Mixed Messages

I spend a large part of my day here, at the Haida museum in Skidegate. As I wander through the place, I reflect on the stories being told here. Stories of the Haida, stories of Haida Gwaii. The museum here presents a Haida view of the Haida. This is both interesting and informative, and frustrating. The history of the Haida is presented back to the point of first documented contact with Europeans in the 1740's. Beyond that point, origins are only explained via the Haida creation beliefs and stories. Whatever Haida culture was before contact, and wherever it came from, however it grew, are not represented archaeologically– and are not subject to discussion, speculation, or debate. Certainly there is something between the Creation Story, and the documentation of European trade in the 1740s? Clearly, some choices were made here as to how and what should be presented.

At the time of European contact the Haida were a very sophisticated and powerful nation– skilled in trade, and long accustomed to working with metal tools. Their use of breastplates calls to question whether or not there had been earlier trade relations with Asian nations. Chinese coins and tokens seem to have been present on the Island. What were the Pacific contacts over pre-history? Was there migration in either direction? How early was Haida Gwaii populated? I don't think this is just a white man's idle curiosity. It is appropriate for the human intellect to question not only the origins, but also the geographical and cultural passages of our species. This sort of exploration would not offend the Haida creation story, nor compromise the dignity of the historic Haida culture, or the contemporary Haida claim to sovereignty of this land.

What else is missing here? These are the remnants of a great nation. In the early 1800's the population of Haida Gwaii was thought to be over ten thousand individuals, concentrated in over a dozen village sites. Between 1860 and 1880 the population diminished to an estimated 600 souls. Bodies would of been scattered everywhere. How could over 9000 deaths on a small island not be known up and down the coast, and rumoured across the land? The use of residential schools for the next 90 years nearly completed the work the smallpox had started. What civil society condones the removal of all children from their families? What genocide is this? While government has taken some limited responsibility, and delivered compensation to some individuals for specific grievances at specific residential schools, the question of criminal responsibility crosses my mind. The destruction of a culture via dispersal and de-programming both seeks and achieves the same ends as many a war crime.

But I'm an outsider passing through. From what I can see the Haida have carried themselves with dignity. They are themselves beginning to restore that which was nearly lost. Perhaps it is a measure of their cultural strength that this museum is not a memorial to the many lost souls. Instead, it looks forward.

Still, for me, I feel an emptiness here. Spirits of many souls wander these shores.