esc portraits of aboriginal life

7/28/2019 ESC Portraits of Aboriginal Life

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bc studies184

degrees o confdence. Several chaptersread as though they are transcripts odissertation deences, rustratinglyinterrupted by innumerable ootnotes

and eorts to establish intellectualprovenance. This unevenness disruptsthe ultimate continuity o the textand prompts a lingering question ocuratorial discretion.

Against the breadth o concernevidenced in the collection o writing,individual chapters are remarkable ortheir extreme sense o introspectionand topical ocus. Very ew o the

contributions, however, attemptto locate their interests within thelarger critical gaze o the collection.For instance, the evocation o bigbox culture is timely and lucid in itsown terms, yet draws attention to atopic that could be useully measuredagainst the wholesale renovation oour cities historical cores throughthe voracious creation o inner-city

malls. The thoughtul review o theemergence o the Quebec bungalowtype is equally engaging, but how mightit be urther enriched by reerence to,say, the contemporary arteact o theVancouver Special?

Without quest ion a sense o collective context may be inerred by theaccumulated reading o the chapters,and the what i questions suggested

here constructively speak to an elemento provocation in the writing. Yetthere remains a concern regarding thisaccomplished work: the question o anintended audience. As a primer or acertain kind o interdisciplinary coursein cultural studies, some chapters serveas more explicit points o departurethan others whether in terms oresearch methodology, critique, or

writing but ultimately the wholeremains decidedly uneven.

M i i l hi ll i

consideration o the relation betweenthe messy realities o social practiceand the production o this thing calledarchitecture. As such, it includes both

surprises and delights while providingan important step orward in cultivatingcritical discourse in an unquestionablyertile feld o enquiry.

Edward S. Curtis, Above theMedicine Line:

Portraits of Aboriginal Life in

the Canadian WestRodger D. Touchie

Vancouver: Heritage House, 2010.191 pp. $24.95 cloth.

David Mattison

Victoria

Of all the dozens o proessionalphotographers who have directedtheir cameras at North Americasirst human settlers, no name ismore synonymous with the wordsIndian and photographer thanthat o Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952).During the frst three decades o thetwentieth century he embarked uponand completed, at great personal and

inancial sacriice, a photographicand ethnographic documentationproject o selected North American

Aboriginal populations. His oten trulymagnifcent photographs, along withoral testimony (including transcribedsongs he had recorded on wax cylindersrom village elders and others), wassupported by the writings o explorersand ethnographers. Sold by subscription

as collector tomes, Curtiss lie work waspublished between 1907 and 1930 in a

i l i l i l d


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185Book Reviews

Each volume was accompanied by aportolio o photogravure plates. TheNorthwestern University McCormickLibrarys set, completely digitized

and reely available online both thereand through the Library o Congress(photographs only), comprises 1,506photographs in the volumes and 722portolio photographs. On 10 April2012, a complete subscription set othe nai was auctioned at ChristiesNew York or $2.88 million, double theprevious record rom seven years ago.

The twenty-volume set original ly sold

or between $3,000 (1907) and $4,200(1924).

Touchie intended his work to ll a gapin the Curtis literature by concentratingon Curtiss years in British Columbiaand Alberta. Around two-thirds o thebook covers British Columbia, chiefythe coastal communities, and AlbertaFirst Nations. During part o his timein British Columbia in the early1910s,

Curtis also created the irst motionpicture centred around an Aboriginalpopulation. The Kwakwakawakwpeople starred in a melodramaticscreenplay entitled In the Land of theHeadhunters, which premiered inSeattle and New York in December1914. This lm has its own incrediblehistory and was restored and re-releasedtwice (1974 and 2008, respectively) ater

a print was rst located in 1972. Theremainder o the book serves as anintroduction to Curtis, the man andthe photographer, and his remarkablelegacy, the ruits o which he did notlive to enjoy since the project essentiallylet him nancially ruined, divorced,and at odds with his brother, Seattlephotographer Asahel Curtis (1874-1941),

who also worked in British Columbia

and, much earlier, in Alaska and Yukonduring the Klondike gold rush.

T hi b k i l h d

to glossy paper stock, is not intended asan academic or scholarly reassessmento the Curtis legacy. In some ways,though Ralph Andrewss ocus was

dierent, Touchies analysis andadmiration o the Curtis legacy, whichhas also undergone a new appreciationby some BC First Nations, remindedme o Andrewss bookCurtis Western

Indians (1962). I ound mysel otenwondering about the dates o certainevents and wished or a lie chronology,including when each nai volume waspublished. Touchie addresses the

dicult linguistic issue o First Nationsnames by including a table o past andpresent usages or each o the BC and

Alberta populations visited by Curtis.While the index enhances the utilityo his slim volume, the bibliography,

which includes selected websites (onecontaining a detailed chronology), onlycovers works reerenced by Touchie.

Although he reproduces many Curtis

images and, through captions, placesthem within their nai context, there isno real comparative analysis o Curtiss

work against that o other amateurand commercial photographers who

were also documenting First Nationscultures in British Columbia and

Alberta.

Taking My Life

Jane Rule

Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2011. 277pp.$19.95 paper.

Cameron Duder

Vancouver

In 2008 , w h e n r e s e a r c h i n gCanadian women authors, LindaM di d bli h d


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