McIlwraith, T.F. — The Bella Coola, Volume One, Volume Two

Toronto, Canada, University of Toronto Press, 1992. Reprint Edition. Hardcover. Size: Large 8vo 9" - 10. From the personal library of the editor of this reprinted edition, and with his Introduction to both volumes. The definitive ethnographic study of the Nuxalk Indians of British Columbia. Two big, oversized, heavy Imperial octavo hardcover format copies, measuring 9 1/2" x 6 1/4" tall and wide, bound in tan cloth over boards, black lettering and illustrations to front covers and spine. Together, the volumes comprise a comprehensive survey of the ethnography and ethnology of the Bella Coola (Nuxalk) Indians of British Columbia. The title was originally published in 1948 and had to this point been long out of print. This 1992 reissue is a comprehensive guide to Nuxalk culture but also an homage to something of an exemplar of the use of ethnographic methods. Between 1922 and 1924, T.F. McIlwraith, then an anthropologist with the National Museum of Canada, spent part of each year with the Nuxalk. Like Franz Boas before him elsewhere, McIlwraith acquired an exhaustive knowledge of their culture, documenting the social-structure of Nuxalk society, their religious beliefs, and their mythology and supernatural beliefs. Potlatch practice, the life-cyle, warfare, games, and songs--it's all here. This edition's new Introduction by John Barker is lengthy and engaging, beginning with all of the other missionaries and sailors who visited the Bella Coola before the anthropologists arrive. Barker places the work in its historical context and reveals new information about McIlwraith's methods and personality. Foreword of the first volume by Stutwinii, from the Nuxalk Nation, then John Barker's Acknowledgments. The first volume contains chapters devoted to geographic location and environment, religion, social-structure, kinship and descent, origins and development of the Potlatch and sundry other topics. The second volume covers ethnographic particulars of Winter ceremonial dances, songs, warfare, games, stories, and with four appendices: Mechanical processes, String figures, Glossary of flora and fauna, Bella Coola - English vocabulary.Volume One: li [2], 1-763 pp. including notes, bibliography and index; Volume Two: 672 pp. and with notes, bibliography and index.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. . . . Very Good