Ka̱ns Hiłile (Making it Right)

Shaped by—and integrated with—active cultural knowledge by Kwag’uł contributors

Dr. Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, curator of Northwest Native art and director of the Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art, is leading a collaborative project to reunite existing archival media—historical films, wax-cylinder audio recordings, images of material collections, and unpublished manuscripts and fieldnotes—from far-flung institutions and merge them into a new digital whole, shaped by and integrated with active cultural knowledge by Kwag’uł contributors. 

The team of researchers includes Kwag’uł community members, some of whom are descended from Boas’ subjects and are undertaking their own independent work to digitize and preserve song recordings and to return the songs to use in their community.

Coreen Child, a key contributor on issues of dance and song, is the direct descendant of both Charlie and Bob Wilson, who appear in the films giving speeches and dancing. Kaleb Child works in aboriginal education in his community and for the province of B.C. He brings insight into the potential uses of these materials for community-centered education. As well, he is a teacher and practitioner of traditional Kwag’uł song and dance. Tommy Child has worked as the Lands and Resources manager for the Kwakiutl First Nation with a long history of research on Kwag’uł songs.

Ka̱ns Hiłile (Making it Right)–A Collaborative Reframing of Kwakiutl Film and Audio Recordings with Franz Boas, 1930 will be the first born-digital book published by University of Washington Press in their new initiative for a digital infrastructure for Indigenous studies scholarship and is expected to be released in 2020.