Essays in Tribute to Regina Flannery

Transcription

1 Essays in Tribute to Regina Flannery ( ) Edited by Toby Morantz

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3 Essays in Tribute to Regina Flannery TOBY MORANTZ McGill University The papers that make up this festschrift are drawn from a day-long session at the 37th Algonquian Conference, at which the contributors were primarily individuals who personally knew Regina Flannery Herzfeld. As much as these papers are a testament to her fine scholarly legacy, they are also a testament to the affection we all have held for her. Those of us outside of Washington, D.C. continued to seek her out not only for her knowledge and understanding of James Bay society but also because of her indomitable feisty spirit and wonderful sense of humour that continued into her 100th year. It was a pleasure to be in her company - and gaining colourful and perceptive insights into James Bay life in the 1930s was a bonus. Two of the contributors had the privilege of a long-standing friendship with Regina. Lucy Cohen was her close friend and colleague in the Department of Anthropology at the Catholic University of America. We look to her paper for an account of Regina's scholarly work and her service to the anthropological community and the wider American public. It also covers some of her writing and thinking about Gros Ventre society. A number of Gros Ventres, either working in Washington or passing through, maintained their friendship with Regina, ensuring an occasional Gros Ventre presence in her office. This kept Regina involved in the life of the community, in a way that was not possible in pre-electronic days with the Crees. Orin Hatton, an efhnomusicologist living in Washington, first encountered Regina in the 1980s as a Master's student at Catholic University because of their shared interest in the Gros Ventres. His work on Gros Ventre music also benefitted from his long discussions with Regina about Gros Ventre life in the 1940s, and the ongoing contact with the community that her long-standing friendships provided. His presentation on Gros Ventre music was titled 'Each man has his own helpers.' Neither he nor Cohen, whose writings are mainly on the Chinese in the Americas, had participated in the Algonquian Conference previously, and we were fortunate to have them both in attendance, sharing their knowledge about Regina and the Gros Ventres.

4 372 TOBY MORANTZ The rest of the contributors to the session represented Flannery's James Bay research. Morantz' paper reviews her major publications on either the west or east coast of the Bay that she combined, in latter years, with the research of John M. Cooper, her mentor and collaborator. Preston takes up the interests of both in his paper on the oral tradition they recorded, particularly those stories which engage the spirit world. His contribution draws on his discussions with Flannery on the roles the oral tradition held in earlier Cree society. Oberholtzer, as her paper on Cree material culture demonstrates, frequently consulted Regina for information that greatly enhanced her understanding of the uses to which Cree manufactured goods were put and the broader context in which they were enjoyed, even as far back as 125 or more years ago. Although Cecil Chabot was not directly in touch with Regina while writing his Master's thesis on the Hannah Bay massacre,it was appropriate that he participate in the session because he was born and grew up in Moose Factory. What began as a paper on Moose Factory life in the 1970s and 80s came to focus on one very important aspect of it: the blend ofreligious thinking he encountered in conversations with his Cree friends. The title of his presentation was 'Syncretism, conversion, contention or catastrophe? Some thoughts on Christian catechesis among the James Bay Cree.' Similarly, Stan Louttit did not meet Regina Flannery but he, too, grew up in Moose Factory with Cree parents from both sides of the Bay. Although his Master's thesis is on the life style of the youth of Wemindji (east coast) and their understanding of diabetes, Stan is also a musician who has developed a deep interest in Cree songs. Regina had heard much more of this music and these songs than did subsequent anthropologists in James Bay and she herself noted their decline. His paper on 'Eastern James Bay hunting songs: A spiritual, improvisational and structural analysis of the songs of John Kawapit (Whapmagoostui Eeyou First Nation)' explored sound recordings in the audio-visual archives of the Canadian Museum of Civilization as an opportunity for comparative analysis and interpretation of these hunting songs. Regina was a pioneer in thefieldof anthropology in writing on women's roles and their place in society. Jennifer Brown demonstrates another aspect of Regina's writings on women, perceptively picking up on her work with older women, and explores this theme in the stories of

5 ESSAYS IN TRIBUTE TO REGINA FLANNERY 373 an Omushkego (Swampy) Cree story teller, Louis Bird. Although Jennifer's research has been located further west, amongst the Berens River Ojibwe in Manitoba, she did meet and work with Regina in her capacity as editor of the Rupert's Land Record Society Series and publisher of Regina's book, Ellen Smallboy: Glimpses of a Cree woman's life (1995). The hallmark of Flannery's scholarship was her attention to detail and comparative studies, no matter the subject. This is how one would characterize the last paper in this collection, and on a subject dear to Regina. In 1985, she, with co-author Beth Chambers, published an extensive and far-reaching examination of the Cree spirit world and its transformations from the time she and Cooper had conducted their research in the 1930s. As this discussion overlaps well with their James Bay interests, Long, Preston and Oberholtzer teamed up to provide us with a similarly highly detailed, comparative and extensive study of the "supreme being" concept, much of it in the form of a "dialogue" with this 1985 paper. Perhapsit is the last word on this contentious issue. Susan Gray spoke about 'Historical research and the magic of oral history: Stories from Berens River,' echoing Regina's last James Bay work: to oversee the reproduction of the stories from James Bay in order to make them available to the Cree communities. A last important entry in this collection is due to the efforts of Viviana Cristian, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology of the Catholic University of America. It is a comprehensive bibliography of Regina's publications covering all aspects of her academic life - spanning an incredible and remarkable sixty-two years! All the participants would like to thank Richard Preston for early on taking the initiative to organize this session along with the Conference organiser, Marie Odile Junker, and to Lucy Cohen and Orin Hatton for being such an important presence there. I would also like to thank Richard Preston and John Long for helping with the editing of these papers in the initial stages of publication and, of course, to Chris Wolfart and Arden Ogg in thefinalones.

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