This book examines Marius Barbeau’s career at Canada’s National Museum (now the Canadian Museum of History), in light of his education at Oxford and in Paris (1907–1911). Based on archival research in England, France and Canada, Marius Barbeau’s Vitalist Ethnology presents Barbeau’s anthropological training at Oxford through his meticulous course notes, as well as archival photographs at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. It also draws upon Barbeau’s professional correspondence at Library and Archives Canada, the BC Archives, and, above all, the National Museum, where he worked for over four decades. The author, Frances M. Slaney, sheds light on the professional life of this founder of Canadian anthropology, exploring his difficult working relationships with Edward Sapir, his collaborations with Franz Boas, and his outstanding fieldwork in rural Quebec and with Indigenous communities on British Columbia’s Northwest Coast. Barbeau penned over 1,000 books and articles, in addition to curating innovative museum exhibitions and art shows. He invited Group of Seven artists into his field sites, convinced that their works could better capture the “vitality” of Quebec’s rural culture than his own abundant photographs. For these—and many other—contributions, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognized him as a “person of national historic importance” in 1985.

Marius Barbeau (1883-1969) played a vital role in shaping Canadian culture in the twentieth century. Rooted in the premise that his cultural work – in anthropology, fine arts, music, film, folklore studies, fiction, historiography – cannot be read uni-dimensionally, the sixteen articles that comprise this book demonstrate that by merging disciplinary perspectives about Barbeau, evaluations and understandings of the situation around Barbeau can be deepened.

This catalogue features photographs of the Nass River and the Nishga people taken between 1900 and 1950. Most of the collection represents the ethnographic fieldwork done by Marius Barbeau between 1927 and 1929.

Marius Barbeau (1883-1969) played a vital role in shaping Canadian culture in the twentieth century. Around and About Marius Barbeau extends discussion about Barbeau beyond the life and work framework by providing critical and interpretive approaches to the different aspects of Barbeau. Rooted in the premise that his cultural work - in anthropology, fine arts, music, film, folklore studies, fiction, historiography - cannot be read uni-dimensionally, this book advances the idea that, by merging disciplinary perspectives about Barbeau, evaluations and understandings of the situation around Barbeau can be deepened. The sixteen articles and eighty illustrations that comprise this book consider Barbeau's cultural work from a variety of different perspectives, each of which carries with it complex and competing dynamics, as well as a critical and subject context. Together, they present alternative stances from which Barbeau's historical situation and the implications of his work can be reflected upon today.

"The National Museum of Canada, by W. H. Collins" (historical sketch of the museum): Annual report, 1926, p. 32-70.

Explores the history, development, and significance of the totem pole art of the Northwest Coast.

Two centuries ago, many hundreds of Iroquois – principally from what is now Kahnawà:ke – left home without leaving behind their ways of life. Recruited to man the large canoes that transported trade goods and animal pelts from and to Montreal, some Iroquois soon returned, while others were enticed ever further west by the rapidly expanding fur trade. Recounting stories of Indigenous self-determination and self-sufficiency, Iroquois in the West tracks four clusters of travellers across time, place, and generations: a band that settled in Montana, another ranging across the American West, others opting for British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, and a group in Alberta who were evicted when their longtime home became Jasper National Park. Reclaiming slivers of Iroquois knowledge, anecdotes, and memories from the shadows of the past, Jean Barman draws on sources that range from descendants' recollections to fur-trade and government records to travellers' accounts. What becomes clear is that, no matter the places or the circumstances, the Iroquois never abandoned their senses of self. Opening up new ways of thinking about Indigenous peoples through time, Iroquois in the West shares the fascinating adventures of a people who have waited over two hundred years to be heard.