newcomer and Ts‟msyen peoples had distinct motivations for entering into relationships with each other, it argues that these motivations cannot be understood without attention to the political dynamics of power and authority on both sides. My study ends in 1862. In that year a smallpox epidemic combined with iv missionary activity and increasing colonial regulation brought an end to the brief period of accommodation and collaboration between HBC newcomers and Ts‟msyen people. v Table of Contents Supervisory Committee……………………………………………………….……...…ii Abstract………………………………………………………………………….…...…iii Table of Contents…………...…………………………………………………………..v Acknowledgement………………………...……………………………………….…...vi Dedication…………………………………..………………………………………..…vii Introduction…………………………………..…………………………………………1 Chapter 1: “The Many Ways of Acquiring”: How Ts‟msyen People Welcomed Outsider Powers into Their Own Worlds Yet Became No Less Ts‟msyen ….……..47 Chapter 2: From Regulating People, Power and Authority to “Sharing in the Cup of Sinful Pleasure”: The Development and Practice of Hybrid Law and Cross-Participation in Ceremony at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams, 1834-1862 …....113 Chapter 3: Intermarriage, Cultural Hybridity and the Negotiation of Power and Authority………………………………………………………………………….....175 Conclusion: A point on the spectrum ..………....……………………………………...251 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………..………..261 vi Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisors, Lynne Marks and John Lutz, as well Wendy Wickwire, for their thoughtful comments and support for this project. I would also like to thank Paige Raibmon and Mark Leier for their kindness, insight, and encouragement during my years at Simon Fraser University. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Elliot Fox-Povey for the dedication he has shown me and this project. vii Dedication This thesis is lovingly dedicated to my mother, Lori Anne. Introduction In August of 1861 the first Christian marriage of a Ts‟msyen couple took place at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams. The couple, Stephen (Wahsh) and Martha (Wahtatow) Ryan, were early followers of the Anglican missionary William Duncan.1 As the first Ts‟msyen couple to participate in this new marriage ceremony, they sought to abide by Christian ceremonial customs by closely emulating the ornamentation and proceedings they had observed at celebrations hosted by Duncan.2 They decorated their longhouse with evergreens, set and otherwise prepared three tables for the guests, and provided a feast of rice, molasses, biscuits, berries and tea for over fifty people. Each of these elements was highly applauded by Duncan and his fellow missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Tugwell, for although undertaken by Stephen and Martha Ryan, they were each a kind of replication of earlier “feasts” hosted by the missionaries themselves. Duncan and the Tugwells attended the wedding festivities but left early in the evening, before the celebrations were ended. After they left, fiddlers from the fort and other Hudson‟s Bay Company (HBC) newcomers joined the party at the invitation of Stephen‟s sister, Mary Quintal,3 who was the wife of Francois Quintal dit Dubois, the fort 1 Except where otherwise stated, this thesis follows the orthography observed by Kenneth Campbell, Persistence and Change: A History of the Ts‟msyen Nation, (Prince Rupert, British Columbia: Published by the Tsimshian Nation and School District 52, 2005). 2 For New Years Day in 1861, for instance, Duncan and missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Tugwell decorated the school with evergreens and prepared a feast of rice and molasses, biscuits and tea for approximately two hundred and ninety Ts‟msyen guests. William Duncan Journal, 31 December 1860, 10043; 1 January 1861, 10043-10044. 3 Born around 1830, Mary Quintal belonged to the Gitlaan tribe. She was a skilled healer and midwife. Mary Quintal was also known as Noas Pierre, one of her Ts‟msyen names, and as Mary Ryan and, after she re-married, as Mary Curtis. The name “Noas Pierre” or Noos Pierre was a teknonym. The use of teknonyms and the like seems to have been common practice among the Ts‟msyen during the first half of the nineteenth century. Both the Catholic and the Anglican records document the use of this naming practice, 2 steward. Duncan was greatly displeased to learn of this turn of events.4 For Duncan, it was “foolery” to dance to such music and to mix with the “disorderly men at the Fort.”5 He scolded Mary Quintal, his former Sm‟algyax (Ts‟msyen language) teacher and sometimes confidante, for having organized the dance and inviting these guests he so disapproved of, insisting “upon her never introducing either dancing or any of their [the newcomers‟] abominations…among the Christian Indians.”6 However, matters at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams were neither as simple as Duncan might have imagined nor as in his control as he would have wished. with Naks (spouse of), Noos (mother of), and Nagwats (father of) being most common. Ts‟msyen people had many names throughout their lifetimes. At birth, every Ts‟msyen person received what HBC officer Pym Nevins Compton referred to as a “little name” and by the time of their death many had held a variety of both secular (ordinary) names and sacred hereditary names. Although adults had their own personal names (names that they currently held) it seems that teknonyms were used both when referring to others and when identifying ones self. Thus, once a Ts‟msyen person became a parent they were referred to as the „Father of‟ or „Mother of‟ their oldest child. According to Compton, those Ts‟msyen who were married but unable to have children might “adopt a dog & give away blankets &c for it, as if for a child, & give the dog some name, & they are then known as the father & mother of his particular dog.” Anthropologist Viola Garfield reported that married adults without children were often referred to as “spouse of so and so” while young children might receive an informal nickname that originated in their ownership of a pet so that girls might be called „mother of‟ their household pet, for example. There is some evidence to suggest that it was considered impolite to refer to oneself or another by his or her adult name. Teknonyms seem to have had daily usage while adult names, both ordinary and sacred, were reserved as a mark of respect or for a formal occasion. Pym Nevins Compton, Early Trip to Fort Victoria and Life in the Colony, BC Archives, MS 2778, 35; Christopher Roth, Becoming Tsimshian, 75; Boss, Martha Washington O‟Neill Boss, A Tale of Northern British Columbia from Cariboo to Cassiar, 1880-1956, Typescript, MS 771, BC Archives, 63; John W. Arctander, The Apostle of Alaska: The Story of William Duncan of Metlakahtla (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909), 341, 344; Viola E. Garfield, Tsimshian Clan and Society (Seattle: University of Washington, 1939), 221-226. 4 I employ the term “newcomer” to describe those not from the Northwest Coast present at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams during the period under study here. I have chosen not to use the word “European,” except in specific circumstances, because of the rich ethnic and cultural diversity of the HBC employees who lived and worked at this fort, and of the outsiders who visited it. Additionally, I chose not to employ the term “trader” when referring to the newcomer employees of Fort Simpson because not all employees of the fort were traders. Moreover, as both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people traded at this site it might mislead the reader. “Newcomer,” in this document, should be understood to apply to all of the non- Northwest Coast people at Fort Simpson/Laxłgu‟alaams, including Hawaiians, Iroquois, Irish, Scottish, American, English, Métis, northern Europeans, and French-Canadians.
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