The Tsimshian and Their Neighbors of the North Pacific Coast

by Jay Miller (Editor), Carol M. Eastman (Editor)

"A tribute to Viola E. Garfield, a student of Franz Boas, whose distinguished career was instrumental in shaping Northwest regional studies."

Collection of fourteen anthropological papers by specialists about Tsimshian society and culture.

Includes appendix, bibliography & index.

343 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1984

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Jay Miller, Ph.D. is an independent researcher and writer. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography (Nebraska, 1990), Lushootseed Culture and the Shamanic Odyssey: An Anchored Radiance (Nebraska, 1999), and Tsimshian Culture: A Light through the Ages (Nebraska, 1997).

Reviews

[Ron Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of chapters written as a memorial to Viola Garfield, an anthropologist who did a lot of work on the Tsimshian. A number of chapters are 'worker bee' writings, necessary for a thorough anthropological understanding of Tsimshian culture, but not too interesting for people with a personal, nonprofessional interest in the subject. E.g., 'Negation in Haida,' and 'Gitksan Kin Term Useage.' The following were the chapters that I found most interesting and/or informative, in no special order:

- The Structure of Tsimshian Totemism
- Image and Illusion in Tsimshian Mythology
- Painted Houses and Woven Blankets: Symbols of Wealth in Tsimshian Art and Myth
- Tsimshian Myth in Historical Perspective: Shamans, Prophets, and Christ
- A Little More Than Kin, and Less Than Kind: The Ambiguous Northwest Coast Dog
- A Reevaluation of Northwest Coast Cannibalism
- Individual Psychology and Cultural Change: An Ethnohistorical Case from the Klallam
- Coast Salish Concepts of Power: Verbal and Functional Categories