Anglo-European Male Figure (possibly a Missionary)
Haida
First Nation
Northwest Coast
collected 1820-1860
Wood, bone and black pigment
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt Kimberly
22.3.1877
Geography
Place Made: Haida Gwaii, Canada, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Figure
Research Area
Native American
Native American: Northwest Coast
Not on view
Label
Artists from different nations and backgrounds made the small boats and other artworks in this case. Before cars, trains, and planes, boats connected the world. These objects reflect the global movement of peoples and trade between Indigenous and Colonial nations.
White protestant and catholic missionaries sailed around the globe attempting to convert Indigenous peoples to western religions. The upright (and uptight) missionary figures appear stiff and unmoving, perhaps reflecting the maker’s opinion that colonizing missionaries failed to fully appreciate the complexity of Haida culture.
The necklaces are made from dentalium, a narrow white seashell harvested by Indigenous peoples along the western coast of North America. Indigenous Americans traded dentalium across the continent, exchanging it for turquoise from the Southwest or dyes and hides from other regions. Dentalium’s movement reflects a history of complex international trade between Indigenous Nations that predates the arrival of European colonizers.
From the 2023 exhibition Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
SOCY 7.2, Race and Ethnicity, Emily Walton, Spring 2014
SOCY 7.1, Race and Ethnicity, Emily Walton, Winter 2015
NAIS 38.01/HIST 38.02, Lewis & Clark in Indian Country, Colin Calloway, Summer 2022
First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Francine A'Ness, Summer 2023
Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023
Anthropology 55.01, Anthropology of Global Health, Anne Sosin, Fall 2023
Art History 40.01, American Art and Identity, Mary Coffey, Fall 2023
Creative Writing 10.02, Writing and Reading Fiction, Katherine Crouch, Fall 2023
Geography 11.01, Qualitative Methods, Emma Colven, Fall 2023
Geography 2.01, Introduction to Human Geography, Coleen Fox, Fall 2023
Geography 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Fall 2023
English 30.01, African and African American Studies 34.01, Early Black American LIterature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024
Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024
Writing 5.07, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Winter 2024
Exhibition History
Ancient Native American Pottery, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 32, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 7-February 9, 1992.
Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 32, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 13-March 4, 1990.
Liquidity: Art, Commodities, and Water, Israel Sack Gallery and the Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 29, 2023-November 24, 2024.
Native Ecologies: Recycle, Resist, Protect, Sustain, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-January 5, 2020
No Laughing Matter: Visual Humor in Ideas of Race, Nationality, and Ethnicity, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in conjunction with the Humanities Institute, Leslie Center for the Humanities, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 6-December 9, 2007.
Survival/Art/History: American Indian Collections from the Hood Museum of Art, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 18, 2000-April 7, 2002.
Publication History
[Northern, Tamara]. "Native American Art". Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, page 12 . (Published in conjunction with Gutman Gallery opening exhibition)
Angela Rosenthal and David Bindman, No Laughing Matter: Visual Humor in Ideas of Race, Nationality, and Ethnicity, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2003, p. 140, ill.2.4
Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012, p. 140, figure 2.4.
Provenance
Collected by "an old sea captain," about 1820-1860; to General John Hewston, California; bequeathed to his niece, Margaret Barnhill Roosevelt Kimberly (1851-1927), West Newton, Massachusetts; given to present collection, 1922.
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