Tsawataineuk First Nations girl, of the Kwakwakaʼwakw people of the Northwest Coast, ca. 1914
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#20DaysofNativeColors 📸 6/20
This photo marks the sixth in a series of twenty photos I've given color of Indigenous and First Nations people who lived a century ago in America
Photo by Edward S. Curtis (Library of Congress)
The Kwakwakaʼwakw (pronounced as kwa-kwa-kay-wok) live on northern Vancouver island and around the Broughton Archipelago in Canada.
Edward Curtis took her photo and in his book identified her only as “Tsawatenok girl” (Tsawataineuk is the modern spelling).
Native American Anthropologist Dr. Margaret M. Bruchac has since identified this girl in the photo – her name was Margaret Wilson Frank, as can be seen in Bruchac’s research paper “My Sisters Will Not Speak: Boas, Hunt, and the Ethnographic Silencing of First Nations Women”.
Margaret is wrapped in a cedar bark cape lined with fur that is typical of the Northwest Coast peoples. She’s wearing large abalone shell earrings, at the time it was a sign of nobility and worn only by members of this class. Abalone shells such as this were either used as ornaments or as inlay work on traditional handicrafts.
Gathering Abalone Seashells by the shore, 1914
Photo by Edward S. Curtis (Library of Congress)
“A Fair Breeze” Kwakwaka'wakw in their large sailing canoes, 1914.
Photo by Edward S. Curtis (Library of Congress)
Broughton Archipelago, part of the Kwakwaka'wakw Territory.
Photo courtesy of firstnations.de
Kwakwaka'wakw lands.
Photo courtesy of firstnations.de
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