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    Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain
    Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain
    Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain
    Ebook186 pages50 minutes

    Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain

    By Dolly McRae

    ()

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    About this ebook

    While I was researching my children’s family heritage at the University of British Columbia to my amazement I found over 80 art objects that originated from Village Island that were commissioned by Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain. He needed the art objects for the performers to wear during the obligatory grand feasts that he held before becoming a Chief. Finding Harry Mountain’s art objects is allowing his family to reconstruct cultural and family history. I began to find out who Harry Mountain and his family were, when and how the art objects were used, how many pieces he owned, how he could afford to accumulate so many art objects; the number of feasts he hosted; his main crest; which family members inherit the art objects, and so forth. In the end, I was able to find out why so many of his art objects were in museums - they were spirited away some time in 1952. The family members had no idea where and why Harry’s paraphanalia disappeared.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateJun 9, 2017
    ISBN9781387029075
    Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain

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      Book preview

      Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain - Dolly McRae

      Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain

      Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain--ebook version

      Copyright © 2017 by Dolly McRae

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review. For more information, please contact AnnieLWattsBOOKS.

      AnnieLWattsBOOKS

      7121 Pacific Rim Highway

      Port Alberni, BC

      Canada V9Y 8Y4

      www.annielwatts.com

      ISBN 978-1-387-02907-5

      Edited and typeset by Annie Watts

      Photos Courtesy UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Dolly McRae; U’mista Cultural Society; and the Mountain Family.

      Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain By Dolly McRae

      Have fun with this great family story.

      Read to your children.

      ALW Publishing

      I would like to dedicate this book to my loving husband Kenneth and my amazing family. I did this research out of great love and respect for our family that originated from Village Island.

      Dolly McRae, Chief Lian, Ba Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Canada

      Acknowledgements

      I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family and friends who have supported my efforts for many years. I would also like to thank all the people who host my readings and those who wrote great reviews about this book.

      Many thanks to the staff members at the Museum of Anthropology at University of British Columbia, U’mista Cultural Center, and the Mountain and Watts families for helping with the images of Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain art objects.

      Introduction

      While I was researching my children’s family heritage at the University of British Columbia for a paper entitled Resurrecting the Dead Duck Reconstruting Family History Through the Use of Art Objects (Collier and Tchopik), to my amazement I found over 80 art objects that originated from Village Island that were commissioned by Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain. He needed the art objects for the performers to wear during the obligatory grand feasts that he held before becoming a Chief. Finding Harry Mountain’s art objects is allowing his family to reconstruct cultural and family history. I began to find out who Harry Mountain and his family were, when and how the art objects were used, how many pieces he owned, how he could afford to accumulate so many art objects; the number of feasts he hosted; his main crest; which family members inherit the art objects, and so forth. In the end, I was able to find out why so many of his art objects were in museums - they were spirited away some time in 1952. The family members had no idea where and why Harry’s paraphanalia disappeared. Forty years later, on March 6, 1992, a few elders and the Mountain family met at the U’mista Cultural Center to discuss Harry Mountain’s status as Hereditary Chief of Village Island. See Appendix #2 for a list of attendees. They all confirmed that Harry Mountain was indeed Hereditary Chief whose name was Nega’ (Mountain) and Na’kapandzilas (Ten Times Over).

      Dolly McRae, Ba Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Canada. Dolly’s Gitksan Chief name is Lian, and Dolly’s Clan is Fireweed.

      Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain

      Young Harry Mountain (sitting) and Moses Alfred (standing) Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain collection. Courtesy U’mista Cultrual Society, Alert Bay, BC, Canada

      Hereditary Chief Harry Mountain of Mamalelequala (The Real People) had two noble names: Nega’ (Mountain) and Na’kapandzilas (Ten Times Over). In a census completed in 1985, Harry Mountain is listed as being Wi’umasgam Mamalikala na’mima. Source: Jimmy Sewid, Alvin Alfred, and Axu Alfred, shared via Wedlidi Speck’s private files. U’mista Cultural Center.

      As I reviewed some scholarly information I came across Dr. Michael Ames’, Director of the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, reference to a study on the role of Museums in American anthropology (Collier and Tschopik, Jr.). In that study they concluded that the discipline of material cultural research had become a proverbial dead duck! That around 1920, academia focused more on social and behavioural sciences. Nancy Destreich Lurie added that some anthropologists ended their careers without ever entering a Museum (Lurie). Dr. Ames explained that this was due to insufficient data on the cultural objects, and that Museums were not conducive to research. There was an absence of theoretical issues in material cultural studies (Ames). He said that Museums have as their audience the public, and as such, are vulnerable to criticism while academics are responsible only to their peers and to funding agencies. I would agree with the last statement, except that in 1985 at the University of British Columbia, several Native students enrolled in Anthropology courses with the intention of graduating from Museum studies. Native people began to read what anthropologists wrote about them and questioned the material. I believe the reason Native students enrolled was to learn about themselves and to model their future from the past (Ames).

      Learning about our history proved demanding for Native

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