William Beynon Papers, American Philosophical Society

Born to a Welsh father and Niska mother of high status, William Beynon was raised in Victoria, B.C., speaking both Niska and English. A member of the Wolf (Laxgibu) phratry, he became an hereditary Tsimshian chief in 1914 upon the death of his maternal uncle, and a year later, began to work with the anthropologist C. Marius Barbeau, collecting narratives and artifacts. During the mid- to late-1930s, Beynon worked closely with Franz Boas, providing him with an extensive series of narratives and translations from the Tsimshian.

The Beynon Papers includes a series of correspondence between Beynon and Franz Boas, 1933-1937, along with a small number of narratives in Tsimshian with interlinear English translations. The letters complement, but do not overlap with those in the Boas Papers.

Background note

Born to a Welsh father and Niska mother of high status, William Beynon was raised in Victoria, B.C., speaking both Niska and English. A member of the Wolf (Laxgibu) phratry, Beynon was schooled in some of the traditional responsibilities of a hereditary Tsimshian chief, however he later wrote that when he first traveled to Prince Rupert in 1914 to perform rites associated with the funeral of his maternal uncle, a chief of the wolf phratry, he felt that he was insufficiently knowledgeable about the rituals and obligations of being a chief. Only reluctantly was he persuaded to accept the title he inherited from his uncle, adopting his uncle's name, Gusgain. His status was no doubt enhanced among the coastal Tshimshian by his marriage to a niece of Tsibase, chief of Kitkatla.

During C. Marius Barbeau's first season in the field, 1915, Beynon signed on as a field assistant and translator, beginning what would become a forty year association with anthropologists and linguists. Through Barbeau, he became familiar with Viola Garfield and Edward Sapir, and in 1936, began an intense association with Franz Boas. Working for canneries in the summer months, Beynon avidly pursued ethnographic work at other times of the year, often working for more than one client at a time and, according to Barbeau, occasionally selling material more than once. Following in the shoes of Henry W. Tate and George Hunt, Beynon organized expeditions to both coastal and inland Tsimshian villages, soliciting informants and recording, translating, and interpreting (in more than one sense) texts, rituals, and material culture. Speaking both Nass and Gitksan dialects, he was as productive as he was valuable in describing Tsimshian society, describing secret (and illegal) potlatch ceremonies, and , amassing a remarkable trove of narratives, many of which have yet to be published.

Scope and content

A small collection consisting of both correspondence and ethnographic texts with interlinear English equivalents, the papers of the Tsimshian ethnographer and field assistant William Beynon are a useful addition to the study of the cultures of the Northwest Pacific Coast. From Boas's first, tentative interest in discovering a new field assistant to his eager encouragement to record additional narratives (for a price), the collection also provides an interesting view onto the mediation between an anthropologist and his ethnographic subject.

The letters both to and from Boas chart the development of the relationship between the two, giving detailed information on Beynon's field plans and the steady stream of manuscripts sent back to New York. More valuable than the correspondence, perhaps, is a series of texts recorded, transcribed and (in most cases) translated by Beynon. Among these are two copies of manuscripts that were apparently previously collected by Henry W. Tate, and the first four manuscripts sent east by Beynon. At least two other manuscripts appear to show Boas's efforts to correct (or, at least, understand) Beynon's orthography.

Two additional items of later provenance have found their way into the collection: a 1940 letter from Ella Cara Deloria to Boas, informing him of her new address, and a manuscript by the anthropologist Irving Goldman discussing Boas's ethnographic work on the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakh).

Administrative information

Restrictions

None.

Provenance

The Beynon manuscripts were once held by Irving Goldman, and were transferred to the APS in September 2002 (M2002-30).

Preferred citation

Cite as: William Beynon Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Catalogued rsc, 2002.

Additional information

Related material

The Franz Boas Papers (B B61) include 65 letters, bills, or receipts relating to Beynon's work with Boas, 1936-1941. Beynon is also mentioned in Boas's correspondence with Viola Garfield and Marius Barbeau.

A microfilm of the extensive collection of William Beynon Tsimshian Manuscripts (Film 1416) at Columbia University is available for consultation at the APS. These are the manuscripts referred to in Beynon's correspondence with Boas.

Several narratives collected by Beynon are located in the collection of the American Council of Learned Societies Committee on Native American Languages, including his "Ethnographic and folkloric texts of the Tsimshian" (no. 35; Freeman and Smith 3771), "Tsmishian Kinship terms" (Pn5a.2, Freeman and Smith 3776) and "Tsimshian word list" (Pn5a.3; Freeman and Smith 3777). Additional material collected by Beynon is found in three of C. Marius Barbeau's reports to the APS Phillips Fund Committee, "The Gwenhoot of Alaska" (Freeman and Smith 3767), "Temlar'ham"(Freeman and Smith 3769), and "Wolf clan invaders from the northern plateau..." (Freeman and Smith 3770).

The other main sources for manuscripts collected by Beynon are Columbia University and the Canadian Centre for Folk Cultural Studies at the National Museum of Man, Ottawa. A portion of the English texts at Columbia have been published by the Metlakatla Indian Community in multiple volumes as Tsimshian Stories.

References

Winter, Barbara J., "William Beynon and the anthropologists," Canadian Journal of Native Studies 2 (1984), 279-292.