INTERPRETING NATIVE AMERICAN ART AND CULTURE: TRANSFORMATIONS AND CHANGES

Abstract

Approaches in the literature describing Native American art and culture have changed significantly during the 20th century. Cultural and political changes within the Native American world increasingly influence the directions study will take. assertions can be illustrated by reviewing how artifacts from very different geographical areas, the Northwest Coast of North America and northeastern North America, have been reported and studied by explorers, mis sionaries, historians, anthropologists, on the hand, and by American Indians, who see these things not as objects to be coldly studied, classified, and described, but as living, vibrant aspects of their cultures today. concept of one truth, history is being replaced during the 20th century by the acknowledgement of truths and many histo ries which are told from growing number of perspectives. Those seeking to interpret Native American art and culture must investigate rapidly expanding body of literature, which includes an increasing number of publications issued by Native American groups as well as traditional scholarly sources. literature on both Northwest Coast art and the wam pum of the Northeast, the subjects of this discussion, starts with descriptions by early explorers and missionaries. early accounts are vital as they help establish the way things were for particular Native American culture at the time of first contact with Europeans. They constitute the only written record of what may have been purely aboriginal in origin, as distinguished from what has evolved from adapting Euro pean tools, materials, or customs to native culture. (This type of distinction is often immaterial to Native Americans, who point out that all cultures evolve slowly and change rapidly at various points in their histories. That Indians make use of something that is not aboriginal in origin does not make them, or the things they produce, any less Iroquois or Tlingit.) On the Northwest Coast Captain James Cook was of the first to describe what must have been an amazing sight. He said, The houses are decorated with images. are nothing more than the trunks of very large trees . . . with the front carved into human face, the arms and hands cut out upon the sides, and variously painted; so that the whole is truly monstrous figure.1 1801, Marchand commented, But what must astonish most... is to see paintings every where, everywhere sculpture, among nation of hunters.2 early reporters described what they saw, evaluating it from their own ethnocentric perspectives. While observers may have disparaged the style of North west carving, Westerners began collecting it in amazing amounts in the latter half of the 19th century. most fa mous of these collectors was Lt. George Emmons, who col lected for the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, and others. Not only did Emmons collect vast numbers of artifacts, he also provided written explanations of their construction and the role the objects played in society. Emmons' field notes and publications are of the primary sources of informa tion about the ritual use and meaning of Northwest Coast objects. his 1907 classic Chilkat Blanket he explained that a blanket is vehicle for the emblem of clan,3 enunci ating of the basic tenets of Northwest Coast decoration. Emmons recognized the design element as art, saying, In all cases the design illustrates the fundamental principles of art as recognized by the Northwest Coast people, not only in the practice of dissection and distortion ... but in an elaborate system of the ornamentation of the different members or parts of the body, by means of integral forms . . . which have no meaning . . . and must be considered as wholly decora tive in character.4 Emmons' publications were edited for the American Mu seum of Natural History by Franz Boas, whose research and publications set the direction for anthropology for years to come. With George Hunt, Kwakiutl informant, Boas studied the cultures of the Northwest Coast. As early as 1897 he described the decorative art of the Indians of the Pacific Northw st.5 his 1927 publication, Primitive Art, Boas out li ed the various elements represented in Northwest Coast styles, identifying all the animals which may appear as crests. He described the conventions of Northwest Coast art, including discussion of curved lines, the oval or eye pat tern, and the tendency to cover the entire surface with design elements.6 He paid little attention to individual artists, and the symbolic interpretations of Charles Edenshaw, subsequently revered as master artist by others, were disparaged.7 Marius Barbeau, in Totem Poles of the Gitksan, 1929, tressed the individuality of the artist, emphasizing this as pect for the first time in the literature.8 He named individual carvers from 1840 to 1880, briefly assessing their work, giv ing their phratry and the poles they carved. While he placed totem poles into their anthropological contexts, he also talked about carving poles as an art.9 Barbeau followed the litany we find in most anthropological texts today, discussing chronologically the literature on the subject that preceded his work. While Leonhard Adam, in 1936, began to sum up the prin ciples that define the character of Northwest Coast art,10 the major breakthrough happened in 1965 with Bill Holm's North west Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form. Holm stated, These pieces are related to surprising degree in the orga nization and form of their two-dimensional surface decora tion.11 His goal was to define some of th? principles that relate these pieces to each other. Thus form lines and ovoids