Paddling to Where I Stand
Paddling to Where I Stand
Agnes Alfred, Qwiqwasutinuxw Noblewoman
The Kwakwakawakw people and their culture have been the subject of more anthropological writings than any other ethnic group on the Northwest Coast. Until now, however, no biography had been written by or about a Kwakwakawakw woman. Paddling to Where I Stand presents the memoirs of Agnes Alfred (c.1890-1992), a non-literate noble Qwiqwasutinuxw woman of the Kwakwakawakw Nation and one of the last great storytellers among her peers in the classic oral tradition.
Agnes Alfred documents through myths, historical accounts, and personal reminiscences the foundations and the enduring pulse of her living culture. She shows how a First Nations woman managed to quietly fulfill her role as a noble matriarch in her ever-changing society, thus providing a role model for those who came after her. She also contributes significant light and understanding to several traditional practices including prearranged marriages and traditional potlatches.
Paddling to Where I Stand is more than another anthropological interpretation of Kwakwaka’wakw culture. It is the first-hand account, by a woman, of the greatest period of change she and her people experienced since first contact with Europeans, and her memoirs flow from her urgently felt desire to pass on her knowledge to younger generations.
Awards
- 2005, Commended - BC Historical Federation Book Prize, BC Historical Federation
Reid carefully conveys gestures, moods, and inflections evident in storytelling, enhancing authenticity. Paddling to Where I Stand deserves a spot in every Canadian library’s shelf.
The pleasure of reading Paddling to Where I Stand ... will be found, first, in Reid’s interrogation of autobiography and her strategies for ensuring that this story is Agnes Alfred’s story, and second, in the successful outcome of these strategies. Agnes Alfred emerges, in her own words, the ‘extraordinary woman with an extraordinary life’ that her granddaughter describes in her funeral elegy.
Paddling to Where I Stand is a delight in every sense of the word. It will quickly become a classic work of Canadian ethnography. Besides filling a noticeable gap in women’s history, it demonstrates the rich potential for collaborative ethnography in Aboriginal communities today. In addition to the standard traditional narratives, the book features lesser-known historical narratives -- stories of steamship and paddlewheel travel, of early missionaries and government agents, of the first washing machines, automobiles, and radios in Alert Bay, and of the impact of two world wars.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Myth Time
2 War, Conflict, and Slavery
3 Childhood
4 Becoming a Woman
5 Marrying Moses Alfred
6 Ceremonies and Rituals
7 Fragments of Recollections
Eulogy for Granny Axuw
Epilogue
Appendices
Notes
References
Index
