Faces of the North: The Ethnographic Photography of John Honigmann

By Bryan Cummins

John J. Honigmann was an anthropologist of rare energy and talent. In addition to writing numerous books and dozens of articles, he is the only anthropologist whose research and field experience extend across the three northern culture areas of Canada – the Western Subarctic, the Eastern Subarctic and the Arctic. Faces of the North presents a record of exceptionally high quality photographs depicting this extraordinary anthropological journey.

Cultural anthropologist Bryan Cummins has compiled a written and photographic account of Honigmann’s ethnographic work from the 1940s to the 1960s. The result is a stunning ethnohistorical account of Canada’s First Nations in the mid-20th century. The author also provides an overview of northern First Nations (Algonkians, Dene and Inuit), a history of Canadian anthropology and the sub-discipline of ethnographic photography, and a biographical account of Dr. J.J. Honigmann, the acknowledged pre-eminent chronicler of the cultural diversity of Canada’s north. His superb photographs, many of which are found throughout Faces of the North, are a rich treasure of ethnographic images depicting Inuit and First Nations culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: May 28, 2004
• ISBN: 9781459721319

Bryan Cummins

Bryan Cummins is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research among Canadian First Nations, particularly in the Eastern Subarctic. His education consists of a BA (Honours) in history and anthropology from Trent University, an MA in education from Concordia University and an MA and Ph.D. in anthropology from McMaster University. He has taught at Trent University, McMaster University, the University of Western Ontario, Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of Guelph.

Book preview

Faces of the North

The Ethnographic Photography of John Honigmann

Bryan Cummins

Copyright ® 2004 Bryan Cummins

All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher.

Published by Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc.

P.O. Box 95, Station O, Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8

www.naturalheritagebooks.com

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Cummins, Bryan David, 1953-

Faces of the north : the ethnographic photography of John Honigmann / Bryan Cummins.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-896219-79-9

1. Native peoples—Canada, Northern—Pictorial works. 2. Photography in ethnology—Canada, Northern. 3. Honigmann, John—Contributions in photography. I. Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. II. Title.

TR140.H65C8 2004  305.8′970719′0222  C2002-904874-5

Back and Front Cover: All photographs unless otherwise identified are courtesy of the Honigmann family Front

Cover: Top left photograph courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution

Cover and text design by Derek Chung Tiam Fook

Edited by John Parry & Jane Gibson

Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Book Printing, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc. acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Association for the Export of Canadian Books.

To John and Irma Honigmann’s children,

Karen Schaefer and David Honigmann,

in appreciation of their generosity and patience,

and to Richard Preston,

in appreciation of his support and encouragement

Contents

Preface

One  The Canadian North

Two  Anthropology, Ethnology and the Canadian North

Three  Ethnographic Photography: History, Hierarchy, Honigmann

Four  The Ethnographic Photography of John Honigmann

Attawapiskat

Frobisher Bay (Iqualuit)

Great Whale

Inuvik

Kaska

Slave

Five  The Evolution of an Ethnographer: John Honigmann

Six  Northern First Nations: Algonkians, Dene and Inuit

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Preface

In the autumn of 1990, I was working at the National Anthropological Archives (NAA), part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, conducting research on the ethnographic work of John J. Honigmann (1914-1977), who had worked in Attawapiskat in the 1940s and 1950s. My own work at the time focused on Cree land tenure and use—a topic that Honigmann himself had examined. In 1990, I was interested more in what he had to say about Cree hunting, fishing, and trapping practices than about any other aspect of his life and work. This was soon to change as I delved into the Honigmann Papers in the NAA.

During my investigation of Honigmann’s files, a number of things immediately impressed me. One was the sheer volume of material that he had accumulated over the years. The NAA, it turned out, had 72.5 feet of shelf space devoted to his papers. As his wife and children had retained some of his material, the NAA’s holdings were not exhaustive. What also fascinated me was the extent of his ethnographic interests, which ranged from the Arctic to Pakistan. Like his discipline, he was most eclectic. Few anthropologists have worked in such diverse cultures.

But what I found most intriguing was the photographs. There were literally hundreds of them, almost all of exquisite quality and riveting interest. John Honigmann is familiar to most anthropologists, particularly those who work in the north, but the majority of them are probably unaware of the ethnographic images that he acquired over his thirty-three years as an ethnographer. A few photographs have appeared in a couple of his many books but represent only a fraction of those housed at the NAA.

The memory of the photographs stayed with me as I finished my graduate work at McMaster University and embarked on my own career. Flying home from a conference in 1994, I resolved to return one day to the NAA and try to acquire as many of the photographs as possible and have them published, along with a brief biography of Honigmann. To that end, I began making plans.

Assisted by my PhD supervisor, Dr. Richard Preston (who had been Honigmann’s student), I established contact with the ethnographer’s children, David Honigmann and Karen Schaefer. To my great surprise and pleasure, they had several hundred photos that their father had taken on his many trips to the Canadian Subarctic and Arctic between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s. They generously offered not only to show me the photographs, but to lend them to me until they could be published. If arrangements could be made for funding the research, we agreed that David, his wife, Betty, Karen and I would meet in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Honigmann had lived and taught from the early 1950s on and where David and Betty now live. I now felt that I had no choice but to go through with my plans to publish the photographs.

I made another trip to Washington, DC, where I went through Honigmann’s photos at the NAA. Later, I flew to Chapel Hill to meet with David, Karen and Betty. Together, we poured over hundreds of photographs and were able to determine locations and dates of many of the images. In some cases, even names of individuals were remembered. Again, as I had done at the Smithsonian, I selected a few dozen for possible publication. David, Karen, and Betty kindly let me take them home with me until I could find a publisher for them. Their generosity was overwhelming.

It was an exhilarating experience going through the photographs housed at the NAA and in the possession of Honigmann’s children. Honigmann was able to capture for posterity the richness and diversity of Canadian First Nations at mid-twentieth century. How can one not be moved by the picture of the Cree man in his rabbit-skin coat, with icicles on his beard, preparing his snowshoes, or of the young Inuk beside the komatic (dogsled) carrying the doll, ready to embark on a journey? What stories these photographs tell. The days of rabbit-skin coats and dog-drawn komatik are, for the most part, long gone, but Honigmann has captured and saved these and other images forever. They are cultural treasures.

Needless to say, I had to make some tough decisions selecting photos. I still recall one intended for the retain pile that somehow never made it back to Canada with me. Taken in Attawapiskat during the 1940s, it showed a canoe with a sail being taken along by the breeze. While in Attawapiskat in 1990, I learned from an elderly gentleman that people had sometimes equipped their boats with sails, especially when they ventured out into the bay. Honigmann had captured one such vessel in a photo. Despite my excitement about this treasure, it gave way to what I later thought was a more compelling image. Years later, I regret that decision. The fact that an elder had mentioned something that Honigmann had captured on film four-and-a-half decades earlier was significant. It remains for somebody else to go through the Honigmann photos and find that image for publication.

Funding to assist the author with the project was generously provided by the American Philosophical Society (through the Phillips Fund for Native American Research) and by the Professional Development Fund of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). I am most grateful to them and to Natural Heritage Books for making the photographs available to a wider audience.

Native cultural areas within Canada.

1

The Canadian North

Canada is a northern country. This fact has shaped our history, our politics, our culture and our national identity. Canada, we are led to believe, is the true north, strong and free. However, a very large segment of our population lives within a couple of hundred kilometres of the American border, seemingly longing for warmer climates. In the case of southern Ontario and Quebec, where millions live, this concentration of population is considerably south of the renowned 49th parallel that separates us from our neighbour. What, then, constitutes the north?

North, of course, has different implications for different people. It is often said that Torontonians think of north as anywhere north of Steeles (its northern border). T.R. Berger states that North, in strictly geographical terms, refers to the immense hinterland of Canada that lies beyond the narrow strip of the country in which most Canadians live and work.¹ He adds that the term generally refers to the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory.

Culture Areas

For anthropologists, however, the definition of north is linked to the concept of culture area which, in turn, helps them make sense of the diversity of cultures to be found around the globe. First used by Otis Mason in the late 19th century, the term refers to parts of the world in which people share most of the elements of culture. These include related languages, technology, patterns of kinship, economic systems, political organizations and ideologies, as well as environmental conditions. The concept rests upon a couple of factors. One is that there is regional distribution of food resources. In the Canadian context, examples such as the abundance of salmon on the west coast, bison on the plains and barren ground caribou in the Arctic may come to mind. Each of these resources necessitates specific strategies in terms of both technology and social organization. The pursuit of bison is not the same as the hunting of caribou or the catching of salmon. Therefore, one might expect that differing regional patterns of subsistence to develop.

One of Honigmann’s Inuvik photographs. Note the typical boreal scenery in the background. Photo courtesy of The National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

A second factor is that human societies do not live in isolation. Neighbouring groups interact with and affect each other, especially when they share the same area. As a consequence, there are distinctly area-based patterns of culture. This is not to suggest that culture areas are homogeneous, for the groups within each area remain unique, but just that key similarities are shared within the culture area.

Aboriginal culture areas are not static, frozen in anthropological time. An essential element of culture is its dynamism. The archaeological record in Canada demonstrates population shifts, environmental changes and social, technological and ideological innovations both prior to and after European arrival in the New World. The widespread assumption that New World societies were static prior to the arrival of Europeans is erroneous.

There are six culture areas to be found within Canada. These are the [North] Eastern Woodlands, the Plains, the Plateau, the Northwest Coast, and—the subject of this book—the Subarctic and the Arctic. These designations have nothing to do with contemporary political delineations. In Canada, the Eastern Woodlands comprises southern Ontario and Quebec and the Maritime provinces, reaching into the northeastern United States. Its First Nations peoples include the six Iroquois nations, the Mi’kmaw, Malecite and Abenaki peoples. The Plains culture area extends from the east flank of the Rockies and southward from the North Saskatchewan River to Texas. It includes the southern portions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. This area is home to the Assiniboine, Blackfoot, Plains Cree and Métis. The Plateau culture area between the Coast Mountains and the Rockies is sometimes called the Cordillera. First Nations there include the Kutenai, Okanogan, Lilloet, and Chilcotin First Nations. The Northwest Coast extends from southern Alaska to northern California. Within Canada, this area had the densest and most sedentary populations. It is home to the Nootka, the Kwakiutl and the Haida, among others.

While there is no anthropological designation of the the north as such, most anthropologists would consider the Subarctic and Arctic to be the north. It is these two culture areas to which we now direct our attention.

The Subarctic

In terms of size, the Subarctic is the largest culture area within North America and is typically divided into the Eastern and Western Subarctic, primarily because of linguistic affiliation. The Eastern Subarctic was home exclusively to the Algonkian (also spelled Algonquian) speakers, who are also found outside the Subarctic, while, in pre-contact times, the Western Subarctic was home to Athapaskan speakers or Dene people. However, there are also Dene speakers far outside the Western Subarctic, most notably in the American Southwest, home of the Apache and Navaho.

The Subarctic stretches from Alaska eastward across the Yukon and Northwest