Standing Up with G̲a'ax̱sta'las

Jane Constance Cook and the Politics of Memory, Church, and Custom

By Leslie A. Robertson & the Kwagu'l Gix̱sa̱m Clan
Categories: Regional & Cultural Studies, Canadian Studies, Social Sciences, Anthropology, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Women’s Studies, Indigenous Studies, History, Canadian History
Series: Women and Indigenous Studies
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774823845, 596 pages, October 2012
Paperback : 9780774823852, 596 pages, March 2013
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774823869, 596 pages, October 2012
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774823876, 596 pages, October 2012
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Table of contents

Foreword / Nella Nelson

Prologue

Introduction: “Having Oneness on Your Face”

Part I – The Living Text: Traces of Jane Cook

Part II – Duḵwa̱’esa̱la (Looking Around On the Beach): Ancestors

Part III – Stranger Than Fiction: Surviving the Missionary

Part IV – “Children of the Potlatch System,” 1888-1912

Part V – “We As the Suppressed People,” 1913-18

Part VI – “We Are the Aboriginee, Which Is Not a Citizen,” 1918-27

Part VII – “With the Potlatch Custom in My Blood,” 1930-39

Part VIII – One Voice from Many: Citizenship, 1940-48

Part IX – A Tower of Strength: Word Memorials, 1951

Part X – Dlax̱w’it’sine’ (For Your Standing), Feasting

Notes

Bibliography

Index

A scholar and Cook’s descendants come together to reclaim the reputation of an important Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw leader.

Description

Standing Up with G̲a’ax̱sta’las tells the remarkable story of Jane Constance Cook (1870-1951), a controversial Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw leader and activist who lived during a period of enormous colonial upheaval. Working collaboratively, Robertson and Cook’s descendants draw on oral histories and textual records to create a nuanced portrait of a high-ranked woman, a cultural mediator, devout Christian, and Aboriginal rights activist who criticized potlatch practices for surprising reasons. This powerful meditation on memory and cultural renewal documents how the Kwagu’l Gix̱sa̱m have revived their long-dormant clan in the hopes of forging a positive cultural identity for future generations through feasting and potlatching.

Awards

  • Short-listed, Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC Book Prizes 2013
  • Joint winner, K.D. Srivastava Prize for Excellence in Scholarly Publishing 2013
  • Winner, CLIO Prize for BC, Canadian Historical Association 2013
  • Winner, Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize, American Society for Ethnohistory 2013
  • Winner, Aboriginal History Prize, Canadian Historical Association 2013
  • Short-listed, The François-Xavier Garneau Medal, Canadian Historical Association 2015
  • Winner, CCWH Book Award, Canadian Committee on Women’s History 2014

Reviews

In this most innovative book, Robertson and the Gix̱sa̱m Clan collectively write a book that will quickly become a methodological model for ethnohistorians. The non-linear narrative, with the focus on an interaction between the anthropologist, the indigenous community (Cook’s descendants), and the memory of Cook, provides a way of dealing with memory and history through the presentation of multiple voices. As one committee member stated, “The book models a collaborative process that more and more of us will be challenged to undertake. I think the future of our profession is that we will be expected to write with, rather than about, Indigenous communities. That this book presented a cohesive narrative about a woman whose life was so complicated and whose memory has been so contested by weaving together the voices of so many contributors is stunning to me.”

- Award citation