About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
During the last quarter of the nineteenth-century, images of the Haida’s immense cedar houses and soaring totem poles were captured by photographers who travelled to then-remote villages such as Masset and Skidegate to marvel at, and record, what they saw there. Haida Monumental Art includes a large number of these remarkable photographs. They depict the Haida villages at the height of their glory and record their tragic deterioration only a few decades later. In addition, George MacDonald presents an integrated framework for understanding the physical structure of a Haida village, explaining how the houses and poles are part of a fascinating web of myth, family history and Haida cosmology.
Contributor Notes
George F. MacDonald is an anthropologist and was the director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization from 1983-1998.
Editorial Reviews
The historical photographs are stunning. To see the villages as the earliest photographers saw them is to recapture in part the wonder and majesty that was the Haida cultural heritage. At the same time, the grief that was the destruction of the villages is all too apparent.
— Vancouver Province
A monument in itself … a sourcebook to which the scholar can return over and over again … pleasurable and informative reading for anyone interested in Northwest Coast culture.
— American Indian Culture and Research Journal
Without any doubt the most important event of the 1994 publishing years if the re-appearance of George F. MacDonald’s definitive study, Haida Monumental Art. I cannot think of another book that takes a reader so intimately into the culture of a First Nations people.
— Geist
