George T. Emmons
Emmons, George Thornton (
June 6,
1852 -
June 11,
1945) was an ethnographic
photographer and a
US Navy Lieutenant.
He was born in
Baltimore, Maryland. His father was George Foster Emmons.
He graduated from the
US Naval Academy in
1874. In
1881 he attained the master rank, (
1883) lieutenant j.g. and (
1887) lieutenant.
Emmons got stationed in
1882 on the U.S.S. Pinta in
Alaska and stayed there through the
1880s and
1890s. The navy took largely the responsibility for stability in the region, in those times . He married Kittie Baker in
1886.
Through his duties, Emmons got in contact with, and interested in, the
Native Americans cultures of the region: particularly the
Tlingit and Tahltan. He began to record information and collect artifacts as he visited them on his leaves. So he was dedicated to native life traditions, like Chilkat blanket-weaving
[1], bear hunting, feuds, and the
potlatch (a very big ceremonial feast); and became able to understand beliefs and values and recorded through his
ethnographer's devotion also the Tlingit terms. He was assigned from
1891-
1893 to the
World's Columbian Exposition to accompany the Alaskan exhibit.
He retired in
1899 and took on special projects for the federal government. He was sent to Alaska in
1901 to locate border stone markers between Canada and the USA. He gave advice in
1902 about Alaskan game and forests and salmon fishery. In
1904 he gathered information about white settlers and
Native Americans and asked President
Theodore Roosevelt to investigate in Alaskan native conditions, because of starvation among the Copper River Indians. He was supported by Roosevelt and presented in
1905 a report to the Congress.
His interests in Alaskan Natives got him into close contact with the
American Museum of Natural History, which purchased his first two collections of Alaskan Native artifacts in the
1890s and with which Emmons had an exchange of items for the next three decades.(In
1902 the
Field Museum of Natural History purchased a large and varied collection of more than 1,900 Tlingit objects.) F. W. Putnam, curator of the American museum, asked for his help on a report in
1896 and repeated the request to the navy the following year. So Emmons was officially ordered and detached from active service to write the
Ethnological report on the Native tribes of Southeastern Alaska, elaborated from the museum collections. He became a regular contributor to The American Museum Journal (forerunner of
Natural History journal) and other scholarly periodicals.
At the recommendation of
Franz Boas, with whom he corresponded regularly and at the request of the president of the American Museum of Natural History, Morris K. Jesup, he began to organize his notes and prepare a manuscript on the Tlingit. When he died in
Victoria, British Columbia in
1945 the encyclopedic book was still unfinished. The work was taken over by Frederica de Laguna in
1955 and finally published
1991 with the title
The Tlingit Indians. It includes topics such as census data, names of clans and houses, species of plants and their uses, native calendars, and names of gambling sticks.
Writings
journal articles by Emmons, G. T.:\n*(1903). The Basketry of the Tlingit. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 3 (2), 229-277.\n*(1907). The Chilkat Blanket. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 3 (4), 329-401.\n*(1908). Copper Neck-rings of Southern Alaska. American Anthropologist (ns) 10 (4), 644-649. \n*(1908). Petroglyphs in Southeastern Alaska. American Anthropologist (ns) 10 (2), 221-230. \n*(1909). The Art of the Northwest Coast Indians, Journal of American Museum of Natural History 30 (3). \n*(1910). Niska. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30 (2), 75-76.\n*(1911). The Tahltan Indians. Anthropological Publications of the University of Pennsylvania Museum 3. Philadelphia: The University Museum.\n*(1912). The Ketselas of British Columbia. American Anthropologist (ns) 14, 467-471. \n*(1913). Some Kitksan Totem Poles. American Museum Journal 13. 362-369. \n*(1914). Portraiture among the North Pacific Coast Tribes. American Anthropologist (ns) 16, 59-67. \n*(1915). Tsimshian Stories in Carved Wood. American Museum Journal 15 (7), 363-366. \n*(1921). Slate Mirrors of the Tsimshian. Indian Notes and Monographs (ns) 15, 21.\n*(1925). The Kitikshan and Their Totem Poles. Natural History 25, 33-48. \n*(1930). The Art of the Northwest Coast Indians: How Ancestral Records Were Preserved in Carvings and Paintings of Mythical or Fabulous Animal Figures. Natural History 30 (3), 282-292. [Reprinted: The Haunted Bookshop, Victoria, BC, 1971.]
Posthumously published books:\n*Emmons, George Thornton (reprint 1993). The Basketry of the Tlingit and the Chilkat Blanket. Friends of Sheldon Jackson. ISBN 1-88-047503-0.\n*Emmons, George Thornton & (Ed.) de Laguna, Frederica (1991). The Tlingit Indians . Seattle, London, Vancouver: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-29-597008-1\n::Chapter headings resemble the breadth of the work: The Land and the People; Social Organization; Villages, Houses, Forts, and Other Works; Travel and Transportation; Fishing and Hunting; Food and its Preparation; Arts and Industries: Men’s Work; Arts and Industries: Women’s Work; Dress and Decoration; The Life Cycle; Ceremonies; War and Peace; Illness and Medicine; Shamanism; Witchcraft; Games and Gambling; and Time, Tides, and Winds.\n*Emmons, George Thornton;(Ed.) Hope, Andrew;(Ed.) Thornton, Thomas (2001). Will the Time Ever Come?: A Tlingit Source Book. University of Washington Press. ISBN 1-87-796234-1.
External links
