Box 1

Box 1 contains black and white portraits. Subjects of these portraits include Vancouver Indians, most likely Kwakiutl, who live in the coastal rainforests in British Columbia, Canada. There is a portrait of a Thompson Indian woman in British Columbia, and a portrait of a Haida Indian photographed in the Haida village of Masset at Port Essington, highlighting chest tattoos.

Several photos are specified as being taken in Fort Rupert, B.C. by Oregon C. Hastings and George Hunt in 1894. Hastings was employed Boas to capture images during his Northwest Coast expeditions. George Hunt, half-English, half-Tlingit, was raised in Fort Rupert and while not Kwakiutl by blood, he was integrated into the culture. Hunt was an extremely valuable collaborator to Boas, being fluent in English and bilingual.

The field photographs in Box 1 document houses, totems, landscapes, village scenes, and native people in the Northwest Coast. Dates range from 1894-1921 and locations include Fort Rupert B.C., Alert Bay, B.C., and Harbledown Island, B.C. Subjects include Boas’ potlatch, Kwakiutl dancers, Bob Harris and wife, George Hunt and wife, and the famous Kwakiutl raven mask.

A potlatch is a traditional ceremony that validates that status of a Kwakiutl family. The ceremony consists of elaborate dances, feasting on rich foods, and the distribution of hundreds of gifts. The host displays rank by showing his right to use certain masks and perform special dances. Guests are served lavish meals in intricately carved bowls, and as the potlatch ends the host pays the guests for witnessing the displays of the privileges the host claimed. Accepting gifts validate this claim. Before European influence, gifts included furs, skins, cedar bark and boxes. By the time Boas arrived, woolen blankets were the most common form of payment. For many years this tradition was on the brink of extinction when the Canadian government made potlatches illegal in 1884. The government saw potlatch activities as a threat to the assimilation into Western culture. Potlatches were still held in secret during this period and the law was revoked in 1951.

In Kwakiutl culture, the raven is a mythic cannibal bird who attends to Baxwbakwalanuxwsiwe, the great Cannibal-Spirit-at-the-North-End-of-the-World. The mask is displayed and used in dances and potlatches. The raven’s beak snaps open and shut while making the sound of a raven.

Photographers include Hunt, Hastings, and C.F. Newcombe. Newcombe lived in Victoria, B.C. and studied the culture of the Northwest Coast Indians and collected objects for the British Columbia Provincial Museum. Boas hired Newcombe to conduct research on the Haida history of the southern portions of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Many of the photographs have original writing on the back. The postcard dates range from 1907-1917, and subjects include the Kwakiutl and Bella Coola.

One photograph is noted as published in House and Garden magazine in June 1943 and features Kwakiutl ghost puppets, taken in Kingcome Inlet, B.C.

There are black and white photos from the Field Museum of Chicago taken in 1894 and feature Kwakiutl costumes, including a killer-whale mask and wasp mask.

The contact prints, taken by Boas, include images of native peoples, totems, houses, and landscape.