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A Totem Pole History: The Work of Lummi Carver Joe Hillaire. by Pauline hillaire. ed. Gregory P. Fields. (lincoln: university of nebraska Press, 2013. Pp. lxi + 256, appendix, bibliography, list of contributors, index, 75 illustrations, 4 maps.)
The preservation of the lummi tribe's tradition of carving totem poles is an important topic to this volume's contributors. The writers provide an interdisciplinary perspective and have much useful to say about this traditional art in a book that, on the surface, provides a life history of Joe hillaire. he is the father of Pauline hillaire, who is also known as "Scälla," and she is credited as the author of the book. The story is told, however, through a compendium of essays, rather than an entirely linear and discursive treatment of material culture. This approach provides certain advantages by way of joining together diverse expertise.
The first half of the book is mainly a biography. Through the voice of his daughter, we learn that Joe hillaire was not solely an experienced and beloved carver of the lummi tribe of the coast Salish people in the state of Washington, near the canadian border. he also was a diplomat and evangelist, even a renaissance man in art and politics. in the often overlapping essays, facts from Joe hillaire's life story are in many places repeated in the text. There are moments when it is easy to sympathize with hillaire, an always-smiling, friendly ambassador of his people, but one must question whether the complexity of conflict in his life has been...