Viola Garfield

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Viola E. Garfield (born December 5, 1899 in Des Moines , † November 25, 1983 ) was an American anthropologist and professor at the University of Washington . Her work on the Tsimshian society and art in British Columbia and Alaska is considered seminal.

Life

Viola Edmundson was born in Iowa in 1899, the eldest of six children of William Henry Edmundson and his wife Mary Louanna , but a few years later the family moved to Coupeville on Whidbey Island in Washington state where they attended school. In 1919 she enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle , but for financial reasons switched to the Bellingham Normal School (now Western Washington University ) in Bellingham , where she trained as a teacher. In 1922 she taught for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for nine months children of the Tsimshian in Metlakatla on Annette Island . This experience sparked her interest in the American Indian tribes of the northwest coast.

After she was unemployed in 1923, she trained as a stenographer , which she financed with a job as a housekeeper. While working as a stenographer at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, she met former mine owner and fur trader Charles Garfield and married him in 1924.

In 1927 Garfield enrolled at the University of Washington. She completed her studies in 1928 with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and in 1931 with a Master of Arts in anthropology. Her thesis dealt with the traditional patterns of wedding attire of the Tsimshian, which she had investigated during field research in Metlakatla. Her professor was Erna Gunther, with whom she had a lifelong friendship. Her doctorate took place from 1931 to 1933 at Columbia University in New York City under Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict .

In the 1930s, Garfield worked primarily in Lax Kw'alaams (also Port Simpson ), the capital of the Port Simpson Indian Reserve No. 1 , in which mainly members of the Tsimshian live. She was supported primarily by the Tsimshian chief William Beynon , who was himself an ethnographer. Working together, Garfield and Benyon recorded the Tsimshian culture and society extensively. The driving force here was Franz Boas, whose monograph on the Tsimshian was also accompanied by Beynon. Garfield's dissertation from 1935, published in 1939, was entitled Tsimshian Clan and Society, and is still one of the most important publications in the field to this day. For several decades she taught as a professor at the University of Washington. One of her most important works was that of the totem poles. She restored many totems for the United States Forest Service. She also published the book The Wolf and the Raven: Totem Poles of Southeastern Alaska in 1948 with the architect and director of the Linn Forest restoration project .

While in Port Simpson, Garfield was adopted by the Laxsgiik and given the Tsimshian name Diiks. In the years that followed, Garfield focused primarily on the art and music of the Indian tribes. Her field research also took her to Alaska to the Tlingit , where she was accompanied by her husband, who spoke Chinook .

Garfield's extensive estate is now held at the University of Washington.

Fonts

  • Change in the Marriage Customs of the Tsimshian. University of Washington, Seattle 1931
  • Tsimshian Clan and Society . In: University of Washington Publications in Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 3, 1939, pp. 167-340
  • Historical Aspects of Tlingit Clans in Angoon, Alaska . In: American Anthropologist, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1947, pp. 438-452
  • with Linn Forest: The Wolf and the Raven: Totem Poles of Southeastern Alaska. University of Washington Press, Seattle 1948
  • with Paul S. Wingert: The Tsimshian and Their Arts . University of Washington Press, Seattle 1951, reissued in 1966
  • Meet the totem . Sitka Printing Company, Sitka 1951
  • Possibilities of Genetic Relationship in Northern Pacific Moiety Structures . In: American Antiquity, Vol. 18, no. 3, 1953, pp. 58-61
  • Making a Bird or Chief's Rattle . In: Davidson Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 1, No. 11, pp. 155-168
  • Tsimshian . In: Encyclopædia Britannica. University of Chicago, Chicago, 1976

literature

  • Jay Miller, Jay, Carol M. Eastman (Eds.): The Tsimshian and Their Neighbors of the North Pacific Coast. University of Washington Press, Seattle 1984
  • Jay Miller: Viola Edmundson Garfield (1899-1983) . In: Uta Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, Ruth Weinberg (Eds.): Women Anthropologists: A Biographical Dictionary , Greenwood Press. New York 1988, pp. 109-114

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Viola Edmundson Garfield papers, 1927-1978 , Archives West, Orbis Cascade Alliance, accessed February 14, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Garfield, viola
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Edmundson, Viola (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American anthropologist and professor at the University of Washington
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Des Moines
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1983