Making Connections

Even though I’ve been in the job for 9 months there are still parts of the collection that I’m not as comfortable with, largely because I’ve never worked in that geographic region. That’s why I was very excited to receive a request from Jennifer Kramer, Pacific Northwest Curator at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) in Vancouver to come and look at any Northwest Coast artefacts during her visit to Winnipeg. What a perfect opportunity to learn about a part of the collection that I know very little about!

Jennifer has been working closely with the Nuxalk (pronounced new-haulk) community, and quite closely with Clyde Tallio, a Nuxalk culture historian and visiting scholar at UBC. It turns out there is a pretty substantial Nuxalk collection within the HBC collection, and Jennifer was able to tell me more about it while documenting the items, and Clyde provided us with the Nuxalk names and additional information.

One of these items is currently on display in the HBC Gallery, it is listed as a ‘rain hat’ from Bella Coola. Unfortunately the cases in this gallery are difficult to open, so we relied on the database information and anything we could find in the donor file.

Jennifer informed me that this ceremonial hat, likely made from woven spruce root or cedar, would have been worn by someone of great importance. Each of the ball-like additions on the top represent individual potlatch ceremonies, thus this hat was part of four potlatch ceremonies.

The collector of the hat, Clifford Kopas, had sent photos to the Hudson’s Bay Company from Bella Coola and some of these were printed in the June 1948 edition of The Beaver.

Clifford Wilson, Curator of the HBC Historical Exhibition, wrote to Cliff Kopas to ask about some of the items one of the women was wearing in the photo, in particular “an excellent spruce root hat, which I suspect should be worn by a man rather than a woman” (excerpt from his letter, found in our donor files from the HBC Archives). He went on “I wonder if she still has these items, and whether she would be willing to part with them…our Pacific Coast Indian material is not as good as it should be and we ought to get hold of items like this when they are available”.

One month later the hat arrives and is catalogued as part of the HBC collection.

Jennifer and I found the June 1948 edition of The Beaver and I scanned the photo for her to take back and show Clyde. He was able to tell us the names of both women in the photo: Annie Johnson on the left, and Helen (née Houstie) Schooner. Helen was a very high ranking Heiltsuk woman who married Samson Schooner and Clyde believes the hat did in fact belong to her (rather than Clifford Wilson’s suggestion that it was a male chief’s hat) since her marriage had been validated and potlatched four times (and remember that this hat has four rings!).

So not only did I make some great connections with Northwest Coast scholars, but through this we were able to connect an artifact within the HBC collection to an actual person!

I’m sure you’re all wondering what’s happened to the blog, I promised a Part 2 for the story of Tullauhiu’s leg and I have yet to deliver!

Truthfully, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of research. Although I’ve discovered some interesting tidbits, I want to wait until I’ve uncovered the full story before I present it to you here.

I had some great feedback from Part 1 of this blog post, from a variety of different sources, all of which lead me in different directions. As someone who loves a good mystery I embraced these leads like any research detective would, and this has only led me further and further down the rabbit hole. The further I went, the less I felt I could blog about it until I had the facts straight.

This story entwines archaeology, oral history, and the broken trails of early record-keeping. I think it will be a fascinating tale, and I hope I will find out how we came to acquire this artifact.

In the meantime, I try to maintain my focus on what this prosthetic leg meant for Tullauhiu. The loss of a limb would be a devastating experience, and within Inuit culture this was felt even deeper. One of my colleagues mentioned that a person with a severed limb was no longer considered whole. She sent me a chapter from her MA thesis which discussed this:

“A person with a severed limb or organ is considered of a lesser kind then other human beings. Only an angakkuq, a shaman, could survive a “disarticulation”.  In fact, going through such an experience was part of the shamanic rite of passage. Angakkut stood at the articulation of the terrestrial and cosmological worlds (Saladin d’Anglure 1983, 2006a; Trott 2006).” (Cloutier-Gelinas 2010:62).

Imagine then what the gift of a prosthetic leg would have meant for Tullauhiu!

After consulting with some folks, I decided that while I sort through the details of this mystery I’d leave something for Tullahuhiu to let him know I understand the importance of this artifact. Although food was suggested, I knew our conservators would not be pleased with me if I left some jerky in the storage areas. Instead I chose something else that could be of some use, a small iron file.

Image © Manitoba Museum

References:

Cloutier-Gelinas, M.

2010  Through Space, Time, and Otherness: A Spatial Analysis of 15th to 20th century Labrador Inuit Settlement Patterns.  Unpublished MA thesis, Memorial University, St. John’s, NL.

Saladin d’Anglure, B.

1983 Ijiqqat: voyage au pays de l’invisible inuit. Etudes/Inuit/Studies 7(1): 67-83.

2006a Reflexions anthropologiques a propos d’un 3e sexe social chez les Inuit.  Conjonctures, 41 (42): 177-205.

Trott, C.J.
2006 “The Gender of the Bear”. Etudes/Inuit/Studies 30(1): 89-110

When I first started at the museum I spent a lot of time opening cabinets and drawers to check out this remarkable collection that is now under my care. There are many impressive artefacts, but this one really struck a chord with me.

I opened a drawer to find what appears to be a simple box (carefully constructed by skilled conservators!). A closer look at the photo label revealed someone’s leg! I was a bit shocked, I did not expect to find a prosthesis in the HBC collection. I immediately went to our database to find out more.

As it turns out, Tullauhiu was an Inuit hunter who lost his leg to a polar bear. John Ross (yes, THE John Ross who went in search of the Northwest Passage) ordered the Victory‘s carpenter to fit Tullauhiu with a wooden leg. The carpenter apparently worked with the ship’s surgeon and Tullauhiu was fitted with a prosthetic leg on January 15, 1830.

Constructed from wood, leather, iron nails, sheet copper, and copper nails (hence the green-ish tinge) Tullauhiu was given a new lease on life.  What prompted John Ross, on his second Arctic voyage, to do this?

Ross briefly mentions this event in his 1835 Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a NorthWest Passage (this excerpt is from page 5). Apparently the event is also discussed in Farley Mowat’s Ordeal By Ice (1993: pg 228-236) but I have yet to snag a copy to see for myself.

Perhaps it really was just a simple act of kindness, or maybe there was more to the story (page 52 of Ross’s narrative alluded to something). Either way, looking at this prosthetic leg in a box gets me thinking about what this leg meant for Tullauhiu.

That’s what I love about my job, it’s not just the material ‘things’ in the collection, but the stories behind them and thinking about what these items meant for the people who made and used them.

*UPDATE: The plot thickens on this interesting artifact, stayed tuned for part 2!*

If you have been reading the HBC Blog, you are probably aware of some of the work involved with being a curator. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to experience the job firsthand, to see if it is really as great as Amelia makes it sound? My name is Kristina, and for the past couple of months, I have been able to do just that. I am a Masters student studying Curatorial Practices at the University of Winnipeg, and I am working at The Manitoba Museum as an Intern. So far it has been an amazing experience.

It is fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes look at everything it takes to keep an institution like The Manitoba Museum running. While most of my time is spent job shadowing with Amelia,  I have also had a chance to visit several departments to see the roles they play in creating exhibits, designing educational programming, and keeping our artifacts safe from damage.

Aside from job shadowing, I am also working on a couple of projects for the Museum. One of these projects involves exhibit renewal within the HBC Gallery. Presently, there are several props being utilized, along with the many artifacts on display.  Ideally, we would like to be able to identify which objects are props and which are artifacts, so that we can eventually replace the props with actual artifacts from the collection. As mentioned in some of our earlier blogs, the HBC Museum Collection is much larger than what is currently on display in the gallery. We simply don’t have the space to display all of the artifacts.

Even though the HBC collection is full of amazing treasures, I’m always interested in acquiring other special items with an HBC connection. Curators at The Manitoba Museum can’t just add items willy-nilly, we go through a process with our Collections Committee to make sure that we’re acquiring items that are significant to Manitoba (or in my case, significant to the HBC, which has a much broader geographic scope). I had some help navigating this pre-acquisition process from our Curator of History, Roland Sawatzky, who had been in touch with the donor prior to my arrival, and he showed me the ropes.

Well, for one it’s a horn and not a piece of marine mammal. Its function is also uncertain, it has a wooden base and brass lid so it must have been used to contain something but it’s not like a traditional powder horn. If you have ideas on what this might have been used for please leave them in the comments!

One part of the scene depicts men rowing a York Boat, the other side is a man on a horse smoking a pipe.

I still have some research to do, but I wanted to share my first acquisition with you because I’m pretty pumped about it. More to come!

We’ve got a lot going on at The Manitoba Museum these days, Trees of Life recently opened, WRAPPED: The Mummy of Pesed will open on October 25, but with all this excitement part of me really feels for our permanent exhibits. I know, exhibits don’t have feelings so there is probably no jealousy brewing between the old exhibits and new, but I’ve always been torn between my beloved treasures and the new shiny things put before me. Think back to when you got a new toy/book/car/fancy electronic device, did you ever feel bad for your older ones? No? Just me then…

Fortunately Museum staff have come up with just the right thing to help me cope with these feelings of betrayal, a month-long celebration of one of everyone’s favourite museum treasures: the Nonsuch!

I will be opening up the celebrations with a public talk on the history of the Nonsuch on November 2, at 2 pm. All are welcome to attend and I promise to keep you enthralled by the fascinating history of the original ship that helped set the fur trade in motion. It’s not just a pretty pirate-ship look-alike, its got a story of its own to tell!

I am one month in to my new job as Curator of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) Museum Collection at The Manitoba Museum and I’m still in that “pinch-me” phase, it feels too good to be true. Why? Let me fill you in.

I grew up in Winnipeg and I LOVED The Manitoba Museum. It was through visits to this museum, and other fabulous museums and historic sites in Manitoba, that I developed my interest and passion for human history. When I moved away for graduate school I never thought that a job would open up in my hometown, let alone at my beloved museum. Yet here I am, I’ve secured my dream job!

Maybe you’re wondering what makes this job so dreamy, or maybe you too have a long-time love affair with this place so you completely understand where I’m coming from. We are so lucky to have a museum right here in Winnipeg that has something for everyone. For me, the HBC collection is particularly exciting as it consists of 26,200 artifacts that I get to explore and to present to you.

The Hudson’s Bay Company’s original name was ‘the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay’. The Company of Adventurers referred to those who owned stock, they were called ‘adventurers’ because they risked their own money on the establishment of the fur trade. I feel a bit like an adventurer myself, as I get to explore the vast collections. In the coming months I’ll share my discoveries with you, no financial risk required!

As mentioned in April’s blog entry, the HBC Historical Exhibition, later the Museum Collection, was initiated in 1920, when the London Committee of the HBC authorized the collection and purchase of “relics of interest,” to create and present a collection symbolizing the Company’s contribution to the evolution of Canada. Since then, objects and collections that relate to the HBC and its role in Canadian development have been added, by donation and by purchase, to form today’s HBC Museum Collection of approximately 26,000 objects. The book follows loosely the four-part mandate followed at the initiation of the Collection – to present “the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, life in the fur trade, the story of the pioneer settlers and the customs, dress and industries of the aboriginal tribes.” The book is organized around a selection of the objects that have been collected to symbolize these four themes.

One of the challenges was choosing a small but appropriate sample – there are so many things that could be used to represent each of the four themes identified at the establishment of the HBC Historical Exhibition. It was important to reflect the diversity of the collection, evoking the wide geographic and temporal range of the Company’s operations, and its economic and cultural impact. The featured objects come from across Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and even Siberia. They date from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, produced in factories, fur trade posts, and indigenous communities, by a wide range of women and men. Often the stories of how objects arrived in the HBC Museum Collection – their provenance – are as important as the objects themselves, and the book offers some of these stories.

Ch.3: HBC copper kettles, TMM HBC 1314-1318.

By Dr. Jamie Morton, past Curator of the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection

The impetus for the formation of the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection came from the celebrations surrounding the firm’s 250^th anniversary in 1920. The HBC was keenly aware of its role in the development of Canada since 1670, and commemorated the event with a variety of special events, re-enactments, and pageants across the western and northern regions of the country. Although the HBC “Historical Exhibit” was not created in time for the 1920 celebrations, the initiative continued, and the Exhibit was opened in the Winnipeg retail store of the HBC in June 1922.

The object of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Historical Exhibit at Winnipeg is to depict by means of relics, pictures, documents, models, etcetera, the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, life in the fur trade, the story of the pioneer settlers, and the customs, dress and industries of the aboriginal tribes. (1921 approved statement, quoted in Hudson’s Bay Company, “Catalogue of Historical Relics,” 1935, 6)

With the cooperation of his employer, the federal Minister of Mines, Harlan I. Smith, an ethnologist at the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa, travelled to Winnipeg in 1921-22 to assist in organizing the Historical Exhibit, selecting objects for display and writing text “to interest visitors.”  The Exhibit’s mandate to depict aboriginal life and culture corresponded well to Smith’s own anthropological work for the federal government.

In 1920-21, he was engaged in fieldwork among the Nuxalk and Tsilqot’in people in the Bella Coola Valley of British Columbia, focusing on the traditional uses of plant and animal materials. For his 1922 fieldwork season, Smith “kindly offered to secure for the Hudson’s Bay Historical Exhibit typical specimens of Indian work in that District.” These objects form an interesting assemblage within the HBC collection, reflecting Smith’s interest in traditional Nuxalk culture and society – objects chosen more for their functional than aesthetic value. This is enhanced by the field notes and visual records Smith obtained at the same time. A pioneer in using film in ethnology, the objects he collected for the HBC Museum Collection are complemented by the still and moving images held today in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. The clear provenance [information about the origin and ownership of an object] and complementary documentation transforms this small collection, assembled to represent everyday life for the Nuxalk people, into another treasure within the HBC Museum Collection.

Rack made of red cedar used to dry food such as berry cakes and fish, for preservation. TMM HBC 1504.

By Dr. Jamie Morton, past Curator of the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection

John Halkett’s visit to British North America came just a decade after his brother-in-law, Lord Selkirk, initiated the Red River resettlement scheme – and the bicentenary of the arrival of the Selkirk settlers is being commemorated in many ways in 2012. There is a variety of objects in the HBC Museum Collection that relate to these formative years of the Red River Settlement, starting with the Halkett collection. Another important group in the HBC Collection relating to this place and time was assembled by William Kempt.