the project.
When Nani was bereft of life-history memories we would explore kinship, reincarnation, Haida names, and numerous other ethnographic topics that I felt I had not sufficiently covered in my previous research. To a large extent my own interests biased the life-history data I obtained. For example, my concern with Haida ceremonial life, modern Masset’s primary link with the past, led me to inquire repeatedly about feasts and potlatches given by ancestors and relatives. My interest in pollution taboos resulted in a lengthy digression into puberty and pregnancy proscriptions and male/female separation, topics that were not of as much interest to Nani. Because missionaries long ago had discouraged the custom and imposed European standards of decorum upon the Haida, Nani was somewhat embarrassed to discuss her puberty seclusion knowing that the account might be published. I, on the other hand, felt the subject significant enough to pursue until she had exhausted her memory. In addition, my view of life history as retrospective led me at certain times to ask questions that might elicit reflective responses. Typical examples include: What makes you happiest? When are the saddest times? What are the biggest changes you have seen? What would you most like to be remembered for? How would you describe yourself? Accordingly, Florence’s “Reflections” (pp. 136–38) consist primarily of answers to questions that I posed.
Understandably, Nani sometimes dwelt on topics that were of great importance in her own life but not of as much interest to me as an anthropologist, in particular the impact of the church on her life, her role in it, and the meaning of Christianity to her. I do not know what form the life history might have taken had I avoided any intrusion, but given our relationship that would have been impossible. The final narrative is a measure both of our collaboration and of our sometimes divergent interests.
The schedule of our work was dictated by Nani’s daily routine and the time constraints of my short field visits. We worked in the morning, the afternoon, sometimes after dinner, and occasionally just before bedtime. Most of the time we were alone, and when visitors called, our work was put aside. Often after a long day Nani lay on a chesterfield in the front room and I sat on the floor holding the microphone toward her. Sometimes, to avoid the noise and activity of the kitchen, we retired to her bedroom; she sat on her bed and leaned back against the wall, crocheting as she talked, except on Sundays when she put her handiwork aside. At times she wove on one of her cedar bark hats at the dining table. Once I taped her as she whittled cedar splits to be threaded through the black cod she was preparing to smoke. A song she sang on that occasion is punctuated by the sound of metal cutting red cedar. I sometimes joined her in activity. In January 1977, she gave a memorial feast in honor of her sister’s daughter from Seattle who had died the preceding November, and we tried to tape in the kitchen amidst the preparations. Nani filled tarts with raspberry jam and I punched a plastic pattern into fourteen dozen doughy buns while we discussed earlier feasts. The quietest, most comfortable place to talk, though, proved to be the front parlor, where we worked during most of the June 1977 session.
Place or context played a considerable role in triggering Nani’s memory. As we sat at the kitchen table one January day, the rain pelting the kitchen window reminded her of q’ən dleł (“everything’s scarce”), the traditional Haida term for this time of year; a discussion of the seasons followed. Baking bread one Monday morning Nani recalled the days when she used to bake in the summertime at North Island for the fishermen. A juvenile eagle that scavenged a piece of drying halibut in June reminded Nani of her first attempt at slicing halibut and the chiding she received from her step-grandfather for the jagged-edged fillets she had hung to dry. Sometimes discussions of the project with other villagers brought to mind events from the past. Emma Matthews once reminded Nani of a play wedding they had staged as children. Some topics were easier for Nani to discuss than others. She recounted deaths in the family and the events leading to them in great detail, but when I asked her to describe the village and certain villagers as she remembered them from childhood, the details were sparse. I once asked her to describe her aunt, Martha Edenshaw; puzzling a moment over my request, she pointed to a photograph on the wall and answered, “She looks just like her picture.” “But how do you think of her?” I continued. “I think of her just like the picture,” Nani responded unhesitatingly.
Margaret Blackman and Florence Davidson, 1979 (photograph by Anna Franklin)
Nani was aware of numerous gaps in her narrative. When I talked to her on the phone between my infrequent visits to Masset, she would often say, “after you left I remembered lots of things. I wish I could write them down because I forget them.” Subsequent visits in 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981 brought more reminiscences, but undoubtedly there are events and thoughts that she might wish to include which have eluded her memory. Occasionally, too, Nani was unable to remember something in the detail that I would have liked, reminding me quite appropriately, “It wasn’t important to me then; how was I supposed to know that white people might be interested in it years later?”
From time to time, Nani’s mischievous sense of humor crept into our work. Discussing her father’s house where she had spent her childhood, I asked what it was like inside. She retorted that it was five stories, had “spring beds,” and was covered in thick, thick carpeting. “I’m getting crazier than ever—what if you write that down,” she said, dissolving in laughter. I recorded the contexts of all our taping sessions in the daily journal I kept, a practice I have always followed in fieldwork. Later, the journal became invaluable as I tried to remember what the house looked like that June, why Nani recalled this or that on a particular day, or why a certain subject had been sparingly discussed.
Florence Davidson’s narrative is a circumspect one. Though she related to me both off and on tape things she did not wish to appear in print, her recollections by and large are devoid of the petty jealousies and rivalries that are part of the fabric of Masset life. There is little mention of the misdoings of self and others: illicit sexual liaisons (which figure prominently in some native male life histories4), witchcraft, or feuds between families. “I don’t tell everything—what’s no good,” she said. Throughout our work Florence was conscious that the final product was to be a public document, though I imagine she was more concerned about its public status within her own community than in the larger world. This consciousness clearly guided not only what she related but how it was related. This bias may be characteristic of autobiography, regardless of culture. Jelinik, for example, speaking of autobiography in the Western tradition, notes:
Irrespective of their professions or of their differing emphases in subject matter, neither women nor men are likely to explore or reveal painful and intimate memories in their autobiographies…. The admission of intense feelings of hate, love and fear, the disclosure of explicit sexual encounters, or the details of painful psychological experiences are matters on which autobiographers are generally silent. [1980:10, 12]
The division of the narrative into chapters is an artifact of my own thinking, not that of Florence Davidson’s, although I did discuss its organization with her in the summer of 1978, and the chronology closely parallels the traditional life stages distinguished among the Haida. Nani requested that I edit the narrative to “fix it up” and “make it look right.” I rearranged the narrative in chronological order, made certain grammatical and tense changes, and deleted redundancies, but those who know Nani will recognize her style of speaking. A section of the original narrative is presented in the appendix so readers may see its unedited form. Unfortunately, neither the original transcription nor the final edited version can adequately capture Florence Davidson’s personality—the inflection of her words, her accompanying gestures, her sometimes subtle, always gentle humor, which was often turned upon herself. Nani related her life history in English, interspersed with Haida words that I knew, and now and then she repeated an English sentence with its Haida equivalent.
Following my two trips in 1977, I returned twice to visit and work with Nani
