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Art Native American

Haida Monumental Art

Villages of the Queen Charlotte Islands

by (author) George F. MacDonald

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Nov 2011
Category
Native American, Native American Studies
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774845069
    Publish Date
    Nov 2011
    List Price
    $99.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774804844
    Publish Date
    Jan 1983
    List Price
    $80.00

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Description

During the last quarter of the nineteenth-century, images of the Haida’s immense cedar houses and soaring totem poles were captured by photographers who travelled to then-remote villages such as Masset and Skidegate to marvel at, and record, what they saw there. Haida Monumental Art includes a large number of these remarkable photographs. They depict the Haida villages at the height of their glory and record their tragic deterioration only a few decades later. In addition, George MacDonald presents an integrated framework for understanding the physical structure of a Haida village, explaining how the houses and poles are part of a fascinating web of myth, family history and Haida cosmology.

About the author

Contributor Notes

George F. MacDonald is an anthropologist and was the director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization from 1983-1998.

Editorial Reviews

A monument in itself … a sourcebook to which the scholar can return over and over again … pleasurable and informative reading for anyone interested in Northwest Coast culture.

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The historical photographs are stunning. To see the villages as the earliest photographers saw them is to recapture in part the wonder and majesty that was the Haida cultural heritage. At the same time, the grief that was the destruction of the villages is all too apparent.

Vancouver Province

Without any doubt the most important event of the 1994 publishing years if the re-appearance of George F. MacDonald’s definitive study, Haida Monumental Art. I cannot think of another book that takes a reader so intimately into the culture of a First Nations people.

Geist