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Audiotape Backup of Videotape
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- Sound recording
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Physical description
1 cassette tape (90 min.)
1 Beta Video Cassette (105 min.)
1 VHS tape (105 min.)
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Name of creator
Biographical history
Martine J. Reid (née de Widerspach-Thor) was born in France. After completing her Master’s thesis on the role of salmon on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Kwakwaka'wakw communities, she moved to British Columbia. While studying at the University of British Columbia, she started learning Kwakwala from Katherine Ferry Adams, who introduced her to the language and culture and adopted her into her family in 1978.
From 1976 to 1978 she attended several potlatches in the area of Alert Bay (BC). There, she came in contact with Kwakwakka’wakw communities, which would lead her to write and defend her doctoral dissertation about the Kwakwakka’wakw hamaca (Man-Eater) ritual in 1981.
In the 1970s, Dr. Reid received funding from the Urgent Ethnology Program of the Museum of Man in Ottawa to record languages and customs to prevent their loss. As part of this project, Dr. Reid came in contact with Agnes Alfred (or Axuw or Axuwaw) with whom she travelled to different Kwakwakka’wakw communities. As part of these visits, she met Agnes’ granddaughter, Daisy Sewid-Smith.
Between 1979 and 1980, and in 1983 and 1985 Sewid-Smith and Reid recorded and translated Agnes’ memoirs. From then until the late 1990s, they put a hold in their project for personal and work-related reasons. In the late 1990s, they resumed their work, which lead to the publication of Paddling to Where I Stand in 2004.
Between 1979 and 1983, Dr. Reid worked at the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. There, she lectured in the areas of Anthropology, Ethnography, and First Nations studies. She also participated in several art-related projects in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, while consulting projects for the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs and for the Native Investment Trade Association.
From 2008 to 2012, Dr. Reid was the Director of Content and Research, and Curator at the Bill Reid Gallery. Then, she became the Honorary Chair of the Bill Reid Foundation.
Custodial history
Scope and content
Item is a recorded interview to Agnes Alfred telling stories on February 10, 1985. Tapes were recorded by Martine Reid, at Chief Jimmy Sewid's house and in the presence of Mrs. Jimmy Sewid and Daisy Sewid-Smith.
Item includes 3 tapes:
- An original video recording of the interview in a Beta Video Cassette tape
- A copy video recording of the interview in VHS a Video Cassette tape
- An original audio recording of the interview in an Audio Cassette tape (considered as a backup by creator)
Interview was not transcribed
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Location of originals
MAN 231 Audiotapes Box 18
Video 286 and 287 Videos Box 12