Papers of the 39th Algonquian Conference (review)

The publication of this intrepid band of collected conference papers has gone through many incarnations. Champions keep rising to the publishing challenge. First they were published by the National Museum of Man’s Mercury Series and then, starting in 1975, they were published by Carleton University, and later still by the University of Manitoba. This volume is published by the University of Western Ontario, and the university is to be praised for taking up the torch.

What we have here, as with previous published collections from this series, are papers diverse in their authors’ academic seniority (graduate students to professors emeriti) and discipline (linguistics, anthropology and history) concerning peoples classified as speaking one of the languages of the largest Aboriginal language family in North America. Ten of the papers are linguistic contributions, most having no direct perceivable relevance to historians or to other non-linguists. There is at least one exception. Peter Bakker’s ‘Response to Jan van Eijk: More Arguments for an Algonquian–Salish connection’ is provocative. He argues for a connection between the Algonquian language family and the Salishan family spoken in British Columbia and the northwestern United States. While he is not completely convincing in trying to establish a ‘family relationship’ between the two, he does raise the question of an areal connection between languages spoken by neighbours. Since Edward Sapir wrote in 1913 of a family connection with other West Coast languages, we have known of the Pacific heritage of Algonquian. Mitochondrial dna links have recently added to our knowledge of our heritage. Bakker’s paper opens the way to possibly seeing further connections.

Another proven performer who delivers worthwhile historical goods is Jennifer Brown, with her ‘Growing Up Algonquian: A Missionary’s Son in Cree-Ojibwe Country, 1869–1876.’ She discusses how a son of Methodist missionary Egerton R. Young – E. or ‘Eddie’ Ryerson – became powerfully influenced by a ‘reverse assimilation’ into the culture of his father’s mission charges. This article opens up an area of study that should be very productive in the future.

The same can be said of Karl Hele’s piece, ‘ “Fully Equal to a Mission in Herself ”: Charlotte Johnston McMurray’s Missionary Labours at Bawating, 1827–1838.’ It is delivered by an already productive scholar, and the work itself leads the way to further work being done both on the woman herself, a ‘Mixed-Blood’ Ojibwe speaker engaged in Anglican missionary work in the area of the Sault (a book on the subject would be appreciated), and on women of similar backgrounds whose influence has been likewise underestimated.

Also groundbreaking and in another field with potential to produce information useful to historians – medical anthropology – is Christianne Stephens’s ‘Syndemics, Structural Violence and the Politics of Health: A Critical Biocultural Approach to the Study of Disease and Tuberculosis Mortality in Historic Parish Population at Walpole Island.’ Not only does the author demonstrate a good knowledge of historiography, but she provides a solid theoretical approach for studying disease in Aboriginal communities, using the interdisciplinary model of syndemics ‘as a way of expanding current understandings of new and emerging infectious diseases and their entwinement with each other and the social conditions and biopsychological consequences of disparity, discrimination and structural violence’ (584). Throughout the author demonstrates how the intensive study of a single community can provide rich material for further comparative and more extensive historical work.

The only weakness of this collection, as with its predecessors, is that the works do not ‘speak to each other,’ but, to quote Henry Ford, are presented as ‘one damn thing after another.’ Changing that situation would be difficult. Part of the appeal of the Algonquian Conference is that it is not restricted to themes, but papers are invited on any Algonquian subject. It would be difficult for the editors to coordinate the broad diversity of materials. What would be useful, and within the realm of possibility, is for a linguistic editor to explain for historians and other non...