James G. Swan

Watercolor by Swan depicting the Klallam people of Port Townsend, with one of chief Chetzemoka's wives distributing potlatch.
Portrait of James G. Swan, 1883

James Gilchrist Swan (January 11, 1818 – May 18, 1900) was an American Indian agent in what is now the U.S. state of Washington, who was known as an authority on the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, an Indian artifact collector on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, and for writing the first ethnography of the Makah tribal group, among whom he lived.

He began collecting Haida artefacts in or around the 1870s, though he first visited Haida Gwaii in 1883, as an assistant and collector for the Fish Commission.[1]

Sources

  • Doig, Ivan (1980) Winter Brothers: A Season at the Edge of America. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
  • McDonald, Lucile (1972) Swan among the Indians: Life of James G. Swan, 1818–1900. Portland, Oregon: Binfords and Mort.

References

  1. ↑ Wright, Robin K. (2024). Skidegate House Models: From Haida Gwaii to the Chicago World's Fair and Beyond. Native Art of the Pacific Northwest: a Bill Holm Center Series. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-295-75105-4. Full access available to users of The Wikipedia Library.

Writings


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