Reviews

Haida Monumental Art

Daniel Francis
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Without any doubt the most important event of the 1994 publishing year is the re-appearance of George F. MacDonald's definitive study, Haida Monumental Art (UBC Press). Since it was published in 1983 in a limited hardcover edition, this survey of Haida villages on the Queen Charlotte Islands has been virtually a collector's item, expensive and hard to find. The new paperback edition, while not cheap at forty dollars, will be available to a much larger audience. Which is what it deserves. The book is lavishly illustrated with maps, drawings, and almost 300 photographs. It contains discussions of the history and mythology of the Haida but it is really about their architecture, poles and monuments. MacDonald, now the head of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, undertakes a house-by-house survey of each of the seventeen main village sites. Each house is named (House That Passers-by Always Look Up At, House Upon Which Clouds Sound), its occupants identified and the surrounding monuments described. I cannot think of another book that takes a reader so intimately into the culture of a First Nations people.

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Daniel Francis

Daniel Francis is a writer and historian. He is the author of two dozen books, including The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture (Arsenal Pulp Press). He lives in North Vancouver. Read more of his work at danielfrancis.ca.

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