This research examines the role of traditions in the works of contemporary Navajo artist David K. John and demonstrates that art is used as a modern instrument of storytelling, to pass to the next generations, traditions of Navajo culture. John, a commercially successful artist especially known in the Southwest Native art circles, is continuing a tradition of representation of the Holy People that goes back to sandpainting and weaving. Although not 'original' in terms of subject matters, his works differ from all his predecessors because of the human touch present and clearly visible in them. In John's works, the superhuman becomes human and this is what makes his canvases so unique. This research takes into consideration some of his major works and analyzes them in terms of subjects portrayed and modality of the representation in an attempt to understand the cultural meanings they bear and John's art rationale.

In 1967, the Vancouver Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled Arts of the Raven: Masterworks by the Northwest Coast Indian in celebration of Canada’s centennial. The following thesis discusses the way in which the curators of the Arts of the Raven exhibit constructed the Northwest Coast “Indian-Master” artist as a strategy that figured into a larger, shifting cultural field. The intention of the exhibit organizers was to contribute to the shift from ethnology to art. While this shift can be dated to the turn of the century, this thesis deals primarily with the period from 1958-1967, a decade described by the preeminent First Nations’ political leader, George Manuel, as the time of “the rediscovery of the Indian”. How the formation of an Indian-master artist (and his masterworks) intervened in art historical practice, and dovetailed with the meaning that the affix “Indian” carried in the public sphere, is considered. In the 1960s, this meaning was fostered, in part, through a reassessment of Canada’s history in preparation for the centennial. This event drew attention to the historical relationship between Canada and aboriginal peoples through public criticism of the government by public interest groups, Indian organizations, and civil rights and anti-poverty movements. The category of mastery, which functions as a sign of class, taste and prestige in European art canons, “included” the Indian under the rubric of white male genius. Yet the Indian as a sign of upward mobility was incommensurable with the Native reality in Canada at the time. In other words, the exhibit produced an abstract equality that eclipsed the concrete inequality most First Nations peoples were actually experiencing. This thesis concludes by arguing that the Arts of the Raven exhibit came to serve the important purpose of creating a space for the “unique individual-Indian” from which collective political First Nations voices would speak.

This thesis concerns the process and outcomes of my research involving a group of Southern Yukon beadwork objects, a project carried out on behalf of the MacBride Museum in Whitehorse, Yukon, in 1993. I studied the objects themselves, researched museum documentation of them, and subsequently interviewed several women elders/beadworkers. In the thesis I examine several ways of studying and researching material culture and provide an analysis of these methods. Looking at objects in different ways tells us something about the nature of them but raises new questions which I address here. Reviewing museum collections records tells us more about the institution and the institutional lives of the objects than about their original context and meaning. Asking elders about the objects inspires them to speak about many seemingly unconnected topics: history, personal and mythical stories, and long ago life and times. An underlying theme which emerged in interviews with elders was their commentary on cultural and societal change within the First Nations community and how this has affected the process of learning for younger generations. I argue that beadwork objects can be best understood as learning and teaching tools for First Nations people of every generation, that their creation and essence are linked to every aspect of the culture, and their reclamation cannot properly happen without observance of all of these connections.

Over the last fifteen years a select group of professionally trained and politically astute Canadian artists of Native ancestry has produced a compelling body of work that owes much of its power to a wry and ironic sense of humour rooted firmly in oral tradition. More than a critical/political strategy, such humour reflects a widespread cultural and communal sensibility embodied in the mythical Native American Trickster. The present study explores the influence of this comic spirit on the practice of several artists through the presentation of a "Trickster discourse," that is, a body of overlapping and interrelated verbal and visual narratives by tricksters and about trickster practice. Most of the research for this project took place between January 1990 and November 1991 and involved extended conversations with artists, elders, actors, writers, linguists, curators and art historians in six Canadian provinces. Over 80 hours of interviews were amassed along with several hundred slides and photographs of artists' work. From this body of material 140 images were selected for analysis with well over 100 commentaries and reflections on practice excerpted from the interviews. These verbal and visual narratives have been gathered together under the broad headings of self-identity, representation, political control and global presence. In light of the highly eclectic and hybrid nature of these narratives, an eclectic and hybrid conceptual framework has been constructed to consider them. Accordingly, a multiplicity of theoretical concepts has been braided together and interwoven throughout the chapters to reflect the complexity, density and interconnectedness of the material. To convey the sense of raultilayered communication and simultaneous conversation, quotation and footnote have been used extensively as parallel and overlapping texts. In this they constitute a form of hypertext or hypermedia. More importantly, the text honours and participates in a non-linear process of representation shared by many of the artists.

Refared to as the greatest botanist since Linnaeus and the founding father of Indian botany by his contemporaries, it is surprising that William Roxburgh has never before been the study of a full-length biography. Some of the problems regarding his life and work have been tackled and some solutions found. Lack of accessible archives has meant that Roxburgh’s origins and background are still uncertain, but fEom the time of his matriculation at Edinburgh University in 1771, more information is available. This casts useful light on the education of medical students by John Hope in preparation for them travelling and working in the emerging British colonies as doctors and scientists, with particular emphasis on botany. After his arrival in India, it has been possible to throw light on the ways in which fortunes were made, although there remains a conundrum of the exact relationship between Roxburgh and Andrew Ross. The importance of Gerhard Konig in the development of Roxburgh’s botanical and scientific position is highlighted, building on the foundations laid by Hope. By the time he left the Coromandel Coast in 1793, Roxburgh was deemed to be a figure of some stature in the scientific community in India, further developed once in Calcutta. The problems relating to his family are complicated by all three of his wives having the same Christian name, Mary, compounded by christening two of his sons William, the elder also leaving a son called William. The career of his natural son followed a fhirly standard path for children born to native women and who were educated in India, unlike Roxburgh’s other children who were sent to Britain. Roxburgh’s success was sufficient to leave all his legitimate children well provided: one son having a coat of arms granted. The second part of the thesis considers the scientific work of Roxburgh, both botanically and in a wider field. One of the main fmdings has been the large number of plant species that Roxburgh sent to Kew for cultivation, which needs further study. His botanical drawings are of importance both botanically and artistically, while his publications remain pillars of Indian botany as well as contributing to that of St Helena, and his time spent at the Cape of Good Hope was also of pivotal importance. In a wider scientific context, there are insights into his scientific methodology as well as his connections with the French physiocrats, putting him in a position close to the centre of his contemporary scientific world. The final part of this thesis considers his work in four areas, to show his working methods and gives an insight into his mind. His awareness of his own limitations, yet the necessity for detailed scientific experimental results comes out of a study of his work on dyes to back proposals to the East India Company to accept ideas for new investments and trading of crops. His work on sugar gives a useful medium to consider his thorough approach when looking for suitable new crops, to support his concern to provide work for native farmers and their reliance on cheap, labour-intensive methods of production. Roxburgh’s knowledge of the climate of India and the frequent disasters caused by the failure of the monsoons lead him to suggest a method of canalising the Godavq River. His breadth of practical skills also emerges from this case study, for it was Roxburgh himself who was asked to do the surveying. Finally, there is his work at the Cape of Good Hope, whence he sent major collections of Proteaceae and Ericaceae to Britain, but sadly his notebooks from this period, and indeed fiom his time in India, have not been traced.

Because the history of Indian-White relations in Canada has focussed mainly on the colonized Indians and ignored the impact of colonization on the White colonizers, it has simplified a complex affiliation which, clearly, had an impact on both groups while reducing Indian peoples to objects to be studied. By understanding the concept of a relationship involved in colonization, we can alternatively focus on the effects colonization had on both the large and small colonizers. Not only will a study of this type allow us to emphasize the once-ignored impact of colonization on the colonizers, it will also help to avoid the over-study of the Indian peoples in Canada. Exploring the history of the Indian Homemaking Program, Extension Division, University of Saskatchewan, 1967-1972 is an excellent venue in which to perform such a study. The program, which involves White Extension Instructors travelling to Saskatchewan reserves to teach Indian women homemaking skills such as knitting and crocheting, sewing and food preparation, promoted informal cross-cultural education in a setting that was both relaxed and enjoyable. After speaking with Extension Instructors about their vast array of experiences with respect to the program, it is abundantly clear that their days in the program, and with Indian women, changed the way they saw and experienced Saskatchewan.

John McDougall, John Maclean and Egerton Young were Methodist missionaries among the Indians of Western Canada in the late nineteenth century and all published books based on their experiences. Contemporary readers of these stirring accounts of missionary valour would have been left with two main impressions. The first was that the Indian was clearly a member of a feeble, backward race. The second impression, however, was that the Indian could be saved from his nomadic, pagan life of ignorance, superstition and cruelty; through Christianity and education the Indian could be elevated so that, at some indefinite time in the future, he would be on an equal footing with his white brothers and could enjoy all the rights, burdens and privileges of citizenship. This interpretation of the Indians' past and future encouraged contributions to Christian mission work but it also assured the public that Canada was without doubt correct in entrusting the future of the Indians and their land to more enlightened capable hands. Writing of this kind is often found in societies where one group has imposed its will on another; a need arises among the dominant group to justify its actio s Through this writing, myths are created about subject people which sanction and sustain systems based on social inequality. The publications of McDougall,; Maclean and Young contributed to such a body of writing in Canada. Their perception of the Indians as an inferior race provided justification for removing them from their stewardship of the land. Their optimistic portraits of the glorious future in store for the Indians once they had been guided through a transition stage from "savagery to civilization" endorsed the supervision of their affairs by the more enlightened. The missionaries' caution that for an undetermined length of time the Indians would have to be "looked after" provided justification for a society based on the premise of inequality. The introduction to this thesis is an assessment of missionary publications as a source and subject of historical inquiry; they must be approached with caution but they have a legitimate place nevertheless. The second chapter provides background on the work of the Wesleyan Methodists in Western Canada and the three missionary authors are introduced. The missionaries' arguments for the inferiority of the Indians are the subject of the third chapter. Judging the Indians by the standards of their own society, the missionaries found them backward as they left no marks of their presence on the land, did not understand the importance of private property and did not appreciate the value of time and money, The idolatry, ritualism and superstition associated with their spiritual beliefs were further proofs of a weak race. The missionaries perceived some virtues in Indian society, however, and these are presented in the fourth chapter. They acknowledged a primitive moral order, system of-education and justice in tribal society, and admired the superior sensory ability and oratorical skill of individual Indians. The missionaries made it clear, however, that these were inferior virtues, worthy of admiration only in a primitive society; the image of the Indian as backward remained. Chapter five describes the missionaries' portrayal of the glorious future available to the Indians once they had accepted Christianity. Juxtapos ing their evidence of the hideousness and degradation of the indians' former way of life, the missionaries presented startling proof of the transforming power of the Gospel. The concepts of Christianity and civilization were inextricably linked in their publi ations; the convert immediately acquired a new attitude toward his temporal welfare. The missionaries cautioned their readers that for the majority of Indians in Western Canada there would be a transition stage from "savagery to civilization" that could last for an undetermined length of time. This transition period is the subject of the sixth chapter. The Indian would be guided and protected by his elder and stronger brethren during the transition stage and could not expect, to enjoy fully the privileges of citizenship until this gap of centuries had been bridged. The seventh is a concluding chapter.

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