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117 Chief James Paul The art historian Ruth Phillips has found letters exchanged between Chief James Paul of the St. Mary’s Reserve and Edward Sapir. The anthropologist, it seems, was putting pressure on Paul to re-create artifacts with what he deemed a veneer of authenticity—what he called “the style that the Indians used long ago before they knew anything about white man’s ways,” made without “white man’s materials.” Paul’s response, dated 1911 and reprinted below, illustrates some of the complicated negotiations over culture, authenticity, and commodification that were common between Native people and non-Native collectors in that period and into the present day. In this, his letter has much in common with that of the Passamaquoddy scholar Lewis Mitchell to Charles Godfrey Leland, also included in this volume. Letter to Edward Sapir, 1911 I am sending you two paddles. I don’t think you have the Maliseet paddles and those I am sending, one of them is very old, but the other is not so old. You will take notice on one, there is some carving on it, that was done by some old Indian that had died long while ago. The oldest looking one is probably a hundred years old. I got them from a friend from Fredericton. He had them in his house for some time and never was used. I had to go to work and make him two new ones in place of the old ones that I got. On account I wanted them because they were so old. New paddles are worth $3.00 a pair. I am charg[ing] the half of what the new ones are worth so there will be no hard feelings between you and I. I think they are worth that to you on account they are so old but carved paddles it would be far much nicer what I make myself then what you see on that old one. I know you wouldn’t feel like paying $10.00 a pair, but if you seen them after all fixed up, you would say that they couldn’t be bought for $25.00. ...

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