University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Department of Anthropology Papers Department of Anthropology 2014 My Sisters Will Not Speak: Boas, Hunt, and the Ethnographic Silencing of First Nations Women Margaret Bruchac University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/anthro_papers Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Bruchac, M. (2014). My Sisters Will Not Speak: Boas, Hunt, and the Ethnographic Silencing of First Nations Women. Curator: The Museum Journal, 57 (2), 153-171. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12058 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/anthro_papers/170 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. My Sisters Will Not Speak: Boas, Hunt, and the Ethnographic Silencing of First Nations Women Abstract First Nations women were instrumental to the collection of Northwest Coast Indigenous culture, yet their voices are nearly invisible in the published record. The contributions of George Hunt, the Tlingit/British culture broker who collaborated with anthropologist Franz Boas, overshadow the intellectual influence of his mother, Anislaga Mary Ebbetts, his sisters, and particularly his Kwakwaka'wakw wives, Lucy Homikanis and Tsukwani Francine. In his correspondence with Boas, Hunt admitted his dependence upon high-status Indigenous women, and he gave his female relatives visual prominence in film, photographs, and staged performances, but their voices are largely absent from anthropological texts. Hunt faced many unexpected challenges (disease, death, arrest, financial hardship, and the suspicions of his neighbors), yet he consistently placed Boas' demands, perspectives, and editorial choices foremost.