Nass River Indians (Reconstruction)

At this point in the film the idea that the culture was vanishing would have been well-established, and thus the next sequence of shots described in the catalog follow logically both in terms of theme and geographical movement. The catalogue’s reference to scenes of totem pole villages corresponds both to existing shots “up a river, back from the sea” to Angede, “ancient town of the Wolf tribe” where “our explorers” uncover a totem monument “deep in the tangled growth,” and to the equally “old” village of Geetiks, which is “still the home of the Eagle people” [SS 8-16]. By this time, it is becoming increasingly clear that the protagonists—and with them, the audience—are not only moving upstream and back- ward in time, but in doing so are also moving from civilization back to nature. Drawing on the deeply imperialist and still familiar metaphor-concept of exploration, this regression is charted in the gradual movement upstream from occupied coastal villages where “civilization is overtaking the redman” [FM 35] to what are presented as increasingly overgrown inland villages where nature is in the process of reclaiming what still survives from a seemingly earlier time.

It is in this natural world that the film situates the Indian as both racial and cultural group. For one thing, the sequence of shots relating to the Eagle people now in Saving the Sagas would have appeared at this point in the original film and established the idea that Native culture was fading, if only by virtue of what remnants were left. In the village of the Eagle people, the accompanying intertitles state, “the craft of the totem carver survives” [SS 17], “the Eagle squaws still know the measures of the old potlatch dances” [SS 27], and “the Eagle chief holds to the old rites” [SS 21]. Appearing here as well is the shot of the latter, prophetically “chanting his glories on the site of his grave” [SS 24-26]. Thus there is resonance to the earlier suggestion that the shots of women performing potlatch dances were intended as a counterpoint to the cannery scenes of Native women performing in “the white man’s culture” [FM 27]. Primitivized in terms of the passion that is conventionally used to distinguish women from their more rational male counterparts, the Aboriginal woman was represented here in her natural state as the essentialized bearer of a culture facing extinction.¹

The catalogue description makes it clear that this sequence of shots of the villages of Angede and Geetiks was followed in turn by that of Barbeau and MacMillan “saving” their songs and music [SS 33-41], and by reel three of the movie, which contained both the demonstration of lahal playing now in Saving the Sagas [SS 42-47] and the reenactment of a medicine-man performing a cure that appears at the conclusion of Fish and Medicine Men [FM 60-67].² Reel three may have also included the story, now in Saving the Sagas, of the chief whose conversion to Christianity forced him to choose one wife from among his three [SS 50-58]. The only series of shots in either Saving the Sagas or Fish and Medicine Men unaccounted for at this point, the story fits, albeit awkwardly, into the vague category described in the catalogue as “many other favourite pastimes of these Indians.” In this connection, it is noteworthy as well that Barbeau’s captioned photographs from the trip reveal that, like the shots of MacMillan and Barbeau recording songs, of lahal playing, and of the medicine-man cure, this footage was actually shot in front of the cottage he stayed in that summer at Arrandale [Figure 5].³ Perhaps he thought it reasonable at this point in the filming to focus on his efforts to record songs and music and to film specific activities, the ethnographic imperative of his work situated elsewhere in the film’s narrative. Certainly, the story of the chief’s quandary is in keeping with this idea: it is a dramatization of the events that gave rise to one of the most favored songs Barbeau and MacMillan recorded that year, the chief’s response to the angry gossip that followed his choice of wife, aptly titled “What Are You Talking About? (Haguhlaen).”⁴

On the other hand, the dramatized events themselves suggest another, perhaps more appropriate spot for the sequence, one that places the dramatization firmly into the narrative of the film. That spot lies in the larger sequence devoted to Kincolith, immediately following the second reference to missionary activity in the village and the intertitle, “But the Church Army now spreads Christian salva- tion along the Coast” [SS 48]. According to Barbeau [1933: l09], Frank Bolton, the Eagle chief in the film, was the last of Nisga’a chiefs to convert to Christianity, the decision prompting his move downstream to the missionary village of Kincolith from Geetiks, where he had remained with his three wives after “a craze” of conversions moved everyone else to the mission town in the 1880s. The reenactment of one of the consequences of his conversion—his adoption of monogamy—thus follows logically on the scene devoted to Kincolith as the site of “Christian salvation”; it could even be argued that the inclusion of the story necessitated this second reference to missionary activity in the village—that the scenes are, in fact, part of one sequence in the narrative. Significantly, this is how they appear in Saving the Sagas, the cause and effect relationship between them introducing the note of patriarchal humor that comes with his attempt at redemption—his rejection of all three wives in favor of a “young Hutsini beauty” [SS 48-58].⁵

Figure 5 “Dr. Watson and Mr. Gunn taking moving pictures of Indian life in front of my cottage at Arrandale.” Caption by Marius Barbeau, ethnologist at the National Museum of Canada, 1927. (Canadian Museum of Civilization, no. 1-9 (1927), Marius Barbeau Collection).

Although unidentified as such, the sequence is also one of what appear to be a number of dramatizations related to the songs and chants recorded that summer. The introductory intertitle to Nass River Indians underscores this, by identifying “the vanishing culture, the rites and songs and dances” as the things Barbeau and MacMillan set out to record. In other words, considering Nass River Indians as a whole, the rites and songs and dances emerge as the three major components of the movie, all of them depicted as rapidly disappearing. Thus the scenes filmed at Kincolith depicting Natives converted to Christianity become the foil for later scenes of what are represented in contrast as “ancient,” “traditional” or “old” religious practices.⁶ And the dances and chants, most of which were performed by Frank Bolton and Robert Pearl—both in the field, so to speak, and in front of Barbeau’s cottage at Arrandale—are clearly intended to be understood in relation not only to the Christian Army band, but also to the earlier scenes of “modern” life in the cannery bungalows. The latter also contain references to music: young men listening to “radio jazz,” the young woman play- ing a popular tune on the keyboard. The shot of Frank Bolton singing to a cradled baby [FM 35-39, 44-45], which clearly belongs with the others of children in the bungalow camps, should also be mentioned here. Loitering in front of a bungalow with a group of men, Bolton even performs a little jig viewers would probably not associate with dance at all were it not for the introductory intertitle to the shot, which reads, “And the popular song has won the flappers of the Nass” [FM 40, 42].

In this way the body of the film acts as a protracted dramatization of the idea that an authentic Nisga’a culture was disappearing, the sequence of shots of Barbeau and MacMillan recording songs and chants acting as its culmination. The latter sequence, which comes at the end of reel two, also gains significance in light of the fact that contemporary documents connected with the first showings of the movie refer only to two reels of film.⁷ Reel three, it seems, was not originally regarded as part of the film, despite evidence that it was produced at the same time, deposited in the museum along with the other reels, and later listed in the collection as part of Nass River Indians. The shortest of the reels, described in the museum’s 1933 catalogue as showing “pictures of the games and many other favourite pastimes of these Indians, and a medicine-man performing a cure,” it may simply contain extra scenes that were intended for the film at one point, but were not included. The sequence of shots devoted to lahal, “the gambling guessing game” [SS 42-47], for example, can be thematically related to the reel-two intertitle, “Kincolith sports more boardwalk than Atlantic City” [FM 49], the last intertitle in the sequence, “It’s just the Indian version of the white man’s old ‘shell game”‘ [SS 46], thus sustaining it as a joke based on Atlantic City’s association with gaming, amusements and recreation.⁸ Perhaps the awkwardness of the transition to the next sequence in reel two ultimately prevented its inclusion, or perhaps there was not enough time to include any of the scenes that ended up in reel three; certainly, there is ample evidence that the production of the film was rushed, Barbeau adding some scenes, among them the carving sequence, very late in the editing process.⁹

Coincidental with this is the fact that the scenes in reel three mark a break in what is otherwise a complex and coherent narrative culminating in the shots of MacMillan and Barbeau making phonograph recordings. This climax is firmly established as such when the latter sequence, which begins with an intertitle and shots of the two men working on a song with Bolton and Tsimshian interpreter William Beynon [Gwisge’en; Figure. 6], concludes with footage of Albert Allen (Gadim Gaidoo’o of Gitanmaax) and of Bolton and his daughter singing into a phonograph, the intertitle reading, “The cannery cans the salmon. The camera cans the dances and now the phonograph cans the songs. Everything canned but the Indians!” [SS 39, Figure 7].¹⁰ In doing so, it represents the film for viewers in relation to this moment, the inclusion of the word “now” in the intertitle serving to align the film’s narrative chronologically to this point and thus to establish the sequence as the culmination of the story. It also recollects the narrative thematically for viewers by tying the thirteen-intertitle section devoted to the cannery at the beginning of the film to the subsequent scenes of dancing—now redescribed as records of a movie camera’s use—and of wax-cylinder recording. “Tin cans and machinery—both symbols of the white man’s culture” [FM 27], is recalled as well, the emphatic repetition of the imagery it established in the cannery sequence underscoring the thematic continuity.

Figure 6 Frame enlargement from Saving the Sagas (SS 34). (From left) Frank Bolton, William Beynon (Gwisge’en), Marius Barbeau and Ernest Macmillan recording songs. (Reproduced by per- mission of Covitec Inc.).

Of course, the intertitle also suggests that the development of such technology has made the science of the modern ethnographer possible, his use of the recent technology “now” at his disposal allowing him to preserve “everything… but the Indians.” This is striking in the degree to which it calls up Clifford’s sobering description of salvage ethnography as a project in which “the other is lost in disintegrating time and space, but saved in the text.” The fact that it does so by way of a pun on the verb “to can,” however, effectively indicates that sobriety was not the aim here. In contrast, the intertitle is in keeping with the overall jocular tone of the film: the visual pun signalled when a shot of the cannery foreman clapping his hands is prefaced by the intertitle, “The cannery boss has no whistle so the Indian boss calls the workers ‘by hand”‘ [FM 19-21]; the play on words effected when the shot of Bolton singing to an infant snugly framed by the sides of its cradle begins with the intertitle, “This baby is ‘the very picture’ of his dad—so they have ‘framed’ him” [FM 44-45]; the corny jokes made when footage of Pearl throwing feathers into the air as part of the peace dance opens with the words, “The white stuff is down feathers, an eagle’s pyjamas” [FM 56-57], followed by the quip, “This is a sign of peace and goodwill to all, except maybe the eagle” [FM 58]; the now familiar drollery evident in the intertitle, “He is chanting his glories on the site for his grave—the way to be sure about one’s funeral sermon” [SS 24]; the ironic understatement made with the comment, “Kincolith sports more boardwalk than Atlantic City” [FM 49]; the sexist and racist humor at play in the tale of the chief’s “Christian decision” to take one wife [SS 50-58] and in the potlatch dance sequence prefaced by the insinuating “And if we understand Indian—and we do—this little beauty is signalling for a kiss—or maybe a drink” [SS 31]; the vernacular flavor established when the footage of women involved in the final stages of the canning process is prefaced by the words, “The feminine touch—which finishes the poor fish” [FM 23-26]; the shot of piles of fish on the cannery floor prefaced by the suggestion that Roman Catholic practice meant “Friday is not a lucky day for the salmon” [FM 17]; or the sequence devoted to lahal playing by the observation, “It’s just the Indian version of the white man’s old ‘shell game”‘ [SS 46].

Figure 7 Frame enlargement from Saving the Sagas (SS 41). Frank Bolton singing into a phonograph accompanied by his daughter (Reproduced by permission of Covitec Inc.).

Overall, the tone is similar to that of Grass [1925] and Nanook of the North [1922], and as such is more suggestive of a production made for entertainment than of the type of educational film Barbeau’s colleague, Harlan Smith, was producing during these years to accompany the museum’s Saturday morning lecture series [Zimmerly 1974: 4-5, 18-21]. Nanook of the North also includes puns, irony, exclamatory statements—even an encounter with the phonograph by which “the white man ‘cans”‘ the Native’s voice. Smith’s films, amounting to almost two dozen treatments of various western Canadian Aboriginal cultures, privilege descriptive intertitles and illustrative shots dealing with such objects of anthropological interest as food, clothing, housing, and transportation, which although designed to enliven his talks and at least implicitly to popularize the museum’s activities, did so primarily by virtue of their popular appeal as moving pictures.¹¹ Barbeau’s film, in contrast, sought to popularize the activities of Barbeau, MacMillan, and thus the National Museum, through the content of the film as well, like Nanook of the North, although more emphatically, using dramatization, playful language and irony to intensify the entertainment value of the viewing experience.

This approach is similar as well to one Barbeau takes in “The Thunder Bird of the Mountains,” an article he published in 1932 based on his trip to the Nass River region five years earlier. Cast as a voyage of discovery, it eschews academic language in a popularizing tale of anthropological revelation ostensibly recalled by Barbeau using dialogue, evocative description, and humor. In it, Barbeau, together with a musician, a painter, and an “artist photographer”—identified respectively as Ernest MacMillan, Langdon Kihn, and Dr. Watson—are in the midst of making records of Native songs, dances and wood carvings along the Nass River. They have found what Barbeau describes as “something of Paradise Lost after the downfall”—”real” songs, baffling to outsiders but “natural to the Indians themselves,” living only in memory; totem poles—even a masterpiece “endowed with something very personal, quite Indian”—abandoned to decay in the forest; customs diminished, creativity lost [Barbeau 1932: 94-96].

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