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James Alexander Teit
James Teit (1864-1922) was born on Scotland's Shetland Islands and
emigrated to Canada as a young man. He eventually settled in Spences
Bridge, British Columbia, where he married a local Nlaka'pamux woman
named Lucy Artko. By the time she died in 1914, Teit had become
immersed in Nlaka'pamux life and traditions.
Teit was hired by anthropologist Franz Boas, in the late nineteenth
century, to undertake collecting and research for the American Museum
of Natural History's Jesup Expedition (1897-1902). The goal of the
Jesup Expedition was to investigate the cultural, linguistic and
biological links between the indigenous peoples of the northern
Pacific regions of America and Asia. The American Museum of Natural
History (AMNH) published much of Teit's research and he amassed the
bulk of their Interior Salish artifact collection. In 1911, Edward Sapir
of the Geological Survey of Canada, now the Canadian Museum of Civilization,
also enlisted Teit's assistance in developing its artifact, sound and
photograph collections. Cuts in government spending, at the end of the
First World War, brought an end to Teit's sporadic employment with the
Survey.
Teit collected thousands of objects for various museums; most of the
material he bought or gathered resides in four institutions - the American
Museum of Natural History, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the
Peabody Harvard Museum, and the Royal British Columbia Museum.
The photographic work of James Teit is documented in the Mercury
Publication, The Interior Salish Tribes of British Columbia: A
Photographic Collection (1987), edited by Leslie Tepper. We encourage
you to visit our featured presentation on Teit,
where it is possible to get a close-up view of many of the objects featured
in his photographs.
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