Smetzer, Megan Research Fellow, Canadian Museum of Civilization
Beading Beyond the Alaskan Border My paper expands my PhD thesis research, which I presented at the last conference, to examine the diffusion of beadwork along the Northwest Coast in the 19th century. Though scholars are increasingly working through the art historical and anthropological categories of value imposed upon objects of indigenous manufacture, many academics produce histories that are constrained by imposed national borders rather than examining those relationships, often indigenous, that developed and thrived across them. My new research is framed by the issues surrounding travel and diaspora, whether individual, cultural, or material. I focus in part on the life of Anisalaga, or Mary Ebbetts Hunt, Gaanax.ádi from Taant’a Kwáan, who married a Hudson’s Bay Company factor and eventually settled at Fort Rupert, British Columbia in Kwakwaka’wakw territory. Known for having introduced Chilkat weaving to the region (as well as being the mother of Franz Boas’ collaborator, George Hunt), it is my belief that she may have also introduced beadwork.
