A Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas: A Rejoinder to Carlson and McHalsie (2004)

Abstract

I first wish to correct any misunderstanding of my “fabricating quotations,” as charged by Keith Carlson and Sonny McHalsie (106[2]:431). In my original submission to AA, I used single-quote marks to emphasize a cliche (‘let the facts speak for themselves’) and to paraphrase a sentiment of the authors (‘anthropologists mainly pursue their own interests’). Although I explicitly state at the beginning of the passages in question that I am paraphrasing, the editors changed single-quote marks to double-quote marks in the published version, potentially causing confusion. Nonetheless, I take responsibility if readers misinterpreted my intent because of the ambiguity of such judicious use of quotation marks to delineate a paraphrased statement. This typographic correction does not alter the substance of my critique of Carlson’s view that the Atlas is “a body of relatively unprocessed information,” which allows for “distinguishing data from interpretation” (p. 2). I argue that little of the Atlas does not involve interpretation. Interpretation is involved in the selection of materials to be included, the thematic context given to each chapter, and the editorial hand of the authors who reconstitute and retell Sto:lo stories into an apparently objective text. The Atlas spins largely conventional, familiar Western historiography and cartography with a neat narrative inversion of making Coast Salish people the agents of historical and cultural reference, framing Europeans as newcomers to Sto:lo place and history. Although the familiarity of this narrative framework may be part of an objective of challenging conventional and often ethnocentric views of native history, in scholarly or legal contexts, which scrutinize detail and variability more closely than might a general reader, ignoring these issues leaves serious problems of interpretation unresolved. Their second critique concerns my observation that McHalsie views anthropologists’ goals as different from Native ones. My perspective is based on McHalsie’s problematization of the work of Franz Boas, Charles Hill-Tout,