Margaret Blackman and Florence Davidson, 1979 (photograph by Anna Franklin)
Nani was aware of numerous gaps in her narrative. When I talked to her on the phone between my infrequent visits to Masset, she would often say, “after you left I remembered lots of things. I wish I could write them down because I forget them.” Subsequent visits in 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981 brought more reminiscences, but undoubtedly there are events and thoughts that she might wish to include which have eluded her memory. Occasionally, too, Nani was unable to remember something in the detail that I would have liked, reminding me quite appropriately, “It wasn’t important to me then; how was I supposed to know that white people might be interested in it years later?”
From time to time, Nani’s mischievous sense of humor crept into our work. Discussing her father’s house where she had spent her childhood, I asked what it was like inside. She retorted that it was five stories, had “spring beds,” and was covered in thick, thick carpeting. “I’m getting crazier than ever—what if you write that down,” she said, dissolving in laughter. I recorded the contexts of all our taping sessions in the daily journal I kept, a practice I have always followed in fieldwork. Later, the journal became invaluable as I tried to remember what the house looked like that June, why Nani recalled this or that on a particular day, or why a certain subject had been sparingly discussed.
Florence Davidson’s narrative is a circumspect one. Though she related to me both off and on tape things she did not wish to appear in print, her recollections by and large are devoid of the petty jealousies and rivalries that are part of the fabric of Masset life. There is little mention of the misdoings of self and others: illicit sexual liaisons (which figure prominently in some native male life histories4), witchcraft, or feuds between families. “I don’t tell everything—what’s no good,” she said. Throughout our work Florence was conscious that the final product was to be a public document, though I imagine she was more concerned about its public status within her own community than in the larger world. This consciousness clearly guided not only what she related but how it was related. This bias may be characteristic of autobiography, regardless of culture. Jelinik, for example, speaking of autobiography in the Western tradition, notes:
Irrespective of their professions or of their differing emphases in subject matter, neither women nor men are likely to explore or reveal painful and intimate memories in their autobiographies…. The admission of intense feelings of hate, love and fear, the disclosure of explicit sexual encounters, or the details of painful psychological experiences are matters on which autobiographers are generally silent. [1980:10, 12]
The division of the narrative into chapters is an artifact of my own thinking, not that of Florence Davidson’s, although I did discuss its organization with her in the summer of 1978, and the chronology closely parallels the traditional life stages distinguished among the Haida. Nani requested that I edit the narrative to “fix it up” and “make it look right.” I rearranged the narrative in chronological order, made certain grammatical and tense changes, and deleted redundancies, but those who know Nani will recognize her style of speaking. A section of the original narrative is presented in the appendix so readers may see its unedited form. Unfortunately, neither the original transcription nor the final edited version can adequately capture Florence Davidson’s personality—the inflection of her words, her accompanying gestures, her sometimes subtle, always gentle humor, which was often turned upon herself. Nani related her life history in English, interspersed with Haida words that I knew, and now and then she repeated an English sentence with its Haida equivalent.
Following my two trips in 1977, I returned twice to visit and work with Nani as the manuscript progressed through stages of completion. In August of 1978 I took with me the completed introductory chapters and rough version of her narrative. As I typed the narrative portions in July I was astounded at the growing list of questions I was amassing. The project had supposedly been completed the preceding summer, but I found I had neglected some basic life-cycle topics: how long mothers typically nursed their children, the significance of menopause for Haida women, the learning of sexual behavior, and others. In addition, I had enumerated questions dealing specifically with Nani’s life history, such as whether the first children of Isabella and Charles Edenshaw had been born in a traditional house and where Isabella and Charles had lived after they were first married. Fortunately, I secured answers to most of my stock of questions during a week’s return to Masset in August of 1978.
With the manuscript complete except for the Discussion and the Afterword, I returned in the summer of 1979 for another week. This time my main purposes were to check the large genealogy I had constructed and to read Nani’s narrative to her. In addition, I sought her reflections on friendship, growing old, the changes she had witnessed, and the people she has admired. In July of 1980 I returned again, this time to work specifically with Nani on Haida kinship, but our tape recordings included some life-history data that have been incorporated into this narrative. My last visit with Nani before the book went to press, in July 1981, resulted in a few corrections and minor additions to the narrative.
ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
A considerable amount of ethnohistorical research both preceded and followed my fieldwork. In earlier trips to the Provincial Archives of British Columbia in Victoria I had surveyed most of the material relating to the nineteenth-century Haida, but had not explored extant twentieth-century materials. During July and August of 1977 and 1978 I researched these materials. Especially significant were two newspapers from the Queen Charlottes, the Queen Charlotte Islander and the Masset Leader, which were published during the second decade of the twentieth century. In addition to presenting local news, the Islander also ran a series of lengthy articles on the Haida during 1911, 1912, and 1913, written by Charles Harrison, a former missionary. Perusal of materials relating to Thomas Deasy, Indian agent at Masset from 1910 to 1924, revealed documents written by a Haida. Alfred Adams, Florence Davidson’s uncle, carried on a regular correspondence with Deasy from 1924, when the latter left the Queen Charlottes, until the time of Deasy’s death in 1936. Deasy’s reports to the Minister of Indian Affairs, published in the annual reports from 1911 to 1920, present a detailed and generally sympathetic portrait of the Masset community.
From research conducted at the Church Missionary Society archives in 1972, I had compiled all the pertinent correspondence written by Masset missionaries from 1876 to 1913; some of this material has contributed to the present volume. The early marriage and baptismal records for St. John’s Anglican Church at Masset, housed in the diocese headquarters in Prince Rupert, provided marriage dates for several of Florence Davidson’s relatives and ancestors, documented Isabella Edenshaw’s births prior to Florence, and pinpointed the baptismal dates for Florence and her sisters.
Ethnohistorical and ethnographic data have been drawn together to form the traditional and historic picture of Haida women in chapter 2. Additional data from more recent historical documents and from my own field journals are interspersed with Florence’s narrative, both to lend a broader perspective to her account and to present a contemporary non-native view of the Haida.
1. Lives: An Anthropological Approach to Biography, which appeared just as this book was going to press, provides an introduction “to the full historical and conceptual development of the life-history