Frederick Johnson's Canadian Ethnology in the Americanist Tradition

Introduction

This essay describes the early ethnology of Frederick Johnson (1904–1994), a student trained by Frank G. Speck at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who worked in the Americanist Tradition in eastern Canada from 1925 to 1931.

I chose to study Johnson's Canadian ethnology for three reasons: (1) it contributes to a history of ethnological research on Aboriginal communities in the early twentieth century; (2) approached from a biographical perspective, Johnson's field studies show how the Americanist and a four-field approach to anthropology was ingrained into Speck's students, and how they transported them across the border into Canada; and (3) it sheds light on the research relationship between museums and academic anthropologists—that is, on how fieldwork was supported financially through the development of museum collections.

Johnson belonged to a vanguard of students at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) who Speck trained and mentored during the twentieth century. They journeyed to remote Canadian reserves and conducted brief ethnological studies in the far northern portion of the Northeast culture area. As a consequence of decades of field work, Penn anthropologists (students and teachers) extended the reach of the Americanist tradition from the United States into Canada.

Fred Johnson's research in Canada also reveals the cumulative impact of students who contributed to Americanist ethnology by recording the transitional cultures of Aboriginal communities as they adapted to new conditions on reserves. This second generation of Boasian ethnologists consisted of avid and adventurous fieldworkers who were devoted to their mentor (Speck) and dedicated to their Canadian field studies. They applied their training in a four-field approach to reconstruct traditional lifeways, to document native languages and texts, to photograph people and places, to collect and commission objects, and to catalog indigenous crafts.

Speck recruited several students to conduct research in the Northeast and Subarctic culture areas of Canada, including Fred Johnson (Johnson 1928, 1929, 1930, 1943, 1948), D. S. Davidson (Davidson 1928), Horace P. Beck (Beck 1947), Edmund Carpenter (Carpenter 1959), and Loren Eiseley (Speck and Eiseley 1939). Speck served as a role model through his persistent fieldwork and extensive publications on Canadian ethnology (Speck 1914, 1915a, 1915b, 1915c, 1923, 1927, 1929, 1937, 1941, 1947). For a short history of Penn anthropology, refer to Kopytoff 2006.

Summary of Johnson's Career

The name of the New England anthropologist Frederick Johnson is generally unfamiliar to ethnographers working with First Nation communities in Canada today because he was primarily an archaeologist. Richard S. MacNeish described his friend, colleague and long-time curator of the Robert S. Peabody Museum in Andover, Massachusetts, as an accomplished and "quiet man whose anthropological career spanned more than 70 years" (MacNeish 1996:269). Table 1 summarizes Johnson's diversified career.

Reflecting the flexibility of a four-field approach in anthropology at the time, Johnson worked as an ethnologist, linguist, physical anthropologist, and archaeologist. I would add that he was also a visual anthropologist because of the breadth of his five hundred photographs of Aboriginal people in Canada. In his overall career, Johnson should be remembered as an "interdisciplinary organization man"—a man who had the vision and social networks to design and manage innovative projects that broadened the influence and authority of anthropology as a science regionally, nationally and globally.

His career in anthropology bridged the boundaries of the sciences—within the subfields of anthropology and across major disciplines (such as nuclear chemistry, physics, geology, biology, botany, and paleobotany). He was a planner, fundraiser, and manager of several innovative interdisciplinary projects during the 1940s—including the Boyleston Street fishweir study in Boston, the Andover-Harvard Yukon Expedition along the Alcan Highway in Alaska and Canada, and the Tehuacán Archaeological-Botanical Project in Mexico—and he did so in a creative manner that integrated the combined strengths of diverse disciplines (MacNeish 1996). However, Johnson's achievements were tempered by criticism from some of his contemporaries for his minor production of academic publications in comparison to the participants in the large interdisciplinary projects that he managed (personal communication).

Table 1.

Chronology of anthropologist Frederick Johnson

Born in Everett, Massachusetts	(1904)
Attended Tufts College, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University	(1923–36)
Bachelor of Science in Sociology, Tufts College	(1929)
Conducted ethnological fieldwork in eastern Canada	(1925–31)
Conducted ethnological and archaeological fieldwork in Mesoamerica as a graduate student at Harvard University	(1931–36)
Curator of Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology in Andover, MA	(1936–66)
Coordinated interdisciplinary study of Boston fishweir site	(1939–42)
Coordinator (with Raup) Andover-Harvard Expedition–Alcan Highway	(1944–48)
Secretary of Committee for Recovery of Archaeological Remains, CRM	(1946)
President of Society for American Archeology	(1947–48)
Executive Secretary of American Anthropological Association	(1948–54)
Chairman of joint committee on radiocarbon dating in archaeology	(1950s–60s)
Coordinator (with MacNeish) of Tehuacan Archaeological-Botanical Project	(1960s)
Director of R. S. Peabody Museum at Phillips Academy Andover	(1967–68)
Retired	(1969)
Received honorary doctorate, Tufts College	(1977)
Died	(1994)

Mesoamerican archaeologists may recall Johnson's participation in the Peabody Museum's expedition to Sitio Conte in Panama (under Samuel K. Lothrop) or his Mayan studies (with Frank H. H. Roberts) while a student at Harvard in the 1930s. As a consequence, Johnson contributed several essays on regional linguistics and cultures in The Maya and Their Neighbors (1940) and the Handbook of South American Indians (1948). Applied anthropologists may recognize Johnson in the early history of cultural resource management (CRM) in the United States; he was a pioneer who promoted River Basin Surveys to record archaeological sites before they were submerged by federal hydroelectric dams (Wendorf and Thompson 2002). Northeastern archaeologists may recognize Johnson as the symposium organizer and editor of (but not contributor to) Man in Northeastern North America(Johnson 1946).

Johnson excelled in archaeology for his strategic vision, his use of an interdisciplinary approach, and his ability to coordinate large projects. Because he lacked a doctoral degree (he was ABD in anthropology at Harvard), Johnson's professional contributions were made outside of the academy. In 1947, his leadership skills earned him the presidency of the Society of American Archaeology.

He was an effective advocate for anthropology with federal agencies, professional organizations and an enthusiastic volunteer on numerous committees and professional organizations. In the 1940s, Johnson became the chair of the Committee on Radioactive Carbon 14, established by the American Anthropological Association, and later president of the Radiocarbon Dates Association (refer to the Frederick Johnson Papers, 1948–1968, Number 1295, University of California Los Angeles Library, Special Collections). His remarkable collaboration with Nobel Prize–winning chemist Willard F. Libby to apply radiocarbon dating to archaeology earned him the nickname "archaeology's consummate committee activist" (Marlowe 1999). His advocacy in forging this interdisciplinary research partnership among scientists (archaeologists, physicists and chemists) had a global impact on the production of absolute dates of world archaeological sites.

For most cultural anthropologists, however, Fred Johnson's study of Canadian aboriginal communities is fairly unknown. This essay will fill that gap and review his early ethnological work in eastern Canada where he studied diverse indigenous cultures during the 1920s and 1930s.

Johnson's fieldwork was generally under the supervision of Frank G. Speck—his friend, teacher, mentor, and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. The close relationship between Fred Johnson and Frank Speck is based upon their early acquaintance through their families who had summer cottages in Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the late 1910s. Their bond as New Englanders was also strengthened by a common interest in natural history and an outdoor life, canoeing, and American Indians. Thanks to Speck Johnson developed an early interest in Canadian ethnology. His first trip was as a youth accompanying Speck to Montagnais-Naskapi communities in Quebec in 1917. It seems that as a result of his introduction to ethnology, he decided to pursue an academic study of anthropology.

Anthropological Training at Penn and Harvard

Johnson's ethnological fieldwork in eastern Canada was conducted during his university years. The seasonality of his brief field trips was a reflection of his academic commitments as an undergraduate student from 1924 to 1929 (Tufts College 1924, University of Pennsylvania 1924–27, Tufts 1927–29) and as a graduate student (Harvard University 1929–36).

Johnson attended the University of Pennsylvania from 1924 to 1927. He took classes from Frank Speck (1881–1950) and Alfred Irving Hallowell (1892–1974), both of whom conducted fieldwork in Canada and published on Aboriginal communities. Speck taught Johnson on how to be a professional ethnologist in the same manner as he himself had been taught by Franz Boas at Columbia University—in the American historical tradition. Boasian anthropology was a major influence in Frank Speck's pedagogy and practice and Fred Johnson became a part of that intellectual genealogy (Darnell 2001).

Two institutions had a direct influence on Johnson's career—the University of Pennsylvania, which through Speck reflected Columbia University's emphasis on ethnology and linguistics, and Harvard University's focus on archaeology and physical anthropology (Stocking 1992). Consistent with the mission of cultural heritage institutions, The University of Pennsylvania Museum (University Museum) at Penn and the Peabody Museum at Harvard promoted an "object-centered approach" to collecting, cataloguing, exhibiting, and publishing of anthropological field materials. Museums supported by foundations, such as George Heye's Museum of the American Indian, also emphasized collections but for different (frequently personal) reasons. These institutional contexts, academic departments and anthropological museums, partially explain the formation and choices in Johnson's career.

To his students Frank Speck stressed the importance of persistent and intensive field work. Empiricism and inductive reasoning were two founding principles of Americanist ethnology. Compiling and analyzing comparative data (from objects and interviews with elders) enabled an ethnologist to identify cultural patterns and formulate locally-informed theories about "traditional" culture of a pre-reserve era. Maximizing the number of field research trips would increase the accuracy and anthropological knowledge.

During summer and winter breaks, Johnson took frequent field trips to Aboriginal communities in eastern Canada from 1925 through 1931. His final research was on Micmac communities in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Johnson's ethnological research in Canada was facilitated by his youthful outdoor skills in canoeing, portage, hiking, and camping. Like his father he was a talented woodworker, and so he had a special appreciation for aboriginal boat building, technology, and hand crafts.¹ He was well suited to study and travel in the northern woods, lakes, and rivers where transportation was slow and difficult. He made his way to several Canadian reserve communities in rural areas where road access was limited or seasonal at best. There he followed the field practices taught by Speck to his Penn students. Johnson interviewed the elders; took documentary photographs of residents, native clothing, and crafts; inquired about indigenous technology; collected objects and commissioned reproductions for museum collections; and recorded folktales and Native-language terms for objects. He packed and carried out his field notes and collections and, upon his return home to Pennsylvania or New England, compiled a catalog of specimens (to offer for sale to institutions) and reports for publication.

Speck's close personal friendship and mentorship extended well beyond Johnson's university training in ethnology and linguistics. Using Speck's influential field contacts with native communities and financial networks with museums for funding, Johnson conducted numerous ethnological studies with the Algonquin and Ojibwe cultures in eastern Canada and the United States from 1917 to the early 1930s.²

Funding for Fred Johnson's fieldwork in Canada was dependent upon the financial support of the University Museum in Philadelphia and George Heye's Museum of the American Indian in New York City.³ This arrangement reflected a common practice in contemporary anthropology. These two institutions partially defrayed the costs of his fieldwork by purchasing Canadian Aboriginal field specimens for their permanent collections, and in the process built a notable collection and reputation for well-documented scientific collections. The Museum of the American Indian supported Johnson's Canadian studies during and after his student years at Penn and Harvard.

Numerous field trips and two years of low grades at Penn resulted in Johnson's dismissal in February 1927. Consequently he returned to Tufts College and completed an undergraduate degree in sociology in Spring 1929. In the fall Johnson entered Harvard University and began his graduate education in anthropology. He held several positions at Harvard from 1930 to 1936, including a Hemingway fellowship, an assistant and part-time instructorship in the department of anthropology, and a curatorial position at the Peabody Museum. From 1929 to 1936 Harvard provided opportunities for ethnological and linguistic field work in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Mexico, and Mesoamerica. In 1931 as an assistant to Samuel K. Lothrop, Johnson joined an archaeological expedition of the Peabody Museum to Sitio Conte in Panama, one of the richest sites for pre-Columbian gold artifacts. He wrote reports and conducted curatorial work on the collections while attending classes. In 1933 he worked in the Yucatán with Frank H. H. Roberts as a participant in the Carnegie Foundation research on the ancient Maya.

In 1930, Johnson created an extensive collection of Micmac photographs from his ethnological studies in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. This work was funded by George Heye when he was a graduate student at Harvard (letter to Heye, October 27, 1930, NMAI paper archives, OC137.7). The following year under Roland Dixon's guidance, Johnson researched the Micmac at Conne River in Newfoundland. He later published an article on Micmac shamanism in a professional journal (Johnson 1943).

After a lengthy association with Harvard, Johnson left without a doctoral degree in 1936. This was a pivotal year in his career. After he accepted a curatorial position at the Peabody Foundation for Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts (later associated with Phillips Academy), Johnson transformed his anthropological identity from an ethnologist to an archaeologist. The R. S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology was where he spent his entire archaeological career, primarily as a Curator (1936–66) under Director Douglas Byers, and briefly as a Director (1967–68).

Americanist Tradition and Four-Field Approach

The legacy of the Americanist tradition is evident in the Canadian ethnology of Speck and his many students at Penn, including Fred Johnson. Through a comparison of museum collection catalogs, patterns became apparent in the practice of assembling field collections. By extending the comparative approach to Canadian ethnological collections at the University Museum and the Museum of the American Indian (now the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution) during the first half of the twentieth century, it seems apparent that Speck and his students followed a general model in what they collected, how they collected, and how they documented cultural materials.

The following section identifies eight aspects of the Americanist Tradition and relates them to Johnson's early-twentieth-century Canadian ethnological collections. It is informed by the writings of Regna Darnell on the Americanist tradition (Darnell 1999) and by an edited volume by Lisa Philips Valentine and Regna Darnell (Valentine and Darnell 2001).

1. 1. The culture area approach: Contemporary research and analyses of Aboriginal societies in eastern Canada were conceptualized within a "culture area approach" which for Johnson (and Speck) consisted of the northernmost part of the Northeastern Woodlands (with the additions of Montagnais communities in the Subarctic culture area).

2. 2. The comparative approach: Boasian ethnologists were concerned with the comparative study of cultures. Accordingly, after Johnson collected sufficient ethnographic data on Canadian reserves he applied a "comparative approach" to posit similarities and differences in material culture, technology, religion and language between cultural groups.

3. 3. The four-field approach: Field data were collected using a four field approach to anthropology to integrate diverse data for a better understanding of the diversity of Aboriginal cultures in Canada. Following a contemporary practice used by other anthropologists, Johnson's studies in eastern Canada were primarily ethnological, linguistic, and folkloristic, and secondarily biological and archaeological. Anthropological historian George Stocking noted that "archeology was a secondary activity for Boasians" (Stocking 1992:130) and this was equally true in Johnson's early career.

   In the fall of 1929 while conducting ethnological studies of an Algonquin community in Quebec, Johnson excavated an historic battlefield site at Iroquois Point near Lac Barrière. He used historical archaeology to investigate Iroquois and Algonquin intertribal warfare—digging twenty test pits, taking notes on the geology as it related to stratigraphy, and collecting charcoal samples and pottery shards (evidence of aboriginal pottery). He published his findings in Indian Notes, a publication series of the Heye Foundation (Johnson 1930).

   Another concern of Americanists was the collection of native language texts. Using a practical and pragmatic notation for recording native languages, Johnson noted indigenous terms for places, objects, culture heroes, and tricksters as much as was possible given the field conditions. Judging from the frequency of similar phonetic notations (accents and schwas) in catalogs of field collections by Speck and Johnson, Speck taught Johnson and his other student fieldworkers how to create and organize field records of indigenous languages.

4. 4. Fieldwork and Funding: Fieldwork was the primary method of collecting first-hand empirical data for cultural analysis; it was a hallmark of anthropology that set the discipline apart from the other sciences. Field work was dependent upon access, time and funding and student fieldwork was especially limited. Consequently Johnson's field trips to Canada were necessarily brief, generally from one to four weeks in duration. As a student of Speck, he had access to funding from the Museum of the American Indian and the University Museum.

5. 5. Historical particularism: Following a Boasian practice of historical particularism, Johnson's research and publications focused on the language, history, and culture of individual reserve communities in Canada.

6. 6. Inductive reasoning: Americanist ethnologists such as Johnson used inductive analogies to create anthropological generalizations. For example, similarities in languages, artifact types, or decorative styles between two Aboriginal cultures led to generalizations based on analogy (e.g., shared traits in canoe manufacture informed Johnson's generalizations on the origin and diffusion of material culture types).

7. 7. Publications: Anthropologists had a professional commitment to publish their research findings in museum and professional journals. Johnson's short research trips were reflected in brief field reports in Indian Notes. His unpublished manuscript on Golden Lake was apparently too small for a monograph and too big for a field report in Heye Foundation publications, according to editor Frederick Webb Hodge, and was never published. However his field research on Micmac shamanism in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland resulted in a journal article in Primitive Man.

8. 8. Collection documentation: Like other Americanist ethnologists, Johnson produced detailed descriptions of field specimens. The scientific value of his ethnological collections in anthropological museums depended in part upon the quality of documentation in his collection catalogues (including linguistic data).

   Well-documented ethnological field collections assembled by Frederick Johnson and purchased by the University Museum and the Museum of the American Indian during the 1920s and 1930s share common characteristics. In general each field collection consisted of approximately one hundred objects and were accompanied by written catalogs that provided detailed descriptions (quantity, size, English and native language terms). Specimens were organized into standard categories by material or object type. For example, "birch bark articles" was a common category for Algonquin specimens collected at Golden Lake in Ontario and Lac Barrière in Quebec. Birch bark described not only a tree in the northern woods (the material), but also as a diverse and decorated range of objects that museums collected (baskets, cradle boards, covered boxes, containers, sap buckets, scent boxes, moose calls, pipes, and patterns). Another common category was "ash splint baskets" with detailed descriptions of the weaving technique. Textile collections were categorized under "cloth specimens" and "clothing" and emphasized older traditional forms and distinctive decorative styles. "Bags and pouches" represented various materials (mink, loon, deerskin) and forms (such as "secret" pouches or puzzle bags). Moosehide specimens were listed as either a separate category or under clothing.

   The economic life of the Canadian aboriginal communities who lived on reserves in the early twentieth century was a topic of theoretical interest to Americanist ethnologists and of political interest to Aboriginal communities in land claims litigation (Feit 1991). Studies were conducted of "family hunting territories" (Speck 1915a, 1915b, 1929). Although Johnson attempted to record family oral histories of land use at the Golden Lake community, he was unsuccessful (Johnson manuscript, NMAI paper archives, box VL, folder 5). However he collected various tools that community members used to exploit the local riverine and woodland habitats. Under the technological categories of implements and utensils, Johnson gathered a wide variety of hand tools—crooked knives, skinning hooks, wooden mallets for canoe making, fish nets and floats, needles and gauges, and scrapers and snowshoes. Weapons for hunting animals included the compound bow, arrows, and points.

Physical Anthropology

One could argue convincingly that Johnson's documentary portrait photography, like Speck's images, provided data on human variation and in-migration (e.g., Mr. and Mrs. Pete Du Bé, the Tête de Boule couple who lived in the Algonquin community at Maniwaki). In addition, his awareness of the value of physical anthropology informed his research to search for human remains in his excavation at Iroquois Point near Lac Barrière, however he did not discover any burials.

Overview of Johnson's Ethnology

A survey of the collections (objects, photographs, and manuscripts) at the Museum of the American Indian collections, now at the National Museum of the American Indian, reveals the extent of Frederick Johnson's ethnological research in First Nation communities from 1925 to 1931. Johnson primarily researched Algonquian communities on Canadian reserves in the provinces of Quebec (Naskapi, Montagnais, River Desert), Nova Scotia (Micmac) and Newfoundland (Micmac). In addition, he studied an Ojibwa and Potawatomi community on the Parry Island reserve near Georgian Bay in Ontario province (Johnson 1929) and the Cree at Mistassini in Quebec. Table 2 presents a chronological summary of Johnson's Canadian ethnology.

Johnson reminisced about his Canadian fieldwork during his retirement years. He wrote,

Table 2.

Summary of Johnson's Canadian ethnology

Aboriginal Community	Province	Yeara
Note: This list of communities retains the spellings used by Johnson during the 1920s and 1930s.
aThese years were compiled from Johnson's manuscripts, publications, and museum collection databases at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Pennsylvania Museum at the University of Pennsylvania.
Naskapi at Seven Islands	Quebec	1925
(Sept Iles)
Montagnais at Lac St. Jean	Quebec	1926
(Lake St. John)
Algonquin at Golden Lake	Ontario	1927–28
Ojibwa and Potawatomi	Ontario	1928–29
at Parry Island
River Desert Band at Maniwaki	Quebec	1928–29
Algonquin at Lac Barrière	Quebec	1928–29
(Lake Barriere)
Montagnais and Mistassini	Quebec	1930
at Pointe Bleu, Lac St. Jean
(Pointe Bleue, Lake St. John)
Micmac	Nova Scotia	1930
Micmac	Newfoundland	1930–32

I was first interested in the ethnology of the Montagnais-Naskapi, concentrating my work at Seven Islands during the summer and at Pointe Bleu during the winter. Both places are in the Province of Quebec. About 1928 I moved west to the Algonquin of the Ottawa River Valley working at Golden Lake, Maniwaki and at the reserve at Bark Lake. One summer, probably 1929, was spent with the Ojibwa at Parry Island on Parry Sound, Lake Huron. Various short articles and reports came from this work. They are quite naïve and it is better to let them lie obscurely in dusty volumes.

(Johnson, ca. 1975, Biographical Details, Tufts University Archives)

According to collection inventories at the National Museum of the American Indian, the majority of Johnson's Canadian ethnographic materials were collected for George Heye's Museum of the American Indian in New York City from 1927 to 1932.⁴ They included Algonkin objects from Golden Lake (Ontario) and Lac Barrière (Quebec); Ojibwa or Chippewa materials from Parry Island Reserve (Ontario); and Micmac artifacts from Conne River (Newfoundland) and Eskasoni, Cape Breton, Merigomish Island, Sydney, Truro, Whycocomag (Nova Scotia). The Micmac collection from Conne River (Newfoundland) was assembled by Johnson during the Mrs. Thea Heye Expedition of 1931. Reimbursement for a portion of Johnson's research expenses was generally provided through the sale of field collections. He sold his River Desert collection (Maniwaki, Quebec) to the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia in 1929.

Fig 1.

Map of Frederick Johnson's ethnological fieldwork in eastern Canada. Courtesy of Philip G. Chase.

Johnson's Ethnological Fieldwork in Canada, 1925–31

The following section presents a summary of Frederick Johnson's ethnological field studies in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland in chronological order from 1925 to 1931.

Each of the nine entries vary in length and analysis based upon the extent of his fieldwork, publications and collections (including objects, photographs and manuscripts). For scholars who are interested in Frank Speck and the history of anthropology, it is interesting to note that there is a pattern between his research and funding in Canada and Frederick Johnson's ethnology.⁵

His fieldwork was primarily funded by museums, specifically the University Museum and George Heye's Museum of the American Indian (now the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, or NMAI) (Medoff 1991; McMullen 2004; Norcini in press). His frequent trips to small northern communities on Canadian reserves produced small, well-documented field collections (with native language terms) on Algonquian, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Montagnais, and Micmac material culture. He collected folktales and produced three publications and one extant unpublished manuscript. He also took extensive documentary photographs (Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq and Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology 2001). Note that museum objects are identified in the text by their catalog numbers in square brackets.

The contemporary terms used by Johnson to identify Aboriginal communities and geographic locations in Canada are reproduced in this survey. For the current names and addresses of these communities, please refer to the First Nations Concordance and Contact List (appendix A). For example, to early twentieth-century ethnologists such as Johnson, the term "River Desert" referred to the Algonquin community on the Maniwaki reserve; however, its official name today is the "Kitigan Zibi Anishanabeg First Nation" on the Kitigan Zibi Indian Reserve.

Naskapi at Seven Islands, Quebec, 1925

As an undergraduate student in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania (1924–27), Johnson visited the Naskapi at Seven Islands (Sept Iles) on a reserve near an old Hudson's Bay Company fort. The Montagnais-Naskapi were nomadic hunters and fishermen who lived on the north side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In 1917, Frank Speck and Fred Johnson (then thirteen years old) took an ethnological trip to the Montagnais-Naskapi. Speck returned to Sept Iles in 1924 to collect archaeological materials for George Heye [133269–133272]. The following year may have been Johnson's first solo ethnological field trip in Canada. In 1925 Johnson took thirty-four photographs of men, women, boys, girls, dogs, and canoes at Seven Islands; these became part of the Museum of the American Indian collection [N14767–N14800]. No other collections or manuscripts could be found.

Montagnais at Lac St. Jean, Quebec, 1926

On Johnson's second trip to Quebec the following year, he studied the Montagnais who lived on the shore of an inland lake, Lac St. Jean (Lake St. John), at the headwater of the Sagueney River. Like Seven Islands, Lac St. Jean was another reserve located near a Hudson's Bay Company post. Frank Speck visited the area in 1920, collecting a few archaeological objects for Heye's Museum of the American Indian [101504–101506]. Overall, Johnson's ethnological work did not produce objects, manuscripts, or publications. However, thirteen Johnson photographs of the Montagnais at Lac St. Jean were given to the Museum of the American Indian. These images include men in moose skin coats, men on a dog sled, and a dog travois [N14801–N14813]. It seems probable that his field trips to Seven Islands and Lac St. Jean resulted in student papers for anthropology classes at Penn, however, no copies have been found.

Algonquin at Golden Lake, Ontario, 1927–28

In the spring of 1927, Johnson traveled west of Ottawa City to an Algonquin reserve near the town of Golden Lake. He was on a collecting trip funded by the Heye Foundation. This fieldwork resulted in a well-documented field collection and constituted Johnson's first productive ethnological research. A report in Indian Notes explained the motivation for his field research:

The Golden Lake Algonquin attracted interest for the reason that they represent a branch of the Algonquin proper living south of the Ottawa River. Contacts were looked for in the direction of the Iroquois, Missisauga, and Eastern Ojibwa influence. No other investigator had touched the band, nor do the collections of the National Museum of Canada contain objects from them, hence those now in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, represent the only materials from the group in scientific hands at the present time.

(Johnson 1928:178)

The collections from Golden Lake consisted of sixty-nine ethnographic objects [154426–154486; 162625–162633]; a catalog of collections (NMAI paper archives, Box OC 137, folder 7); three archaeological objects—a clay pipe, arrowpoint, and celt [154487–154489]; twenty-eight photographs [N13291–N13313; N13314–N13319]; and a fifty-five page unpublished manuscript (Box V–L, folder 5).

Informed by two seasons of fieldwork at Golden Lake, Johnson's manuscript described the cultural context of his Algonquin collection and provided additional ethnographic notes, folktales, and indigenous kinship terms (Frederick Johnson manuscript, NMAI paper archives, Box V–L, folder 5, undated). This essay incorporates data from his unpublished manuscript, "Notes on the Algonquin at Golden Lake, Province of Ontario" (which I estimate to have been written after the completion of his fieldwork, circa 1929–30). Frederick W. Hodge, the assistant director at the Museum of the American Indian and editor of Indian Notes, was interested in publishing Johnson's Golden Lake manuscript and his illustrations of the collection. However, Hodge decided that it would be "too long for Indian Notes" and so Johnson's ethnographic essay was never published. He did publish a brief report on his Golden Lake research in Indian Notes(Johnson 1928).

In the spring of 1927, Fred Johnson collected sixty specimens at Golden Lake that included baskets, boxes, snowshoes, fishing and hunting equipment, tools, sap dishes, clothing, and domestic items [154426–154486]. He returned the following year to collect nine additional objects of similar materials [162625–162633].

Johnson was sensitive to contact histories and "outside influence" on Algonquin material culture at Golden Lake—the Tête de Bóuwanok and Algonquin bands to the north, the Iroquois to the south, Micmac to the east, and Mississauga to the west. He offered several ideas about the possible cultural affiliations of these objects. For example, Johnson proposed an Iroquois influence on cradle-boards and basswood mats (Johnson 1928). He observed that some Algonquin ash-splint basketry "made in the simpler weaves, by a few of the women" were "not very well developed . . . and from the testimony of the people I believe that it was only introduced here during the last century" (Johnson 1929–30). He observed that women's "dark broadcloth" clothing with "silk appliqué and silver brooches are found among the possessions of the older people" (Johnson 1929–30, 1928:175). Using comparative analysis to help classify the Golden Lake objects, Johnson posited similarities in wooden snowshoes and women's "feather bonnets" with the River Desert Algonquin and birch-bark containers with other northeastern woodland cultures (Johnson 1928, 1929–30). The bark canoes reminded him of "the Ojibwa style with the pointed ends and graceful lines" (Johnson 1928:176). Sensitive to documenting older traditional forms, Johnson reported the apparent disuse (or disappearance) of a number of objects including cedar dugouts, fiber bags, a style of moccasin made with "a rounded vamp," and decorative porcupine quillwork on skin and bark (Johnson 1928, 1929–30).

Comparative religious practices of the Algonquin at Golden Lake were also recorded, such as shaman's sweat lodge ceremonies (similar to the Montagnais-Naskapi), and scapulimancy as a divination process (similar to Labrador and Siberian peoples) (Johnson 1928, Johnson 1929–30). The folktales of Wíndigo, a mythological cannibal giant, were commonly found in Montagnais-Naskapi, Têtes de Boule and Cree bands (Johnson 1929–30:20). The Algonquin trickster Wiskéjak was a popular character in Ojibwa culture where he was known as Nenebójo (Johnson 1929–30:23), and magical "little people" were similar to beings in Prairie Potawatomi culture (Johnson 1929–30:28). Johnson concluded,

Extended contact with the Iroquois has left many traces in the existent culture. However a general impression is created that the culture is in close correspondence with the eastern Ojibwa. Evidences of Wabanaki influence are also present, though not marked. The existence of traits (such as the fast vigil) common to western tribes seem to indicate that here we have a marginal condition where the meeting of two large culture groups has resulted in the acquisition of traits from both. This mixture was then overlaid with influences from the Iroquois leaving a resultant culture which is more or less of a tangle.

(Johnson 1929–30:55)

According to Johnson's description of the Golden Lake reserve in Ontario, the community was situated "eighty-five miles west of Ottawa on the south bank of the Bonnechere River opposite the village of Golden Lake" (Johnson 1929–30:1). He reported that the approximately two hundred residents at the time called themselves "Ininwezi" meaning "we people here alone" (Johnson 1928:173).⁶ An official government document in 1896 stated that the seventy-nine residents were all Catholic, and presumably they remained so during the late 1920s when Johnson arrived to study their pre-reserve cultural traditions (Canada Department of Indian Affairs, annual report, 1896:1).

Algonquin band members "moved in to the reservation from the outlying districts" (Johnson 1928:174) after being "forced to change from their former life of hunting and roaming about the wilderness to the west and north because of the approach of civilization" (Johnson 1929–30:1). The fifteen-hundred-acre reserve was patented by the Canadian government in 1873. It existed as a government-managed reserve for approximately fifty years prior to Johnson's arrival. He speculated that their ancestors were familiar with the area before the establishment of a reserve suggesting that "the band has made its summer headquarters about Golden Lake for several centuries" (Johnson 1928:174). However, forced by the government to leave their large traditional hunting territory and relocate to the reserve, Algonquin families began to live a sedentary life. They now lived in log houses instead of their traditional and portable conical and square wigwams and changed to new patterns of subsistence.

Johnson also recorded contemporary twentieth-century conditions at Golden Lake. The Algonquin made their living primarily through wage work on the railroad and seasonal jobs in lumber and as guides in the Algonquin National Park. Ironically, these public lands were previously their traditional territories. Some attempted to farm in the poor soil, but most families made a living by fishing, hunting (deer, moose, bear), and wage work (Johnson manuscript, ca. 1929–30).

Four community members assisted the young ethnologist with his field research to document and collect material culture, folk tales and information on traditional religion. Johnson identified his consultants: Vincent Amikos, the oldest man in the band (ninety-nine years old) who like his father and grandfather was a conjuror; Mrs. John Jako, whose father, Gickanáa, was a conjuror; and Mr. and Mrs. Matt Bernard, who knew stories from their grandparents' generation about the magical powers of the supernatural spirits—Wíndigo, Banábe, and the little people.

Johnson collected information on native religion (shamanism) as it was practiced by an Algonquian band prior to moving to the reserve and before becoming "devout Catholics." His method was to interview present conjurors ("Old Man Visaw" and Vincent Amikos) and individuals whose fathers and grandfathers were professional conjurors (Mr. and Mrs. Matt Bernard, Mrs. John Jako, and Vincent Amikos). This was not easily accessible information on a Christianized reserve. Johnson explained,

The Algonquin residing at Golden Lake are now devout Catholics, so much so that they almost refuse to talk about the old beliefs and practices which were current before the coming of the missionaries. In some cases this reticence was overcome and I was able to obtain a few notes . . .

(Johnson manuscript, NMAI paper archives, Box V–L, folder 5, circa 1929–30)

Before the reserves were established by the Canadian government for Aboriginal people, Algonquin conjurors who lived in mobile bands sought power for the hunt from animal guardian spirits (such as beaver, bear, and chickadee) through dreaming and vision quests. They called these vision quests fast vigils. They were sought by "youths, either male or female, when they were about ten years old" (Johnson circa 1929–30:13). Each conjuror relied upon the power of his or her guardian spirit, "ndodémon," to find game and sustain his livelihood. Johnson's consultants explained that "the people cultivated dreaming." A hunter communicated with his spirit helper through dreams (Johnson circa 1929–30:14). Johnson explained,

Once a dream was received it was interpreted and followed out as near to the letter as possible. The ndodémon sometimes called upon the hunter to make charms which would help him to secure game and to prevent disaster to himself and his family.

Drumming, singing and rattling were other methods of satisfying the ndodémon. . . . Practically all the hunters were conjurors of varying ability. The non-professional conjurors were those men whose powers were only ordinary, that is, . . . they could supply their own wants and those of their family. Their powers were restricted to a moderate ability of foretelling the future, and they were happy to find enough game so that they were prosperous and happy. The professional conjurors, on the other hand, were men who had gained such control of their ndodémon, or men whose ndodémon were so powerful that they could do many extraordinary things. Foretelling the future and practicing several now forgotten forms of divination were very common. . . . Many conjurors had the power to make themselves invisible while some could turn themselves into the material form of their guardian animal.

(Johnson circa 1929–30:14–15)

Although his field collections at Golden Lake did not represent an abiding interest in Algonquin shamanism (no drums, rattles, or burned scapulae), Johnson pursued a study of belief systems in other Aboriginal communities (e.g., Micmac in 1930–32).

Ojibwa and Potawatomi at Parry Island, Ontario, 1928–29

In 1928, Johnson made a "short stay" on the Parry Island Indian reserve, a consolidated reserve of approximately 150 Ojibwa and 100 Potawatomi residents. Johnson took thirteen photographs for the Museum of the American Indian, [N14402–N14414]. The images were primarily of women selling their birch-bark boxes to tourists and men in traditional clothing. He also collected sixty-four ethnological objects in 1928, with a supplement of four additional items in 1929. The majority of the collections were attributed to the Ojibwa or Chippewa [162553–162616 from 1928; 163853–163856 from 1929]. Potawatomi material culture was represented by seven objects including a war club, dance rattles and dance club, paddle, water drum and drumstick collected in 1928 [162617–162623]. The diverse collection of Ojibwa objects included fishing gear, bows and arrow, quiver, war clubs, knives, rope, maple sugaring equipment, snowshoes, moccasins, fiber mats, birch-bark containers (baskets, buckets, boxes), ash baskets, wooden utensils, and a mortar and pestle for pounding corn into meal (the last was illustrated in his photograph of "'Old Lady' Medweash" [Johnson 1929:198]).

Johnson's illustrated article in Indian Notes provided general information on a transitional era in the living conditions and material culture at Parry Island in the late 1920s. Traditionally, homes were conical wigwams made with "sixteen poles and covered with nine strips of birch-bark." Current housing conditions on the reserve consisted of log cabins and mostly "poorly constructed board shacks covered with tar-paper" (Johnson 1929:194–195). Animal skin clothing was generally replaced by "clothes obtained from the white man" and moccasins were "the only aboriginal form of clothing which survives to the present day, with the possible exception of fur hats" (Johnson 1929:195–197). The pump-drill was still used, "beaver-grass" rope and wooden ice fishing lures were still made, but vertical log mortars were recently put aside. Basswood was used (instead of spruce-root) to stitch birch-bark boxes and make colorful banded bags. Ash splint baskets and mats of rush and braided corn-husks were also produced.

Johnson described and took photographs of the old cemetery. The graveyard contained "seven peak-roofed shingled structures" with carved poles and represented earlier burial practices on the island. Johnson wrote,

These mortuary houses . . . have a small shelf attached in the corner either to the right or to the left of the door. On a few of these shelves the rotted remains of clothing are to be seen. The contents of the largest house were: a badly decayed rattle . . . [and] a roll of birch-bark containing a woolen shawl and some red cloth, both badly decayed. In the other houses were found remains of baskets, clothing, and in one a fish-net.

(Johnson 1929:212–215)

These seven feet–by–three-and-a-half feet funerary structures at Parry Island bore a striking similarity to the wooden Algonquin grave houses made for prominent members of the community (Day and Trigger 1978:796).

Johnson recorded the community's resistance to his efforts to research ritual practices at Parry Island. Religious information (both current and ancient) was not easy for Johnson to collect on the reserve because of the Canadian government policy against aboriginal spiritual practices and the presence of a Methodist missionary (Johnson 1929:207). When he purchased two carved rattles used by the owner's father, Johnson asked the man about the religious meanings of the objects. In response he received only vague answers from the seller about the symbolism. He speculated that "whatever meaning they might have had seems to have practically vanished, unless it may be conjured out of the old man from whom I purchased them" (Johnson 1929:207). One man told him that a midéwin rite was performed thirty years ago but surviving participants were not forthcoming (Johnson 1929:207). Finally, after encountering more direct resistance to his study of the old cemetery, he concluded that: "Further inquiry about the graveyard and the houses evoked so much hostility that it was decided to defer the investigation until the motives of my questioning were more clearly understood" (Johnson 1929:215).

Johnson's article was published in the Heye Foundation's series Indian Notes in July 1929. In his later years he commented that his articles and research reports were "quite naïve" and that it was "better to let them lie obscurely in dusty volumes (Johnson, Biographical Details, Tufts University Archives, ca. 1975).

During that same summer, Diamond Jenness, the new head of anthropology at the National Museum of Canada, conducted seven weeks of fieldwork on the Indian reserve (Wasoksing). His purpose was to research the "social and religious life of the Parry Island Indians" and he later published a monograph on the subject (Jenness 1935). What is curious is that Jenness did not cite Johnson's contemporary fieldwork or his 1929 article in Indian Notes in his Parry Island publications (Jenness 1932, 1935). It is possible that this omission reflects the difference between Jenness's professional status at the National Museum and Johnson's student status (in 1929 he graduated from Tufts College and was entering graduate school in anthropology at Harvard).

River Desert Band at Maniwaki, Quebec, 1928–29

One hundred miles north of Ottawa is the Algonquin community of the River Desert Band at Maniwaki in Quebec. The mission town was established by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the mid-nineteenth century and named Maniwaki (Mary's Land). It was situated at the confluence of three rivers—Desert, Gatineau, and Eagle. An Algonquin band moved to a reserve six miles south of this Roman Catholic village. They previously lived on a consolidated reserve near Montreal (Lake of the Two Mountains at Oka) and left after a disagreement with the Iroquois over the arrival of Methodist missionaries (Speck 1923). Speck made several ethnological field trips to Maniwaki (1927, 1928, 1929, 1937, 1943). He collected and sold Algonquin materials to the Museum of the American Indian, took photographs, and published his research on the River Desert band (Speck 1927, 1929, 1941).

In the summer of 1928, Johnson arrived to conduct his own ethnological study and returned the following summer to complete his work. He took twenty-four photographs [N14814 , N15035–N15057 ], collected Native-language words and tales, and assembled a small, well-documented collection of ethnological objects. They were purchased by the University Museum in 1929 for $260 (University of Pennsylvania Museum Archives, Board of Managers Minutes, 1927–34). It was significant that this acquisition was made during the Depression when the Museum's budget deficit forced the administrators to lay off half of the staff (Winegrad 1993). His photographs were sent to the Museum of the American Indian; presumably they directly or indirectly financed a portion of Johnson's research expenses. Johnson's catalog of approximately one hundred ethnological specimens at the University Museum was patterned on Speck's list of his Maniwaki objects to the Museum of the American Indian; it was the only written record of his field studies. A detailed collection history of the River Desert Algonquin collection [29-10] at the University Museum has been written for further reference (Norcini in press). Overall, "Frederick Johnson's Algonquin collections complemented those made by Speck" (McMullen 2004).

Algonquin at Lac Barrière, Province of Quebec, 1928–29

After he completed his fieldwork at Maniwaki, Johnson "conducted an ethnological trip to the Algonkin Indians of Lake Barrière, Quebec" for a brief week of research and collecting (Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, Annual Report for 1929–30:8). The community was located across the lake from a Hudson's Bay Company post.

The collections that he made for the Museum of the American Indian included thirty-six ethnographic objects [16559–16595], eight miscellaneous archaeological items and twenty-five stone flakes [165596–165601], and thirty-five black and white photographs [N1 5000–N15034 ]. He also compiled a list of ethnological specimens obtained at Lac Barrière (NMAI paper archives, Box OC137 . 7 , folder 7) and published a report in the museum's Indian Notes(Johnson 1930).

The Lac Barrière ethnographic objects were similar to the "type" of artifact that he collected on the Maniwaki reserve—birch-bark boxes and containers (including "a large box used for carrying with a tumpline" that Johnson may have posed with; see figure 1), tools (net needles, bone scraper, snowshoe needles), crooked knife, decorated wooden spoons, cradle board (similar to Tête de Boule and Grand Lake forms), moosehide items (mittens, moccasins, tobacco pouch) and textile containers (needle case, shot pouch). However the objects from Lac Barrière were distinctive in "style" for their undecorated birch-bark containers, bent hoops on the head of a cradle board, the absence of a central tooth on the net needles, and rare floral beadwork and embroidery on moccasins (Johnson 1930).

Fig 2.

Frederick Johnson at Lac Barrière in Québec, 1929. Photographer un-known. Digital image provided by the R. S. Peabody Museum, Phillips Academy. Image courtesy of Mertina Rudié.

One usual aspect of his Lac Barrière fieldwork was his historical archaeology at a battlefield site. He not only collected others' found objects near regional lakes but he conducted his own field excavation in 1929. The motivation to dig and photograph the site was not only because of his commitment to assemble field collections, there was a more urgent reason—the national electric company was going to flood the area for a hydroelectric dam. He explained, "the site, which is about 12 feet above the present level of the lake will be covered when the Canadian International Power Company raises the level of the lake 17 feet in the Spring of 1930" (Johnson, list of specimens, NMAI paper archives, Box OC137.7, folder 7).

Johnson had conducted previous archaeological work in California for George Heye in 1919; it was documented in his twenty-eight page diary (NMAI paper archives, Box V–L, folder 4). However, Johnson's excavation at Iroquois Point on the shore of the Bark Lake was the only example of his archaeological fieldwork in Canada, to the author's knowledge, with the exception of a few surface finds in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Johnson documented his archaeology with notes on the local stratigraphy, on the excavation of twenty test pits, and on a minor lithic collection. He also noted that there were oral history accounts of the historical battle between the Iroquois and the Lac Barrière people.

His archaeology at Iroquois Point in 1929 presaged his later work in American archaeology in two ways: (1) his awareness of charcoal in context with pottery shards was somewhat similar to his interest in applying radiocarbon dating to archaeological materials during the late 1940s and 1950s with physicist Libby; and (2) his mitigation work in response to a future hydroelectric dam foreshadowed the large federal reclamation projects (River Basin Projects) and the development of cultural resource management in the United States during the 1940s.

Montagnais and Mistassini, Pointe Bleu, Quebec, 1930

The only evidence of Johnson's 1930 return to Pointe Bleu on the western side of Lac St. Jean was his twenty photographs in the Museum of the American Indian collection [N19140–N19159]. The images included portraits of Montagnais and Mistassini men, women, and babies, gaming (rabbit hunting game and "shooting the otter"), a summer tent and brush shelter, and animal skin drying on a frame.

Micmac Research, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, 1930–31

Googoo, a Mi'kmaw elder, remembered the twenty-seven-year-old ethnologist Johnson as "an easy-going guy" who "just wanted to hear the stories from the old people" (Mikwite'lmanej Mikmaqi'k 2001:97).

Johnson's professional interest in Aboriginal religion was most apparent in his study of Micmac shamanism (Johnson 1943). He based his interpretations on fieldwork conducted in 1930 on reserves in Cape Breton Island and Truro in Nova Scotia, supplemented a short trip to Conne River, Newfoundland in 1931. Both trips were funded by the Museum of the American Indian. Although his research on Micmac shamanism (Johnson 1943:53) related to his academic studies in anthropology at Harvard under Roland Dixon, Johnson continued to be influenced by Speck who himself wrote extensively on northeastern Indian religions.

Johnson produced a significant amount of ethnological documentation on Micmac communities that added to the scientific value of collections at the Museum of the American Indian. His collection consisted of 162 ethnographic objects, several identified by their aboriginal names [176407–176522, 181008–181023, 181046–181051, 181072–184554]. He compiled a list of specimens from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland that were shipped in a trunk from Truro, Nova Scotia to New York City (NMAI paper archives, Box OC137 , Folder 7). Years later when he was a curator of archaeology at the R. S. Peabody Foundation, Johnson published an article on Micmac shamanism in Primitive Man, a quarterly bulletin of the Catholic Anthropological Conference (Johnson 1943).

Johnson also produced an impressive archive of Micmac photographs. He took 174 black and white field photographs [140 from Nova Scotia, N19796–19932, N20284–20287; 34 from Newfoundland, N20268–20283, N20288–20307]. In 2001, an exhibition and book based upon his documentary photographs of Micmac communities were collaboratively produced by The Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq in Truro, Nova Scotia, and the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. The book reproduced a number of photographs from seven Micmac communities "in search of ethnological information"—"Chapel Island, Eskasoni, Merigomish Island, Millbrook, Sydney (Kings Road and Membertou) and Waycobah (Whycocomagh) in Nova Scotia, and Miawpukek (Conne River) in Newfoundland" (Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq and Robert S. Peabody Museum 2001:unpaginated Welcome page). This collaborative project was an excellent example of a community-museum partnership that would have pleased Johnson as an ethnologist and visual anthropologist.

Conclusion

This essay demonstrates that Frederick Johnson's ethnology contributed to a history of research on Aboriginal communities in the early twentieth century. He was an adventurous and persistent fieldworker in eastern Canada during the 1920s and 1930s. He made frequent brief trips to remote reserves and established good field relationships. He collected a variety of data on cultural and linguistic practices, and assembled well-documented ethnological field collections. He published articles and research reports in museum and academic journals, and wrote a manuscript on his fieldwork on the Golden Lake Reserve. In addition, Johnson produced an impressive and important visual record of five hundred photographs which documents the conditions of Aboriginal life on several Canadian reserves during the early twentieth century.

Johnson's Canadian ethnology also reveals how his student training at the University of Pennsylvania in the Americanist tradition and the four field approach was applied across an international border. The research methods and objectives of Americanist anthropololgy directed the type of field data that he collected on Canadian reserves—folktales, native language terminology, aboriginal technologies used in hunting, fishing and traditional crafts. Johnson was one of several "salvage ethnologists" during the early twentieth century who recorded vestiges of prereserve cultural traditions and early reserve adaptations, but he was one of only a few anthropologists who conducted their research in Canada.

The final aspect of analysis is the reciprocal relationship between academia and museums. Anthropological museums were in an era of intensive collection development during the early twentieth century. They competed with other emerging cultural institutions for pre-eminence in the fields of archaeology and anthropology. Academic research benefited from assisting museums to reach their institutional goals because in return they received financial support for their field research. Building on Speck's relationship with George Heye, Johnson had a steady supporter of his Canadian ethnological research at the Museum of the American Indian.

In conclusion, Frederick Johnson was an early-twentieth-century ethnologist whose research, field collections, and documentary photographs contributed to the expansion of Americanist anthropology into Canada.