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This reproduction is the best copy avaifable UMI "These Things Are Our Totems:" Marius Barbeau and the lndigenization of Canadian Art and Culture in the 1920s by Sandra Dyck, B.A. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Canadian Art History Carleton University OTTAWA, Ontario 18 April, 1995 01995, Sandra Dyck National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1+1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaON K1AOM OttawaON KtAIrN4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in rnicroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/^ de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts f?om it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. iii Abstract In the late 1920s, National Museum anthropologist Manus Barbeau brought eight Euro- Canadian artists from Ontario and Quebec to the territory of the Gitksan First Nations peoples, on the Skeena River in north central British Columbia. Barbeau encouraged these artists to create images of Gitksan peoples, villages and art forms. Barbeau identified Gitksan culture as a unique part of Canadian patrimony, and thus viewed images of Gitksan subjects as one means of developing a distinctive national art. ln this thesis, the colonial appropriation of aspects of Native (aboriginaüindigenous) culture in the service of native (distinctly Canadiari) culture is called indigenizat./on.This indigenizing activity occurred not only in painting, but in many fields, including design, architecture, art education, craft, literature and music. In chapters hoand three, I explore the origins, nature and scope of Barbeau's collaborative work with artists in Gitksan territory. In chapters four and five, I examine the wider indigenization of Canadian art hislory and Canadian culture. In so doing, I situate Barbeau's work in a broad cultural context. Acknowledgements During many visits to the Barbeau collection at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, archivists Nicole Chamberland and Senoit Thénault answered my quenes with patience and efficiency. Benoit was particularly helpful in suggesting possible locations for relevant material in uncatalogued portions of the Barbeau papers. Michael Bell, supportive of this project from its inception, provided helpful commentary on drafts of chapters two and three. Lam Brandon's careful critique of an eariy drait of chapter two was similariy helpful. Laura also lent me a copy of her M.A. thesis on Pegi Nicul MacLeod, provided me with photographs of MacLeod's Skeena works, most of which are unpublished, and allowed me access to her voluminous MacLeod archive. Anne McDougall shared her fond memones of Anne Savage with me one Saturday moming, and generously allowed me to photograph the Savage Skeena sketches in her possession. During a delightful afternoon 1 spent at her home, Naomi Jackson Groves provided insightful, humorous replies to my questions about her uncle, A.Y. Jackson. Leslie Planta kindly responded to my letters about his work and his association with Hamy Tauber. He also affirmed my choice of "indigenization" as an historically appropriate descriptive terrn. Arnanda Gibbs and Karen Korchinski spent many coffee-fueiled hours editing the final draft. Michel Pariseau correcteci my translations of the French texts related to the Exposition d'art Canadien. Doug Chomyn was an invaluable grammatical, syntactical and theoretical sounding board, particularly in regard to chapter three. Natalie Luckyj was a consistent source of encouragement and information on Euro-Canadian artists. Fouad Kanaan travelled many extra miles down the information highway on rny behalf, in his transformation of my humble draft into a polished final product. Over the course of the fast year, Chariie Hill has been more than generous in sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of 1920s Canadian art. Charlie facilitated my understanding of the connections between Barbeau and the Group of Seven, and provided me wÏth many important 1920s materials in relation to chapters four and five. Special thanks are due to my thesis supetvisor, Ruth Phillips, who has been (and miraculously, still is) unfailingly enthusiastic about my thesis. Her sage editorial advice, consistent scholariy support and ability to place rny specific observations in a wider cultural context have helped me to see this project through to its completion. Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction .....................................1 Notes to Chapter One ....................................... 26 Chapter Two: Barbeau and Canadian Artists in Gitksan Territory ........ 34 Notes to Chapter Two ....................................... 60 Chapter Three: Images of Gitksan People and Territory .............. 71 Notes to Chapter Three ...................................... 98 Chapter Four: The lndigenization of Canadian Art History ............ 108 Notes to Chapter Four ......................................126 Chapter Five: The Indigenization of Canadian Culture ............... 135 Notes to Chapter Five ...................................... 161 Conclusion .............................................171 Notes to the Conclusion .................................... 577 Figures ................................................. 178 List of Figures ............................................ 227 Bibliography ............................................. 231 Chapter One: Introduction In a ment Canadian Airlines advertising campaign, featured in Saturdav Ninht magazine and on the walls of major Canadian airports, the caption 'We bring Canada to the rest of the worid" accompanies photographs of "typically" Canadian objects transplanted to foreign places. One advertisement depicts a Canada goose standing among pigeons in London's Trafalgar Square (Fig. 1); another features a Northwest Coast aboriginal totem pole positioned awkwardly in a European courtyard. (Fig. 2) This campaign is basicaliy an exercise in nationalist semiotics: Canadian Airiines is banking (Iiterally) on the assumption that certain things-Canada goose, totem pole-are accepted signs of Canadian identity which can be readily decoded by the viewing public. Unlike the goose, however, the entry of the totem pole into a nationalist iconography and its common usage as a national symboi is founded on a decades-old history of Euro-Canadian appropriation and cornmodification of Northwest Coast First Nations cultures. This thesis locates the origins of that history in the 1920~~and reveals the ways in which totem poles, and in a wider sense, coastal aboriginal cultures and arts, camz tci be used as symbols for the political creation citlled Canada. In 1933, Arthur Lismer wrote of the need to assert the expression of nationalistic pdde through "pictorial devices interpretive of achievement." "After all," he concluded, "these things are our totems, expressive of the people we are."' lt further documents how these Native (aboriginal) traditions were utilked by rnembers of the Canadian goveming and cultural eiite in their quest to identify and develop a native (distindly Canadian) art and culture. This thesis explores the convergence of art, econorny and appropriation-both real and symbolic-of coastai aboriginal culture in the service of Canadian national identity which underlies the Canadian Airiines images. In the 1920s, the confluence of these forces was effected by Marius Barbeau at the Skeena River, in British Columbia. Barbeau was an anthropologist at the National Museum of Canada, now the Canadian Museum of Civilkation. from 191 1-49.~His eclectic and prodigious professional interests, including the fine and folk arts, music, language, and mythology of French Canadians, and the Northwest Coast, Huron and Iroquois First Nations, were united by his vision of a "civilized" Canada with a strong national 2 identity based on "distinctly Canadian" cultural traditions. For Barbeau, however, "distinctly Canadian" encompassed ail things aboriginal. Throughout his career he documented, preserved and popularized many aspects of the art, life and culture of the Gitksan First Nations peoples, whose traditional tenitories centre on the Skeena River in north central British Columbia, in order to demonstrate Canada's possession of an "indigenous" patrimony. (Fig. 3) Barbeau concurred with the scholarly and popular view, widespread in the 1920s, that First Nations people in Canada were a "vanishing race." If the Gitksan people were doomed, so was their art. Barbeau thus identified the future of Gitksan art in its potential usage in the evolution of a uniquely (Euro)Canadian art. In the late 1920s he brought eight avant-garde artists from Quebec and Ontario-A.Y.