Wilson Duff
Encyclopedia
Wilson Duff was a Canadian archaeologist, cultural anthropologist, and museum curator.
He is remembered for his research on First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast, notably the Tsimshian
, Gitxsan
, and Haida, and especially for his interest in their plastic arts, such as totem poles. Along with Bill Holm
and Harry Hawthorn
, he was one of a small coterie of academics in the 1950s and '60s who worked to bring Northwest Coast art to international prominence.
(UBC) in 1949 and a master's in anthropology in 1951 from the University of Washington
in Seattle, where he studied with Erna Gunther
. His master's thesis was based on fieldwork with the Stó:lõ
Salish people of the Fraser River
in B.C. He collaborated with Charles E. Borden in 1952 to develop the Borden System
for archeological site designations. He served as Curator of Anthropology at the British Columbia Provincial Museum (later known as the Royal British Columbia Museum
or RBCM) in Victoria
from 1950 to 1965, at which point he joined the faculty at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC. He was a founding member of the British Columbia Museums Association, and in the 1950s worked to preserve the last remaining totem poles on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands
).
In 1958, Duff and his assistant curator Michael Kew brokered an agreement with the Gitksan community of Kitwancool (a.k.a. Gitanyow), arranging for some of the village's totem poles to be removed to the RBCM for preservation, in exchange for replicas and for the publication of the Kitwancool people's histories, territories, and laws. During this project, Duff and Kew worked through the part-Tlingit interpreter for the Gitksan, Constance Cox
.
In 1958-59, while he was a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia
, he worked alongside the anthropologist and folklorist Marius Barbeau
in Ottawa on a Canada Council
Senior Fellowship, organizing Barbeau and William Beynon
's massive fieldnotes and other material on the Tsimshianic-speaking peoples (Tsimshian
, Gitksan, and Nisga'a
). Duff became a champion of the importance of the Barbeau-Beynon corpus, though he distanced himself from Barbeau's more controversial theories on the recent peopling of the Americas.
In 1960 he did fieldwork in Gitksan and Nisga'a communities, and in 1969 he served in court as an expert witness in the Nisga'a land-claims case Calder vs. Attorney-General of B.C., the famous "Calder
case."
In his later years he was consumed with studying Haida art in all its formalistic and cosmological complexity -- taking in structuralist
and psychoanalytical
insights -- an endeavour which he undertook with his friend the Haida artist Bill Reid
but which never resulted in a comprehensive published articulation. His immersion in the Haida thought-world was so total that, as he wrote in the early 1970s, colleagues "are concerned about my sanity and reputation."
His students included the anthropologist Marjorie Halpin
.
He committed suicide in his faculty office with a shotgun on August 8, 1976. The subsequent death of a woman who left letters on the doorstep of poet Phyllis Webb led to the creation of the memorial poetry sequence "Wilson's Bowl" in 1980.
He is remembered for his research on First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast, notably the Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
, Gitxsan
Gitxsan
Gitxsan are an indigenous people whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English...
, and Haida, and especially for his interest in their plastic arts, such as totem poles. Along with Bill Holm
Bill Holm (art historian)
Bill Holm is a U.S. artist, author and art historian specializing in the visual arts of Northwest Coast Native Americans as well as a practitioner and teacher of the Northwest Coast art style...
and Harry Hawthorn
Harry Hawthorn
Harry Bertram Hawthorn, OC was a Canadian anthropologist and museum curator. He is well known for his work with the coastal First Nations of British Columbia....
, he was one of a small coterie of academics in the 1950s and '60s who worked to bring Northwest Coast art to international prominence.
Biography
Duff obtained a B.A. from the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(UBC) in 1949 and a master's in anthropology in 1951 from the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
in Seattle, where he studied with Erna Gunther
Erna Gunther
Erna Gunther was an American anthropologist who taught for many years at the University of Washington in Seattle.Gunther's work on ethnobotany is still extensively consulted today.-Biography:...
. His master's thesis was based on fieldwork with the Stó:lõ
Stó:lo
The Sto:lo , alternately written as Stó:lō, Stó:lô or Stó:lõ and historically as Staulo or Stahlo, and historically known and commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish, are a group of First Nations peoples inhabiting the Fraser Valley of...
Salish people of the Fraser River
Fraser River
The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...
in B.C. He collaborated with Charles E. Borden in 1952 to develop the Borden System
Borden System
The Borden System is an archaeological numbering system used throughout Canada and by the Canadian Museum System to track archaeological sites and the artefacts that come from them.It was created by Charles E...
for archeological site designations. He served as Curator of Anthropology at the British Columbia Provincial Museum (later known as the Royal British Columbia Museum
Royal British Columbia Museum
The Royal British Columbia Museum is a natural history and human history museum in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, founded in 1886. The "Royal" title was approved by Queen Elizabeth II and bestowed by HRH Prince Philip in 1987, to coincide with a Royal tour that year...
or RBCM) in Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
from 1950 to 1965, at which point he joined the faculty at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC. He was a founding member of the British Columbia Museums Association, and in the 1950s worked to preserve the last remaining totem poles on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands
Queen Charlotte Islands
Haida Gwaii , formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north, and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of...
).
In 1958, Duff and his assistant curator Michael Kew brokered an agreement with the Gitksan community of Kitwancool (a.k.a. Gitanyow), arranging for some of the village's totem poles to be removed to the RBCM for preservation, in exchange for replicas and for the publication of the Kitwancool people's histories, territories, and laws. During this project, Duff and Kew worked through the part-Tlingit interpreter for the Gitksan, Constance Cox
Constance Cox (interpreter)
Constance Cox was a Canadian schoolteacher of part Tlingit ancestry who lived and taught with the Gitksan First Nation in northwestern British Columbia and served as interpreter for several anthropologists....
.
In 1958-59, while he was a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
, he worked alongside the anthropologist and folklorist Marius Barbeau
Marius Barbeau
Charles Marius Barbeau, , also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthropology...
in Ottawa on a Canada Council
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown Corporation established in 1957 to act as an arts council of the government of Canada, created to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. It funds Canadian artists and...
Senior Fellowship, organizing Barbeau and William Beynon
William Beynon
William Beynon was a hereditary chief from the Tsimshian nation and an oral historian who served as ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists....
's massive fieldnotes and other material on the Tsimshianic-speaking peoples (Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
, Gitksan, and Nisga'a
Nisga'a
The Nisga’a , often formerly spelled Nishga and spelled in the Nisga’a language as Nisga’a, are an Indigenous nation or First Nation in Canada. They live in the Nass River valley of northwestern British Columbia. Their name comes from a combination of two Nisga’a words: Nisk’-"top lip" and...
). Duff became a champion of the importance of the Barbeau-Beynon corpus, though he distanced himself from Barbeau's more controversial theories on the recent peopling of the Americas.
In 1960 he did fieldwork in Gitksan and Nisga'a communities, and in 1969 he served in court as an expert witness in the Nisga'a land-claims case Calder vs. Attorney-General of B.C., the famous "Calder
Frank Arthur Calder
Frank Arthur Calder, was a Nisga'a politician in Canada, the first Status Indian to be elected to any legislature in Canada....
case."
In his later years he was consumed with studying Haida art in all its formalistic and cosmological complexity -- taking in structuralist
Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
and psychoanalytical
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
insights -- an endeavour which he undertook with his friend the Haida artist Bill Reid
Bill Reid
William Ronald Reid, OBC was a Canadian artist whose works included jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and painting. His work is featured on the Canadian $20 banknote.-Biography:...
but which never resulted in a comprehensive published articulation. His immersion in the Haida thought-world was so total that, as he wrote in the early 1970s, colleagues "are concerned about my sanity and reputation."
His students included the anthropologist Marjorie Halpin
Marjorie Halpin
Marjorie Halpin was a U.S.-Canadian anthropologist best known for her work on Northwest Coast art and culture, especially the Tsimshian and Gitksan peoples.She earned an M.A. from George Washington University in 1963...
.
He committed suicide in his faculty office with a shotgun on August 8, 1976. The subsequent death of a woman who left letters on the doorstep of poet Phyllis Webb led to the creation of the memorial poetry sequence "Wilson's Bowl" in 1980.
Selected works
- (ed.) (1959) Histories, Territories, and Laws of the Kitwancool. (Anthropology in British Columbia Memoir no. 4.) Victoria, B.C.: Royal British Columbia Museum.
- (1964) "Contributions of Marius Barbeau to West Coast Ethnology." Anthropologica (new series), vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 63-96.
Sources
- Abbott, Donald N. (ed.) (1981) The World Is as Sharp as a Knife: An Anthology in Honour of Wilson Duff. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum.
- Nowry, Laurence (1995) Marius Barbeau, Man of Mana: A Biography. Toronto: NC Press.