Corps de l’article

At the core of this book is a collection of photographs taken on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska by Leuman Waugh during his two years (1929-30) as dentist aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Northland. The significance of the volume lies not only in making these historic images available for the first time, but also in showing how the return of photographs to communities of origin elicits memories and stories that both enrich the meanings of collections and reinvigorate ties among families and generations.

Neqamikegkaput / Faces We Remember was produced through a cooperative agreement between the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), with assistance from the Native Corporations of Gambell and Savoonga, the two main villages of St. Lawrence Island. This is an excellent addition to Akuzilleput Igaqullghet / Our Words Put to Paper (Krupnik et al. 2004), the sourcebook on St. Lawrence Island heritage and history compiled a decade ago. Both volumes are part of the “Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology” series published by the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center (ASC). Both represent ongoing initiatives by Arctic communities and the ASC to repatriate or return knowledge by seeking to make information held in (often distant) archives available to those at the source and collaborating with local experts in the production and care of that knowledge.

How did these photographs come to light? A few interesting prints stamped with Waugh’s name surfaced in Smithsonian archives when Akuzilleput Igaqullghet was being compiled. In 2000, researcher Lars Krutak traced these items to a collection of Waugh materials at the Rankin Museum of American Heritage in rural North Carolina. The Smithsonian offered to purchase the collection, and by 2001 all but the 3-dimensional objects had been moved to the NMAI.

An introductory essay by anthropologists and archivists at the NMNH and the NMAI who worked most closely with the collection offers informative context about Waugh’s many trips to Alaska and eastern Canada, his interactions and correspondence with local people, and his career in dentistry. Waugh was known in medical circles as “the person who brought professional dentistry to the Arctic,” as a scholar of Arctic health, and as a strong advocate of a traditional diet. The introduction also discusses how the collection of several thousand prints, negatives, and lantern slides has been processed and organised. The 105 prints from St. Lawrence Island in this volume are the first Waugh materials to be published. They represent one small portion of the collection that was in fairly good condition and that might serve as a pilot for future publications. The introduction also recounts how the book’s multivocal format took shape.

The title, Faces We Remember, is apt, as the photographs are, for the most part, portrait-like images of individuals and family groupings posing for the camera, often wearing their finest clothes (sometimes out of season!). The book is divided into sections by subject matter. Part 1 features images of people from Gambell; Part 2, people from Savoonga. Parts 3 and 4 are scenes in and around the villages of Gambell and Savoonga respectively, also primarily of people, but with houses or village scenes in the background. A few depict people engaged in an activity, such as splitting a walrus hide, preparing food, or being vaccinated. Part 5 consists of photos of St. Lawrence Islanders aboard the Coast Guard cutter.

In spite of their posed quality, Waugh’s photos have a noticeable intimacy. His captions indicate that his interest in taking pictures was not medical or scientific but more personal and social. Excerpts from his writing (see Appendix 5) reveal a caring and respectful attitude toward his patients. Waugh also made efforts to send photos back to people on the island, and to correspond with some of his subjects.

Waugh’s captions for his photographs, when they do exist, are minimal. Some of the St. Lawrence Island prints had handwritten notes added by a local resident or teacher, but many had no labels at all (Appendix 1 includes all original photo captions). Smithsonian anthropologists sent the images to Willis Walunga, long-time resident of St. Lawrence Island and local history expert. Walunga enlisted local elders to look them over and identify people they knew. Several other esteemed St. Lawrence Island elders and culture-bearers contributed commentaries. These stories and memories were compiled for each image, essentially giving the once-forgotten photos a “second life” (p. 15, 33).

The present-day commentaries by St. Lawrence Islanders on each photograph are important from several standpoints. First, the photos have served as a catalyst for information about St. Lawrence Island family histories and all kinds of detailed knowledge about local genealogies, kinship, and interfamilial connections. The narratives also contain cultural knowledge about such things as clothing styles and the proper handling and processing of food. Moreover, when contributors describe what a person is known or remembered for, they convey a deep sense of the values that make a well-respected man or woman. The narratives are also very gendered, both in how people are remembered and in what they are remembered for. For example, women are remembered for their marriages, their children, and their skills in storytelling and sewing, whereas men are remembered for skill in hunting and for their military service. The contributor’s gender also seems to make a difference. Men differ from women in the kinds of stories they share and in their manner of telling them.

Because the images represent such a narrow slice of time, they also document changes on the island, particularly in housing and clothing styles. Men are wearing European dress and hats, and women’s garments, though traditional in design, are made from Western fabrics. Most people are still wearing traditional footwear, which was probably warmer and just as waterproof as anything money could buy.

The photographs also depict an interesting mix of older and newer-style dwellings, including a few of the older semi-underground homes. By the 1920s, most St. Lawrence Islanders had moved into above-ground wooden houses. Wood frame houses with horizontal siding first appeared on the island in 1927, and Waugh’s photos document how quickly they were adopted. Children in these pictures were the first generation to grow up in Western-style wood frame houses. Commentators also remember these years as the time when people began to find jobs off-island. Only 80 years earlier, around 1850, the first whalers and traders had arrived, bringing all manner of Western goods. Lifestyles, prices, modes of communication, transportation, governance, and more would continue to change dramatically with the advent of World War II and the construction of army bases on the island.

The timing for gathering memories sparked by these photographs is critical, as they were taken 80 years ago. Many elders, now in their 70s and 80s, still have first-hand memories of individuals depicted in the photos. Adults in the photos are remembered by their grandchildren (now elders themselves). A few of the young children are still alive. The book has become an opportunity for elders today to introduce these forebears to present and future generations.

If anything is missing from the volume, it might be additional context about social, economic, or political circumstances on St. Lawrence Island around the time of Waugh’s visits. For example, in 1930, the population of Gambell was only about 250—on the rise after famine had decimated the island 50 years earlier. Savoonga was a much smaller community, first established as a reindeer camp in 1916. It stands to reason that a large percentage of the 1400-plus residents of the island today probably descend from people in Waugh’s photos.

Leuman Waugh could not have foreseen the significance his photos would come to have. In her foreword, St. Lawrence Islander Vera Metcalf refers to them as family photos—cultural treasures that enrich family remembrances and connections. Other Arctic communities and researchers should take note that this volume represents only a small, geographically specific portion of the Waugh collection; there are more photographs as well as documents on Arctic medical history available for dissemination and study.

This volume shares the deep story of a visual repatriation. Even its format exemplifies the repatriation process, illustrating how images trigger deep reservoirs of knowledge and memory when they leave dusty archives and are “born again” within their communities of origin. For museums and researchers, the wealth of knowledge and new relationships engendered by rejoining collections with source communities has been one of the most exciting, if not surprising, aspects of repatriation and return. For people in source communities, it can be even more meaningful, not only in nurturing collective memory, but also because their relatives are finally coming home.