10

The Greatest Undertaking of Its Kind

The Jesup North Pacific Expedition

In 1896 Boas had gained his foothold as assistant curator of ethnology and somatology at the American Museum of Natural History and as lecturer in physical anthropology at Columbia College. He worked concertedly to entice AMNH President Morris K. Jesup with his grand plan for exploring the connections between Asia and America. In 1897 this was launched as the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (JNPE). With Jesup’s desire to establish joint appointments for curators and professors at the museum and at the university, Boas drew his work together at the AMNH and at Columbia through his courses, some of which he taught at the museum with the use of the collections. E. B. Tylor had written Boas in 1890, “It seems to me very likely that you may trace an Asiatic-American [connection] by transmission of folk-tales. The longer I live the more sure I feel that American culture is largely due to Asiatic influence.” In the spring of 1897, from his position at the AMNH, Boas drew up a plan that extended beyond what Tylor had suggested seven years earlier. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition would encompass two continents, span many years, yield magnificent publications, and engage an international team of researchers. Ultimately the expedition would fatigue its donor, Jesup, and its creator, Boas.1

The expedition put into play exactly what Boas had envisioned following his earlier work in Baffin Land: a complex, multiyear study that would cover vast but culturally interconnected territory and multiple linguistic groups. A decade earlier, in January 1886, Boas had written to Bastian about his proposal for research in North America, which he had conceptualized as taking place during the summer for four years: “The objects of my investigation [are] to be the so little known Indian and Eskimo tribes of the British Northwest.” Insisting that “these tribes must be studied in relation to one another,” Boas made his appeal “to you, father of all ethnographic studies.” He concluded, “I would not again make one isolated trip, but can only consider it worthwhile if the whole thing can be done as a related unit.” Bastian declined to fund this proposal.2

Boas wrote to Tylor two years later in 1888 with a similar plan. In a draft of the letter Boas stated, “I should gladly avail myself of this opportunity to devote my time more fully than I have done so far to ethnology and to carry on my researches on the Canadian tribes in a systematical way.” He estimated that “about 3 years would be sufficient to study the ethnology of B.C. in reasonable detail.” Revising the draft two days later Boas stressed, “You will undoubtedly be aware that the inquiry, if to be done at all, must be done at the earliest possible date, as what little there is left of native culture is disappearing rapidly.” In place of the systematic, multiyear project that Boas had proposed, Tylor and others in the BAAS funded Boas annually for field trips to the Northwest Coast when Boas was available.3

Boas’s vision for the grand sweep of fieldwork and collections depended on cooperation between the AMNH and Columbia University. As he wrote Jesup, “I believe that through co-operation with the Museum, Columbia University may have the opportunity of educating almost the whole future generation of anthropologists.” Boas continued, “I am training my students by the help of the material accumulated in the Museum for field work, and they will necessarily become the investigators for this Institution and for the Bureau of Ethnology.” Boas straddled the AMNH and Columbia University, with one foot initially more firmly planted in the museum, whose collections formed the basis for university instruction. As Boas wrote in 1901 to Zelia Nuttall, with respect to his “general plans and the scope of the work which I have laid out for myself,”

since I took hold of the work in New York, I have tried to develop the same in such a way that it will ultimately result in the establishment of a well-organized school of anthropology, including all the different branches of the subject. I consider this one of the fundamental needs of our science, because without it we can never hope to thoroughly investigate and explore all the numerous problems of American anthropology. For this reason, I am trying to develop the collections of this Museum in such a way that they will ultimately form the basis of university instruction in all lines of anthropological research. This aim of course must be combined with the general education aims of the Museum, but I find that both are very easily harmonized.

At the museum, Boas focused on honing and sharpening “each department to such a point that within a very short time it will demand the care of a specialist.” At that point, he would seize “the opportune moment for introducing instruction in each particular line in Columbia University.”4

A man of vision and energy, President Jesup was drawn to “big projects and major problems.” Not an academic, Jesup frequently said of himself, “‘I am a plain, unscientific business man.’” His mind grasped a challenge and his spirit demanded an efficient solution. In his remarks to the AMNH Trustees on December 31, 1896, Jesup spoke of “the theory that America was originally peopled by migratory tribes from the Asiatic continent.” Echoing Boas’s caution, Jesup remarked that “the opportunities favorable for solving this problem are rapidly disappearing and I would be deeply gratified if some friend or friends of the Museum may feel disposed to contribute means for the prosecution of systematic investigations.”5

Boas had pitched the ambitious plan to Jesup—to explore the connections between the native peoples of Asia and the north Pacific Coast—and Jesup caught it with immediate enthusiasm. Boas was catapulted into putting flesh on the bones of his plan within a two-month time frame. On January 19, 1897, Boas had written Jesup a letter outlining his research plan: “‘One of the most important problems of American anthropology is that of the influence between the cultures of the Old and of the New World.’” Fragmentary evidence pointed to “‘certain cultural elements in common to all the tribes of this region,’” tribes that speak “‘a great diversity of languages.’” Boas proposed “‘a systematic investigation of the whole question.’” He suggested conducting “‘an ethnographical study and the making of ethnographical collections of the tribes on the American side’” by doing the same on “‘the Asiatic side,’” and by excavating “‘the immense shell mounds’” and the “‘ancient monuments on the North Pacific coast of both continents.’”6

Three weeks later Jesup had called Boas to his office to tell him, as Boas wrote Putnam, “‘that he wished to take up the general plan of exploration on the North Pacific Coast,” and that he had instructed Boas to consult with Putnam on “‘a detailed scheme of work for the carrying out of the plan.’” Enthusiastic about the project, Jesup had decided to fund it himself, since no one else had responded to his call at the meeting of the trustees on December 31, 1896. Jesup envisioned this undertaking as a means for the AMNH to make a mark for itself: “‘Mr. Jesup looks at this proposed expedition in the light that it will be the greatest thing ever undertaken by any Museum either here or abroad and that it will give the Institution an unequalled standing in scientific circles.’” A day after Boas had met with Jesup, John H. Winser, secretary and assistant treasurer of the AMNH, had written to Putnam, “‘Mr. Jesup has about concluded to take up the cost of the Bering Sea explorations. He would like you to have the matter in mind and be prepared to give your views.’” Putnam wrote Boas, “I have sent to Jesup a letter about our great plan, Asia-America, for him to read at the meeting of the Executive Committee tomorrow.”7

On March 13,1897, Boas was quoted in a “press dispatch from Albany to THE NEW YORK TIMES,” about “Mr. Jesup’s Expedition.” The subtitle of the article stated, “Three Parties of Scientists to Start for the North Pacific this Spring Exploring Both Coasts.” The article continued, “Dr. Boas will personally conduct the West American coast party, and will be assisted by Harlan I. Smith, an attaché of his department in the museum. His other assistants will be employed in the field.” The leaders of the other two parties in Siberia had “not yet been determined.” The article made clear Jesup’s commitment to the undertaking: “While it is expected that the object of the exploration can be accomplished in about six years, Mr. Jesup has set no limit to the time which must be consumed, and has declared his intention of seeing this matter through no matter what cost or length of time are required.” The next day, on March 14, 1897, as if to give Putnam equal exposure, the New York Times issued a dispatch from Cambridge, Massachusetts: “Prof. F. S. [sic] Putnam, the celebrated Cambridge archaeologist, has formulated the plans for the exploration of Northwestern North America and Eastern Asia.”8

There were also announcements in scientific publications. “Proposed Explorations on the Coasts of the North Pacific Ocean” appeared in Science on March 19, 1897, with a discussion of the “systematic manner” of the investigation, the need to fill in the “gaps” in “the ethnology of the Pacific Coast of Siberia,” and the “almost incredible” linguistic diversity of the area. The article concluded, “The whole field of research is a vast one, and it is to be expected that the enterprise inaugurated by Mr. Jesup will lead to results which will clear up many of the obscure points regarding the early history of the American race.” In his letter to Globus in May 1897, Boas began, “Since the message given in the newspaper does not quite correspond to the facts, I take the liberty to inform you” that the Jesup Expedition would “not be a collecting trip, but a thorough study of the northern part of Pacific coasts.” Boas concluded, “My plan is to make the relations of the neighboring peoples the leitmotif of the whole investigation.”9

In May 1897, prior to his departure for the first season of fieldwork for the JNPE, Boas wrote his parents, “‘I go west better equipped than ever before.’” Boas traveled with his colleague from Columbia, psychologist Livingston Farrand, a novice to anthropology and so keen to learn about fieldwork that he paid his own travel expenses. Joining them was Harlan Smith, who had worked first with Boas at the WCE in 1893 and in 1895 was hired by Putnam as staff member at the AMNH, where he remained until 1911. They arrived in Vancouver at the beginning of June. “Farrand,” Boas wrote Marie, “was very surprised to learn how well known I am in Victoria.” Boas wrote his parents, “We three fellows get along fine.” They were headed to Spences Bridge, BC: “Today we say goodbye to civilization and from tomorrow on we will live in the back woods. . . . You must think of me in a woolen shirt with corduroy pants and a big hat. And, of course, with pad and pencil in hand.”10

Two days later Boas, Farrand, and Smith met up with the fourth member of their team, James Teit. Born in the Shetland Islands, Teit had come to Spences Bridge in March 1884, just one month before his nineteenth birthday, to help his uncle, John Murray, with his store. In 1892 he married Lucy Antko, a Thompson Indian woman, who died of pneumonia in 1899 and left him feeling “‘greatly cut up about it,’” and, as he wrote to Smith, “‘it will take me a long time to get over the loss.’” Engaged in seasonal farming and operating the ferry, Teit was a “skilled outdoorsman” who explored the “remote regions of southern and central British Columbia.” He also “hunted and fished with the Indians, learned from them the location of the best hunting grounds and this led to him becoming a guide for the hunting parties which came to British Columbia from all over the world.” Teit’s son from his second marriage, Sigurd, recounted what a Thompson River Indian had said of his father: he was “so fluent in the language and his accent so good . . . that in a dark room ‘you couldn’t tell him from an Indian speaking.’”11

On first meeting Teit during his 1894 fieldwork, Boas described him as “a treasure! He knows a great deal about the tribes. I engaged him right away.” In December 1894 Boas wrote Marie again about Teit: “My informant is a very nice man. He comes from the Shetland Islands. . . . He is very much interested in the Indians and is writing a report for me about this tribe [the Thompson Indians], which will be very good, I hope. He will also make a collection for me.” This encounter with Boas in 1894 marked a “turning point” in his life. “Admittedly Teit had the potential,” Banks writes, “but it was largely Boas who developed Teit the anthropologist.” Boas remained supportive and appreciative of his work. As he wrote in 1902, “Mr. Teit commenced work for the Museum in 1895. He has also worked off and on for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. . . . He is a very exceptional man, and his Memoir published in the Jesup Expedition Series is being quoted everywhere with the highest appreciation.”12

Teit had done preparatory work for the team: “Early in the year 1897 he collected notes on the Thompson River Indians for the use of the Jesup Expedition . . . mainly bearing upon the art of the Indians, their language and their physical characteristics.” On arrival in Spences Bridge, Boas, Farrand, and Smith found that “Teit has prepared everything for us very well. The Indians were ready for us yesterday afternoon, and we could not work quickly enough to finish with all of them.” With a four-person team—soon to be five when they would meet up with George Hunt in Bella Coola the next month—Boas was able to delegate responsibilities. While Boas included Fillip Jacobsen as a member of the 1897 group, Jacobsen did not join in the fieldwork, but rather collected items for the AMNH. To Marie Boas wrote, “I let Farrand and Smith make the casts ready for shipping. This afternoon Jimmy Teit and I went down to the village and collected melodies.” He continued, “The phonograph works very well, and we got ten good songs. The rhythms seem to be rather difficult, although the songs themselves are very simple.” He recounted, “There were two women whom I could not get to sing at first. However, they did sing after all when all the men had left the house.” To test the phonograph, and perhaps also to induce some reluctant women to participate, Boas recorded his own song. Into the horn of the recording mechanism, Boas sang a snippet of the popular song, “Sweet Rosie O’Grady”:

Sweet Rosie O’Grady,

My own darling Rose,

She’s my steady lady,

As everyone knows.

Thomas Ross Miller notes that this recording was “the first sound ever recorded in the North Pacific.”13

Teit was crucial to the work of the research team. Because he spoke the language of the Thompson River Indians, he could explain to the people what the anthropologists wanted in terms of taking pictures, making plaster-of-paris casts of their faces, and recording their songs. Familiar with the area, Teit also guided Smith to several archaeological sites on the Thompson River. As the archaeologist for the British Columbia portion of the expedition, Smith was left on his own from June 12 to August 11, after which he rejoined the team in Port Essington. Finding that Spences Bridge was “not the most favorable place for excavations,” he explored sites “at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers.” Smith also photographed Indians, made casts, and collected ethnographic objects.14

With four riding horses, five packhorses, and three guides who traveled on foot, Boas, Farrand, and Teit left on horseback and headed north for Chilcotin and Bella Coola. The goal of this “lengthy trip northward” was twofold: “To investigate the physical characteristics of the Indians inhabiting the banks of the Fraser River north of Lytton, and to study the customs and physical characteristics of the Chilcotin, the most southern Athapascan tribe of British Columbia.” From “fifteen miles below Lillooet,” Boas wrote Marie, “The trip is very good for me. We are outdoors all the time and I have no intellectual work worth mentioning. . . . This morning we rode horseback through a valley about 2,000 feet high. . . . Horseback riding is not as hard on me as I thought. We go very slowly because the heavily laden horses cannot go fast on these steep trails.” The next day, drenched by incessant rain, they followed the Indian trails down the one-thousand-foot descent of the canyon walls to the Frazer River, the longest river in British Columbia. Neither Boas nor Farrand were experienced riders. “We both try hard to handle the horses,” Boas wrote. “I can already saddle mine but I cannot load them the right way.” By choice, Boas rode “behind the pack-horses because it is boring to go together with them in one line. I will be an experienced horseman when I come back.” Then he admitted, “Yesterday, however, I was thrown when the horse suddenly shied.”15

The rain continued. All their supplies were soaked, and their frustrations mounted. The Indians whom they had planned to study were little in evidence; they lived in scattered settlements. By the time he had reached Puntzi Lake, after a month of traveling on horseback, Boas was more heartened. As they “rode through the woods from one little village to another,” they encountered Indians who lived along the road. Boas recounted to his parents, “It was really funny how they all accompanied us and how we finally arrived [at Puntzi Lake] with a cavalcade of twenty horses.” With satisfaction, he remarked, “My work here has turned out successfully, against all expectations. At first it looked as if I would not get any measurements but then I hired an interpreter and everything went as well as possible.” Since he “found the tribes here so interesting,” he decided to leave Farrand behind to work with the Chilcotin “for at least one month. . . . I am glad I can give him the opportunity of working completely independently for a while because that makes the trip more advantageous for him.” Farrand focused his research in the larger villages of Chilcotin, but he also traveled to “the isolated families, which live on the shores of Tatla Lake and in the mountains.”16

After seven weeks on the trail, “our guide with his horse, Teit, our Indian Sam with four pack-horses and myself” arrived at the summit over-looking Bella Coola, five thousand feet below. Boas wrote of the approach, “Finally about three miles from the Bella Coola River the valley narrowed into a gorge. We left it and rode along the northern side of the mountain until we arrived at the foot of a pass, which leads into the Bella Coola valley.” After a wet and windy night, that “threatened to blow our tents away,” they awoke to “the most beautiful mountain country. Deep in the valley was the Bella Coola, and we rode slowly toward it along the side of the mountain. The view was gorgeous. There were steep mountaintops with huge glaciers, and in the valley a sea of clouds through which one could see the river.” The party rode down the steep descent: “Here the deep and rapid river had to be crossed. The party built a raft, on which an Indian embarked in order to fetch a canoe that was seen on the other side. In this the men crossed the river, while the horses swam over.”17

Boas related, “I rode ahead alone because I wanted to be sure of arriving that evening. I had written to George Hunt that I would arrive between the fifteenth and the twentieth, and I wanted to keep my word. I was glad to find him here and to find that he had everything well prepared. That assured the success of my trip.” Responsible for leading the pack train back over the mountains to Fraser River, Teit let the horses rest for two days and then departed on July 23 for a four-week ride home to Spences Bridge. Keen to study the Bella Coola, particularly since their “customs and beliefs had never been subjected to systematic inquiry,” Boas began his research with Hunt. In addition, he worked on his and Hunt’s Kwakiutl materials. He wrote Marie and his parents, “I went over the whole collection Hunt had made; I got the names of all items, and a number of stories.” Together they reviewed “all the old Kwakiutl manuscripts . . . a great task because I have to write out two hundred and thirty pages of manuscript after his dictation.” Boas was happy with what he had collected: “The material I have now is very beautiful.” Of the Bella Coola, he wrote, “This tribe has veritable gods who live in Walhalla and to whom are entrusted the lives and the fates of men as well as nature.”18

On the day of departure from Bella Coola, Boas reflected, “I finished the texts with George Hunt, two hundred and forty-four pages, and a number of songs on seventy-two more pages. That really was hard labor.” While Boas left for Port Essington, George Hunt remained behind to collect for another two weeks. Boas added, with satisfaction, “I think I will then have a very good collection.” After two days in the fishing village of Namu, Boas was able to take the steamer to Port Essington where Harlan Smith had been waiting for him for six days. He wrote Marie, “Last night at nine o’clock we finally arrived. Smith was on the dock in the pouring rain.” Boas and Smith resumed their work together: “Smith started right in to make castings and since yesterday I have joined him. We already have sixteen, partly Haida, partly Tsimshian, and one Tlingit woman.” While Smith took photographs of the people, Boas worked with Charles Edenshaw, the “most highly regarded Haida artist of his time.” Accolades regarding Edenshaw’s work abound. Charles Frederick Newcombe, medical doctor and Indian art collector, described him in 1902 as “the best carver in wood and stone.” As Aldona Jonaitis and Robin Wright note, Edenshaw belonged to a Haida family of noble lineage. At the age of fourteen, he had been bedridden, and he passed his time by carving totem poles from argillite. “His skills developed,” Jonaitis writes, “and before long he was a master carver of both argillite and wood, as well as a talented gold- and silversmith.” He was also a very talented painter. Boas showed Edenshaw the photographs he had made in the Smithsonian, at the AMNH, and that he had obtained from Ottawa. “I am able to identify many objects,” Boas wrote, “with his help.” Boas also asked Edenshaw to make “several crayon drawings which he ultimately used as illustrations in his Northwest Coast art publications.”19

On August 20 Boas sent Smith to Bella Bella to make facial casts with Farrand, who was already there, and to take photographs of people and of old houses. Farrand would remain for the rest of the summer in Bella Bella, “studying the social organization and arts of this tribe.” Boas, Smith, and Hunt traveled by boat to Rivers Inlet to work with the Kwakiutl. There they stayed together for nine days, during which time they tried—with little success—to find some people with whom to work. They wanted to make facial casts, to photograph, and to collect stories. Boas wrote his parents, “It is so annoying to sit around with nothing to do while being surrounded by the most interesting material.” He added, “The people are very difficult to handle. For tomorrow one has promised to tell me a tale. I will be surprised if he does come.” Hunt did not “know the dialect well enough” to be of help. With little work to do, Boas sent Smith south to Victoria, where he would resume his archaeological excavations.20

Intent on fostering goodwill among the Indians for his work, Boas employed his “oft-used trick” of inviting “all the Indians to a feast.” He wrote Marie, “Tonight I finally gave the Indians a speech in my house, saying what a great friend of theirs I was and what good things I have done for them!! I hope that tomorrow I shall get some promises, otherwise I don’t know what I shall do here all the time.” It was successful. People began to work with Boas. “I am really busy now,” he wrote Marie. “This morning at 8 I started to translate. From 10 until 3 o’clock I took dictation and afterwards I made a few castings. That is how I like to work! . . . Now the people come of their own accord to have castings made.” Boas wrote his parents, “All my attention is focused on the Indians now. This makes my travels so relaxing for me, that I am able to concentrate completely on one subject and forget everything else.”21

In mid-September Farrand journeyed by steamer to Rivers Inlet. Boas and Hunt joined him on board the Tees, and the three traveled south to Alert Bay. With plans to return home, Hunt disembarked only to receive sad news: “One of his children, an eight-year-old boy, was very ill, and possibly dead by the time the news finally reached him.” Boas regretted that the news had not been conveyed earlier, since he “would have sent him home.” As they continued their journey south on board the Tees, Boas spent the night talking with Farrand, “whom I had hardly seen since July.” Boas wrote Marie, “He did not do very much but assembled quite a few things.” Farrand assured Boas that his Bella Coola collection had been loaded on board a steamer in Namu, bound for Victoria. “Little by little all my material is piling up in Victoria,” he wrote Marie. “I now have twenty boxes there and I have eight here, fourteen in Namu, and eight in Alert Bay. I hope that they will all arrive safely in New York.”22

In addition to his concern about the safe transport of what would be a total of 125 boxes of field collections, Boas had begun to worry about how his work would be received. To his parents he wrote, “I am very anxious to find out whether Jesup will be satisfied with the results of my trip. I think he ought to be because I am.” Along with the angst, he was excited about his return. He had “all sorts of new plans for the Museum,” and he hoped “to find the new wing of the Museum almost ready to put in everything.” Boas continued, “My gallery is supposed to be finished by May at the latest. . . . This really spurs me on.” Boas ended the first season of the JNPE in Victoria on September 16, 1897, when he departed for home with a stop-over in Chicago for a visit with Donaldson and to the cemetery, to his baby Hedwig’s grave. Boas was fatigued with “these trips into the wilderness,” and with being away from his wife and children for extended periods of time.23

Boas was pleased with the results of the season. He and his team “had made over a hundred plaster-of-Paris facial casts and many more body measurements.” Boas published the results of his research on art, which he had conducted with Edenshaw, in the first volume, part 1, of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, as “Facial Paintings of the Indians of Northern British Columbia.” Working with Hunt, he had revised over three hundred pages of text and had gathered new material, all of which appeared in the first volume, part 2, of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, as “The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians.” When Boas and Farrand returned home, Smith carried on his excavations through November.24

At the start of the season, his intention had been to train Farrand and Smith so that they could take over the fieldwork portion of the research in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, this was the result of their work together. In the second season in the summer of 1898, Farrand and Smith traveled to Washington State, while Boas remained at the AMNH to organize the Siberian portion of the JNPE. Smith carried out excavations at the shell mounds of Puget Sound and along the west coast of Washington. Farrand worked with the Quilleute and the Quinault. Roland B. Dixon, after completing his MA at Harvard in 1898, worked with Farrand at Quinault and then moved on to work in BC at the mouth of the Fraser River and later joined Smith for work in Lillooet territory. Teit conducted research with the Lillooet, and Hunt continued collecting artifacts among the Kwakiutl. In the third season, in 1899, Smith “turned his attention to the shell mounds and burial-cairns of Washington” and carried out excavations on Vancouver Island, and Hunt and Teit continued their investigations.25

In 1900 Boas returned for the fourth season of work on the Northwest Coast: “the last on the American side of the Jesup Expedition.” He joined Teit for six days in Nicola Valley and then headed north by steamer to Alert Bay, where he stayed with the Spencers, George Hunt’s sister and brother-in-law. To Marie he wrote, “I have a bed in a pleasant little room upstairs where I am writing just now. The food is also good.” Hunt and his whole family were in Alert Bay at work in the cannery. During the day, with the help of an interpreter, Boas revised texts collected in previous years, and worked on “the grammar of the language”; in the evening, he conferred with an artist who was helping him to understand “the art of these tribes.” He was only able to work with Hunt during the evenings and on Sundays, when the cannery was closed. “The most laborious part,” he wrote, “is the revision of the texts which I am doing with George Hunt. I can’t do more than eight pages per hour and I cannot stand this pace too long. I have now revised 187 pages and still have 495 to go.”26

Repeatedly, Boas expressed the sentiment that “the language is terribly hard and complicated. The Chinook and Tsimshian are easy in comparison.” He remarked, “The Kwakiutl is much harder than I thought. It is the first Indian language I have worked with which has irregular verbs, etc., and they are terribly difficult to handle.” In another letter to Marie he bemoaned, “I spent the whole afternoon over the tense of a verb, a very complicated business.” Even when he came to understand “the structure of the language quite well,” he still found it hard. He wrote Marie, “I think it is even harder than Eskimo.” Boas began working with women on what he called “kitchen menus, Küchenzettel, kitchen list, and the preparation of food,” and on medicines. He was also making a collection of plants. To his mother, he wrote, “The scientific result of this summer is most satisfactory. I will finally be able to publish the [Kwakiutl texts], which I have been collecting for six years. I will start with this right after my return while the language is fresh in my memory. Then I hope I will have enough material to make a detailed description of the manners and customs of the Indians.” He concluded, “I also have enough material for the language part,” and added, “but the editing of it will take years, of course.”27

While the investigations included archaeology and physical anthropology, Boas had a predilection for language, texts, and art. He stressed this in his 1897 remarks from the field: “I am rather satisfied with the results of my work here. We now have twenty-five castings, ten Haida and fifteen Tsimshian. I have also measured all these people. However, although I would like to get more measurements, I think that the ethnological work is more important so that I cannot use too much time for measurements.” Even with “a very interesting series of face measurements, fifty-six altogether,” Boas was thinking in terms of his research on “clues to the meaning of the local [ornamentation].” He anticipated linking this to his work on facial painting. To his parents, Boas summed up the intent of his work: “My purpose here is to collect more material on the art of the Indians.” On board the Tees, en route to Rivers Inlet, Boas expanded on his interest in facial painting and symbolism: “You might remember that I planned to collect paintings done on hard-to-decorate materials in order to study the symbolism of the Indians. For this purpose, I chose face paintings and paintings on edges of blankets.” Boas was pleased with the results, “because I found just what I had expected; that is, strong stylization and stressing of symbols.”28

At the initial stages of planning for the JNPE, Jesup had stipulated the importance of finding “‘the right man for the work.’” Boas was in accord, though for him this would need to be an accomplished scientist. As he wrote Putnam, “‘Our prime endeavor now must be to impress Mr. Jesup with the necessity of having trained specialists do the work, and not give it to adventurers or people with superficial knowledge.’” Boas had first anticipated sending two expeditions to Asia in 1898, one to “Asiatic Siberia,” and the other to the Amur River Cultures. He was, however, only able to send one party to the Amur River, and that with difficulty, due to the challenges of identifying leaders for the expeditions.29

In 1895, when first thinking about organizing fieldwork in Siberia, Boas had conferred with Wilhelm Grube, a sinologist and an expert in the languages of the Amur Region with whom Boas had worked at the Royal Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Grube suggested Bertold Laufer, who had studied at the University of Berlin in 1893–95 with Adolf Bastian, Felix von Luschan, and Eduard Seler, and who had also studied in the Seminar for Oriental Languages in 1894–95. Laufer received his doctorate at the University of Leipzig in 1897, with a doctoral dissertation on a Tibetan text. His focus during his university years was the study of Asian languages and ethnology. When he met with Laufer, Boas learned of his military obligation and advised him to fulfill it as soon as possible, “so that he would be available should a Siberian worker be required.”30

On May 19, 1897, Boas had extended a formal offer to Laufer to lead the expedition on the east coast of the Sakhalin Island and in the Amur River region. He received Laufer’s acceptance while still in the Northwest Coast during the first season of the JNPE. Arriving early in New York to prepare for the expedition, Laufer was ready to depart in March, when “the museum received word that his visa had been refused by the Russian Interior Ministry.” Laufer was a German Jew, and thus would not be allowed into Siberia. “Boas had just arranged a large farewell reception for the traveler,” Cole writes, “and Laufer might never be able to leave.” Working with urgency, “Boas went to Washington to meet with officials at the State Department, where, in Jesup’s name, he pulled all possible strings.” Ethan A. Hitchcock, the U.S. minister to St. Petersburg, spoke with the Russian minister of the interior. The Russian official was adamant: Dr. Laufer was a German Jew and would not be permitted into Siberia. Hitchcock did not give up. He spoke with “W. Radloff, director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, who called upon the Grand Duke Constantin, President of the Academy, who in turn directed Radloff to contact the Governor General of Siberia, then in St. Petersburg.” The intractable problem was solved. Jesup received the following notification from the Imperial German Embassy: “Referring to your favor of Jan. 7, 1898, I beg leave to inform you that the Imperial Embassy in St. Petersburg has been instructed by the Department of State of the German Empire to make application to the Imperial Russian Government in favor of Dr. Laufer, director of the expedition which your Museum has sent to investigate the tribes of the Siberian coast.” Cole writes, “Word reached New York that Laufer had by special permission of Tsar Nicholas II, been authorized to visit Sakhalin and the Amur River.”31

The anxious wait was over. Laufer was on his way to Vladivostok, where he and Gerard Fowke, who had been hired as archaeologist for this portion of the JNPE, arrived on June 19, 1898. Together, Laufer and Fowke traveled north to Khabarovsk on the Amur River and then separated. Fowke, as Boas wrote in his AMNH report, “descended the Amur in a boat, investigating the remains along both banks of the river.” Laufer journeyed down the Amur by steamer “and crossed to the Island of Sakhalin.” While Fowke conducted excavations with little success along the Amur River and then, in Japan, Laufer spent eight months of rigorous fieldwork—from July 10, 1898, to March 21, 1899—on Sakhalin Island among the Gilyak, Tungus (Evenki), and Ainu peoples. He then crossed back to the mainland, where he worked for an additional five months with the Goldi and Gilyak from March to October 1899.32

In October 1898, while visiting a Gilyak village, located twelve miles inland on Sakhalin Island, Laufer was struck down with a flu that progressed to pneumonia. Boas wrote, “When hardly well enough to resume his work, he journeyed southward, at first on horseback and then on reindeer-sledges, visiting the Tungus and Ainu of the central and southern parts of the island.” As if severe illness were not enough of a challenge, Laufer received a telegram from “the Russian Governor, informing him of the presence of a band of desperadoes, who had built a fort in that region and had terrorized the whole country.” Laufer turned back north and, as he wrote, faced even more harrowing challenges: “‘At one time I narrowly escaped drowning when crossing the ice at the foot of a steep promontory. I broke through the ice. . . . Fortunately, my guide happened to upset his sledge at the same moment when I broke through. Thus it was that he saw my situation, and extricated me with his staff.’” Journeying the last sixty-seven miles on horseback, Laufer reached the point of Sakhalin Island, just opposite Nikolayevsk-on-Amur on March 21, 1899, in time to cross the ice to the mainland before it broke up. Traveling by sledge and arriving once again at Khabarovsk, Laufer stayed with the Tungus from March 25 until late May, when the Amur River flowed free of ice. Going downriver, back toward Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, he visited villages where the Goldi (Nanai) and Gilyak lived; and then from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, he journeyed east to visit Goldi peoples along the Amgun River. On October 19, 1899, Laufer departed Vladivostok for Japan, and, after that, returned to New York.33

Fowke’s archaeological results were abysmal. He attributed his difficulties to the changing course of the Amur River and the dense vegetation. He wrote Boas with a description of the riverside: “‘Out of the timber, the grass was from 4 to 7 feet high and thick as timothy in a meadow; where grass did not grow, weeds flourished. . . . Flies that bite like mosquitoes . . . swarmed in millions: mosquitoes were in clouds.’”34 Laufer himself thrived on the challenges of fieldwork. Laufer wrote good-naturedly from Khabarovsk, “I have now taken here a lodging built of rough planks and resembling a coffin, and have begun to engage myself in a linguistic and anthropological study of the Gold, of whom I have fortunately met a good many excellent representatives in this place.” Prevented from traveling by “the terrible hurricanes of this season and deficiency of roads,” Laufer would remain at Khabarovsk until the ice melted and the rivers were navigable. He wrote Boas of his “‘very good success’” in recording songs from the Gilyak and Tungus. “The ghosts are in the machine,” the people remarked. “I took phonographic records of songs,” Laufer conveyed to Boas, “which created the greatest sensation among the Russians as well as among the natives. A young Gilyak woman who sang into the instrument said, ‘It took me so long to learn this song, and this thing has learned it at once, without making any mistakes. There is surely a man or a spirit in this box which imitates me!’ and at the same time she was crying and laughing with excitement.”35

Laufer did not, however, have the same success in obtaining anthropometric data for Boas. Laufer recounted, “The people were afraid that they would die at once after submitting to this process. Although I had their confidence, I failed in my efforts in this direction, even after offering them presents which they considered of great value. I succeeded in measuring a single individual, a man of imposing stature, who, after the measurements had been taken, fell prostrate on the floor, the picture of despair, groaning, ‘Now I am going to die tomorrow!’” Boas was delighted with Laufer’s work and particularly with the extensive collection of art and artifacts that he had sent to the AMNH. Laurel Kendall, in her evaluation of Laufer’s work, found his collections heavily weighted toward ritual objects and replete with “rich embroideries and appliqué work of the Nanai and their neighbors.” Laufer acknowledged his fascination with the “Tungus . . . wooden idols and amulets made of fish-skin which are quite new to science.”36

In his 1898 trip to Europe, Boas had identified the leaders of the northeastern Siberian expedition. “In the fall of 1898,” Nikolai Vakhtin writes, “Boas went to Berlin, where, for the first time, he had an opportunity to meet Radloff in person and to make the acquaintance of Jochelson, who was still in Switzerland working on his doctoral examinations.” Professor Dr. Wilhelm Radloff, who had assisted Laufer in obtaining special permission to travel to the Amur River region, suggested Vladimir Jochelson and Vladimir Bogoras.37 Jochelson wrote Boas, “In regard to my friend Bogoraz, I beg to repeat that he is by far the best man for the investigation of the Chuckchee and the other tribes of the Bering Peninsula. . . . Mr. Bogoraz speaks Chukchee fluently. He is well prepared to conduct ethnological work, and he is willing to start at once, if so required.”38

Careful to avoid causing additional problems with the Russian government, Boas had been circumspect in writing about Bogoras’s and Jochelson’s revolutionary activity and gave only a superficial review of their expertise. They “had for several years,” Boas wrote, “carried on important studies in Siberia under the auspices of the Imperial Geographical Society.” In fact, Bogoras’s and Jochelson’s extensive knowledge of Siberia had come from their ten years of political exile. Jochelson had been in solitary confinement from 1885 to 1887, and then in exile in eastern Siberia from 1887 to 1897, during which time he became interested in the Yukagir. Bogoras had been imprisoned for three years and then exiled to eastern Siberia, to the Kolyma region. Jochelson and Bogoras had belonged to “‘a radical, populist, and terrorist political party,’” part of the movement based on “‘the identification of the intellectuals with the simple folk.’” While Laufer and Fowke had been novices to the region, “Bogoras and Jochelson were veterans of several years of Siberian research when they joined the Jesup Expedition; a good bit of their experience was with the tribes that Boas wanted studied.”39

Arriving in New York in March 1900, Jochelson and Bogoras spent time working with Boas. As Bogoras had expressed, “Before my parting for Chukchee, I would stay some months in America for the use of learning American methods of anthropologic measurement.” Boas had mirrored Bogoras’s wishes: “‘My intention is to have both Mr. Jochelson and Mr. Bogoras here for a few months in order to make sure that the work on physical anthropology will be done according to the same methods, so that our results may be comparable.’” In addition, Boas provided instructions on “the production of phonograph records and ‘a good collection of anthropological photographs and plaster casts’ as top collecting priorities.” Jochelson particularly enjoyed the gatherings on Friday mornings to work on linguistics: “I think the idea of them is excellent.”40

Boas was close to having met his match with the two Russian ethnographers. Jochelson and Bogoras had, as Vakhtin writes, “their own ideas as to where and how to do research in Siberia.” Once in New York, Jochelson and Bogoras consulted with Boas and were able to arrive at a suitable compromise for the expedition. Cole notes, “Boas found them ‘very curious’ men, ‘so different in personality from western Europeans.’” Less dispassionate than Boas, “Marie did not particularly like either, in part because they kept Franz until late in the evening and everything was put on hold at home ‘until the Russians go.’” For his part, Jochelson was grateful for the kind reception: “It is a particular pleasure to me to look back upon your recent hospitality. Please thank Mrs. Boas cordially and I hope to thank you in person.”41

Jochelson and Bogoras left New York in late March 1900 for San Francisco. They sailed to Nagasaki and then to Vladivostok, where they arrived on May 16. Because Bogoras had facility with spoken and written English, Jesup had appointed him as head of the northeastern Asia expedition. Boas wrote, “Mrs. Jochelson and Mrs. Bogoras, who were to share the hardships of the journey with their husbands, and to undertake part of the work of the expedition, had gone to Vladivostok by way of the Trans-Siberian Railway.” While Sofia Bogoras and Dina Jochelson-Brodsky—who had been studying medicine at the University of Berne, Switzerland—worked diligently and suffered enormous privations, the expenses they incurred were “deducted from their husbands’ salaries at the expedition end.”42

The group divided into two parties. One was comprised of Vladimir and Sofia Bogoras; the other, of Vladimir Jochelson and Dina Jochelson-Brodsky, with Norman Buxton, in charge of collecting zoological materials, and Alexander Axelrod, a Russian who had been studying in Zurich, as general assistant and “engineer in training.” The four members of the Jochelson party were bound for “the small Russian town of Gizhiga on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk,” to study the Koryak; but they were not able to depart until July 24, 1900, due to political unrest in China.43 This division into two parties was meant to be fluid. As Jochelson described in a letter to Boas, “Mr. Bogoras came overland on a visit from Anadyr, and spent the month of December with us. During this time, he was engaged in studies of the Koryak language. After his arrival, I sent Mr. Axelrod to Anadyr to take charge of Mr. Bogoras’s station until his return. Mr. Bogoras completed his linguistic studies and then proceeded to visit the villages of northern Kamchatka. After his return, Mr. Axelrod stayed with him at Anadyr.”44

Tsar Nicholas II ostensibly supported Jochelson’s and Bogoras’s research. In his letter of introduction on November 17, 1899, he wrote, “‘All institutions and persons under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior are herewith commanded to render the bearer of this all possible aid with their lawful powers.’” Erich Kasten and Michael Dürr note, “Orders were sent simultaneously to the local authorities calling for surveillance of their work.” Timed to coincide with the beginning of the research, this “secret order” from the Russian minister of the interior dated April 28, 1900, to the “Chiefs of the District Police of the Yakutsk Province,” instructed “‘a secret surveillance over the acts of Waldimir Bogoras and Wladimir Jochelson, former administrative exiles.’” Further, it stated that due to their past “anti-government activity,” it was “unwarranted to render them assistance of any kind in the scientific work assigned to them.”45 Jochelson and his party were, in particular, affected by this order. Boas noted, “On his whole journey overland to the Kolyma, and from there through the district of Yakutsk, certain Russian officials, following a secret order issued by the Minister of the Interior, did all they could to hinder the progress of the expedition and to thwart its success.” In an intentionally subdued critique of the Russian minister of the interior and of “certain Russian officials,” Boas continued, “This action seems difficult to understand, in view of the hearty support and assistance rendered by the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the open letters issued by the Russian Government requesting the officials of Siberia to render assistance whenever possible.” Boas was candid in his letter to AMNH Director Bumpus: “‘I have rather slurred over Jochelson’s and Bogoras’s difficulties. . . . These men will return to Russia and . . . a severe arraignment of the action of the Russian Government may have most serious consequences for them.’” In his letter to Jesup, Boas was more direct: “‘You will appreciate how difficult the work of both Mr. Bogoras and Mr. Jochelson was made by these secret orders; and the full success of their investigation deserves, for this reason, the highest praise.’” Boas continued, “‘I hope that the publication of the results of their work will make the Russian Government ashamed of the manner in which they have acted.’”46

Vladimir and Sofia Bogoras left Vladivostok on June 14, 1900, on the Russian mail steamer, Baikal, bound for Mariinsky Post, at the mouth of the Anadyr River, to study the Chukchi. They arrived five weeks later. En route and offshore the Kurile Islands, Bogoras wrote Boas, “Pray excuse my writing this letter on the leaves torn out of my note book, since . . . I cannot find any more proper letter paper. The steamer is small and shaky and I have to finish that letter before our coming to Petropavlovsk.” He continued, “I [am] carrying with me on board 30,000 pounds of goods.” An additional thirty tons had gone under separate passage, including copious quantities of leaf tobacco, flour, hardtack bread, brick tea, sugar, and dried fruit. He had taken one camera and left the other for Mr. Axelrod, who would arrive in Anadyr in late fall, as well as “one set of anthropometrical instruments, one graphophone with a hundred blank cylinders and . . . one thermometer.” Bogoras would send half of the supplies “up river for . . . Buxton and Axelrod who have to come to the Anadyr River in the beginning of the following winter.”47

Bogoras had already studied the Chukchi language during his exile in Siberia, but he planned to conduct a comparative study of the language spoken by the people along the coastline. While still in St. Petersburg, prior to beginning on the JNPE, he wrote Boas of his expectation that “the principal part of work certainly must be devoted to making collections, photographs, and anthropo[metrical] measurements.” While Bogoras had anticipated arriving to fair weather, lots of reindeer, “and maritime Chukchee and some other natives too,” instead he arrived in the midst of a devastating epidemic of measles that resulted in a 30-percent death rate among the Chukchi. With the steamer on the verge of departing, Bogoras hastily conveyed that “I am writing in my hut sitting on the ground and holding the writing desk on my knee and for that . . . I hope you will excuse the irregularity of my scribbling.” He continued, “In all that I decided to spend here the first three months of my working time, wandering among the burrowing camps and making every kind of collecting I [can] think of.” The next day, Bogoras wrote,

I end this letter in the . . . small room of the large . . . house that . . . serves for the common living place for the all Cossacks in Anadyr mouth. A half-drunk Chukchee is sitting behind my back and [asked] me [for] a little brandy. I interrupted this letter, since one of my new acquaintances, blind . . . , in some way a shaman, come to sing to phonograph. It was performed however not without trouble, since he got excited and would not leave off, and afterwards I had to spend half an hour to quiet again his feelings.

Bogoras told Boas about having people paint designs. One man, in particular, wanted to paint with European colors and not deer blood. Bogoras gave him a blue pencil and he came the next day with something “all painted blue and smeared over and over with my pencil, as if he was painting war. His mouth too was coated with blue, because he used his saliva to moisten the pencil.” Bogoras concluded, “From these few specimens you can form a notion, how is employed my time and attention, while in these days.”48

At the end of October 1900 Bogoras set off with a Cossack and a native guide, with the eventual destination of northern Kamchatka, where he planned to join up with Jochelson’s team; “traveling mostly by dog sled, Bogoras was on the move for the rest of his 12 ½ months in northeastern Asia.” Remaining no more than four weeks in any location and traveling through treacherous terrain, Bogoras became so ill with influenza “that his Cossack asked where to deliver his body and official papers in case he died on route.”49

With their focus on the Koryak, Yukagir, and Yakut, the Jochelson party arrived at the small village of Kushka at the mouth of the Gizhiga River on August 16, 1900. They also encountered a population devastated by the epidemic of measles: “The Reindeer Koryak, who usually wintered there, had moved far into the mountains to escape the epidemic.” With no Koryak to be found, the Jochelsons traveled overland to the villages of the Maritime Koryak, on Penzhina Bay. In his letter to Boas, Jochelson described the underground dwellings in which they lived: “‘The smoke, which fills the hut, makes the eyes smart. . . . Walls, ladder and household utensils are covered with a greasy soot, so that contact with them leaves shining black spots on hands and clothing. . . . The odor of blubber and of refuse is almost intolerable; and the inmates, intoxicated with fly agaric, add to the discomfort of the situation.’” From the “squalor” of underground dwellings to the “winter tents of the Reindeer Koryak” that were so cold they could not work in them, the Jochelsons faced nearly insurmountable challenges. Their packhorses and saddle horses became mired in mud; they were separated from their Cossack guide and interpreter and lost on the trail for two days “without food, fire or protection against wind and frost”; they were stranded by a snowstorm for three days; their skin boats were driven by “the tempestuous seas” into a bay where they had to stay for five days, “almost without any provisions.” Their journey on horseback over the Stanovoi Mountains was “the most difficult one that it was ever my fate to undertake,” Jochelson wrote. “Bogs, mountain torrents, rocky passes and thick forests combined to hinder our progress.” With rotting provisions and horses exhausted to the point of death, Jochelson made the decision to divide the party. Three Yakut guides took the horses and the remaining provisions overland, and Jochelson, his wife, and the rest of his party took one day to build a raft. What was to have been a two-day descent down the Korkodon River was stretched to nine days by the “‘numerous rapids and short bends, by the rocky bands and by jams of driftwood.’”50

Jochelson wrote, “‘In all my journeys I was accompanied by Mrs. Jochelson, who being a candidate for the degree of medicine at the University of Zürich, took charge of the anthropometrical and medical work of the expedition and of most of the photographic work.’” Jochelson summarized the results of their journey: “‘The distance covered by myself and Mrs. Jochelson from Gishiga to Irkutsk amounted to nearly eight thousand miles. The results of our work are complete studies of the ethnography and anthropology of the Koryak and Yukaghir, illustrated by extensive collections.’” He enumerated, “‘These collections embrace three thousand ethnographical objects, forty-one plaster casts of faces, measurements of about nine hundred individuals, twelve hundred photographs, one hundred fifty tales and traditions, phonographic cylinders, and skulls and archaeological specimens from abandoned village sites and from graves.’”51 Jochelson recounted the reaction of people to the phonograph: “‘Often a hundred persons would crowd into the house where we put up our phonograph, and gather around it in a ring.’” After Jochelson had given two agaric fungi with hallucinogenic properties to a Reindeer Koryak, “‘he began to sing in a loud voice, gesticulating with his hands. I had to support him, lest he fall on the machine; and when the cylinder came to an end, I had to tear him away from the horn, when he remained bending over it for a long time, keeping up his songs.’”52

In June 1901 Bogoras made his tortuous way from Indian Point to the mouth of the Anadyr: “Since no steamer could be induced to take me back, I will have to construct a skin-canoe of a moderate size and to try to make the trip myself with my men. It was not very convenient, since I had to dispose of 100 dogs with a considerable loss of value.” Purchasing “‘the frame of a native boat’” and having “‘it covered with walrus hides,’” Bogoras recounted, “‘Our journey in this boat lasted thirty-two days, and we arrived at Mariinsky Post on July 28, 1901, ten days before the arrival of the annual postal steamer which took us back to Vladivostok.’” From Vladivostok, Bogoras shipped the extensive collection of ethnographic objects he and his wife had gathered from the Chukchi and the Asiatic Eskimo to New York via the Suez Canal. He and Sofia Bogoras returned to St. Petersburg on the Trans-Siberian Railway: “‘There I was unfortunately taken ill, and was unable to return to New York until April 17, 1902.’” Jocheslon’s remarks about the departure of the rest of the team convey his sense of abandonment: “‘While Mr. Bogoras’s party was returning to Vladivostok from Mariinsky Post, and while Mr. Buxton was waiting for the steamer that was to take him back, I had to stay another year in northeastern Siberia, the object of my further investigation being the study of the Yukaghir of the Kolyma.’”53

With the glow of success in the initial stages of the JNPE, Jesup had written to Putnam, “‘I am ever so much pleased with Dr. Boas’ memoirs of the Jesup Expedition. It is a wonderful well written paper & I hope it will do good.’” Two years later Jesup’s enthusiasm had deflated. He was not mollified by the numerous compliments he had received regarding the JNPE during the celebration of his seventieth birthday on June 21, 1900. He complained to Boas about the rising cost of the expedition. In a draft of a letter to Jesup, Boas wrote, “I beg to say that I am doing my best to carry on a great scienfitic inquiry with due circumspection. The plan is on a large scale and, in consequence, it takes long to obtain final results.” He continued, “I believe you would feel greater confidence in the ultimate results if you would see the numerous remarks on the expedition, which is referred to by scientists of highest standing as the greatest undertaking of its kind. Even now the ‘Jesup Expedition’ is known the world over. The expressions of good wishes and of gratitude that you received from foreign scientific societies on your recent anniversary are further proof of the esteem in which the expedition is held.” Boas assured Jesup, “The ‘eclat’ is increasing with every new publication. It is thanks to the publications of the Jesup Expedition that the Museum has become [known] in all countries as standing in the front rank of Anthropological Institutions.” Closing his letter with an apology, Boas wrote, “I can only regret that my efforts in behalf of the Expedition for which I am sacrificing every other inspiration do not seem to meet with your approval.”54

The expenses for the expedition had ballooned. While Boas had initially planned on finding one scientist for northeastern Siberia, instead he ended up with two experienced ethnographers, Jochelson and Bogoras, both of whom negotiated higher salaries than Boas had originally budgeted. Jesup had approved all of this. “I had an interview with Mr. Jesup last Monday,” Boas wrote Putnam, “in which he authorized me to engage the two Russian gentlemen in connection with the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, and to go on with the American work of the Expedition.” The appropriation has been “increased by $20,000.”55

Boas couldn’t resist the suggestion made by the curator of the Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology at the AMNH that a zoologist should accompany the expedition to collect specimens, thus increasing the transportation budget by three thousand dollars. Then Bogoras and Jochelson were to assemble “a small geological collection,” for an additional six hundred dollars. And since Jochelson would be returning via the land route, “through the interior of Siberia to Yakutsk and to Irkutsk,” he would be in the “territory inhabited by one of the most interesting Central Siberian tribes, the Yakut.” While they were technically outside the area of the JNPE, Boas wrote Jesup that the Yakut were important because they had “swayed the fates of northern Asia and eastern Europe for centuries.” An additional one thousand dollars would allow Jochelson to collect “highly ornamented garments and implements.” Jesup authorized the additional expenditures for this collection.56

With original plans to publish “12 quarto volumes,” seven volumes had been published by 1908. Boas remarked, “We realize that there is too much information for the planned size of the publication. However, I hope we will reach a satisfying conclusion for the exploration Mr. Jesup so generously organized by publishing its complete results.” Jesup had not lived to know of Boas’s September 1908 summary address on the JNPE, presented at the Sixteenth International Congress of Americanists in Vienna. He had died nine months earlier on January 22, 1908. For years prior to his death, a point of contention for Jesup—always a gentleman and always polite in expressing his disappointments—had been Boas’s failure to write the volume Summary and Final Results. Boas’s 1908 address, “The Results of the Jesup Expedition,” was a step along the path, though the final volume was never realized.57

By 1930 the last volume of The Jesup North Pacific Expedition was published, with Bruno Oetteking’s Craniology of the North Pacific Coast. Oetteking had begun work on “the osteological collections of the” JNPE in October 1913 at the AMNH. He wrote in the 1930 JNPE volume, “The skeletal material collected by the various members of the Jesup Expedition was entrusted in the autumn of 1913 by Professor Boas, to the present author for systematic investigation.” While his work had been interrupted by the war, he said, “it was the author’s good fortune, however, to have handled the material in the condition it was brought in from the field, and in which unprepared state it had been stored in the Museum for future examination.”58

The 1930 Memoir of the AMNH listed on the front cover the published volumes of the JNPE, and those that had not been published. The latter included Boas’s Summary and Final Results, Lev Shternberg’s Sociology of the Amur Tribes, and Dina Brodsky-Jochelson’s Anthropometry of Siberia. Shternberg’s and Brodsky-Jochelson’s manuscripts had been submitted to the JNPE series but not published. Krupnik and Fitzhugh note, “Even Boas became daunted by the immensity of the task and by the dragging performance of many of his associates.” In 1999 the American Museum of Natural History published Shternberg’s The Social Organization of the Gilyak, edited by Bruce Grant, not as part of the JNPE publications, but as part of the papers of the AMNH.59

There was a stalemate between the businessman, Jesup, expecting specific results for his investment, and the scientist, Boas, tormented by trying to draw a synthesis from what he felt was insufficient information. Boas’s life work was always open-ended. He was eternally in search of synthesis. In sum, he avoided closure because he feared he would overlook something significant and would distort the facts. As Douglas Cole wrote, “To AMNH President Morris K. Jesup, the expedition had, by the time of his death in early 1908, become a matter of ‘many disappointments,’ ‘an enterprise that has involved expense and anxiety out of all proportion to the representations that were originally made.’” Boas wrote his mother that he wished he could “‘simply dump the whole Jesup Expedition and concern myself no further with it.’”60

Initially, Boas had taken pride in the JNPE publications. He wrote Jesup in April 1900, “I had the pleasure of sending to you to-day the first copy, just received of the new publication of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. We have now in press and ready for press all the material required for completing the first volume, and I hope to be able to hand to you a copy of the complete volume about the middle of May.” He had “the material in hand for two papers of the second volume,” that would include Farrand material collected in 1897, and Harlan Smith’s on “the archaeology of the State of Washington.”61 In January 1900 Teit had sent Boas the manuscript of all that he had “up to the end of last year.” Teit wrote, “I have been working most days of this month on the supplementary paper Thomp[son] Indians.” He had finished the paper on tattooing and was halfway through the paper on facial and body painting. Laufer planned to write “a number of monographs on the four tribes” he had studied, with the addition of “extensive amount of illustration.” To Jesup, Boas wrote,

It is necessary to decide now what is to be done in regard to future publication, and I beg to suggest that it would be best to continue without delay to bring the matter before the public. If you will authorize me to do so, we can begin at once printing the second volume of the Jesup Expedition, and can have the first number ready before the summer; and we can also begin with the preparation of illustrations for Dr. Laufer’s papers. Estimates of the price of publishing each volume were submitted to you in connection with the general estimate of the expedition.62

At the end of the year Boas was still pressing Jesup about the importance of charting an expeditious publication schedule: “I beg leave to call your attention once more to the importance of pushing the publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition as much as possible, and to the desirability of using the winter months for publication.” Boas stressed that “if we continue . . . at the present rate, it will take about fifteen years to finish the publication of . . . results of the Jesup Expedition. We have so many scientists now at work on this undertaking that we are perfectly able to push publication much faster.” He emphasized the importance of the work that deserves “to be brought before the scientific public as quickly as we can, and I feel that we ought to close the whole undertaking in four or five years.” He asked for authorization “to proceed at once with the publication of 1. The Quinault Indians, by Livingston Farrand, estimated cost, $300.00; [and] 2. Kwakiutl Texts, by Franz Boas, estimated cost $2500.00.” AMNH Director Bumpus responded to Boas’s letter, “In reply to your communication of December 22nd, addressed to President Jesup, I would reply as follows,” and Bumpus laid out the order for the publication of the Kwakiutl Texts. In language that was bound to grate on Boas, Bumpus wrote that he was “given authority over the question of printing,” and that he would need “to see the contract before it is finally signed.”63

Boas was attempting to cajole manuscripts from Jochelson and Bogoras. Jochelson had come to New York in November 1902 to work at the AMNH on the material he had collected. He returned to Europe in 1904 without having completed his work. Jochelson had concluded that there was no hope for permanent employment at the AMNH because of the disagreements between Boas and Bumpus and Jesup. Bogoras had returned to St. Petersburg in 1904 and found himself in the midst of a revolution. Boas wrote, “‘I fully appreciate the excitement of the present time, and the difficulty in concentrating yourself on scientific work; but if events like the present happen only once in a century, an investigation by Mr. Bogoras of the Chukchee happens only once in eternity, and I think you owe it to science to give us the results of your studies.’” Bogoras responded, “‘You must believe us, that we here do not forget our good friends in America. . . . But the events of the time are so stirring. The blood is flowing, the best blood of the country, and no result is seen so far.’” On November 27, 1905, Bogoras was arrested in Moscow. Boas wrote Bumpus, “On Nov. 29 a cablegram is received from Mr. Bogoras informing me of his arrest.” The cable read, “‘Am arrested, reasons unknown.’” From Jochelson, Boas learned that Bogoras had been arrested for taking part in the Farmers’ Congress in Moscow.64

For Boas, the fight with Bumpus over JNPE publications rendered lasting disappointment that remained as the sour aftertaste of what had been the glorious and monumental Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Boas had failed to gain support for his position at the AMNH from President Jesup. In July 1905 Boas resigned as curator of the anthropology department but agreed to stay on to complete “researches and publications relating to the Jesup Expedition and the Asiatic work of the Museum.” Jesup appointed him “in Charge of the Scientific Work of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, and the East Asiatic Research.” Admittedly “not very sanguine” that this new accord would last, Boas wrote Bogoras, “I rather look upon my present position as a means of winding up the scientific work that I have in hand.” With the present arrangement “very insecure,” Boas implored him with urgency “to get your manuscripts into my hands.”65

Despite the tumult of the revolutions in Russia and his multiple arrests, Bogoras completed seven monographs, four of which were on the Chukchi. Even in his collections, Bogoras surpassed all others. Stanley Freed, Ruth Freed, and Laila Williamson note, “No modern anthropologist has ever collected such a diversity of data.” Boas noted in 1903 that Bogoras and his wife had “collected ethnographic data, linguistic notes and 150 texts, 5,000 ethnographic artifacts, skeletal material, plaster casts of faces, archeological specimens, 95 phonographic records, and somatological measurements of 860 individuals.”66

William Fitzhugh and Igor Krupnik place the JNPE as “the first, and as yet the most coordinated, single study ever undertaken of the peoples and cultures of the North Pacific region.” They continue, “Boas was decades ahead of his time. He instructed the members of the team he assembled to gather masses of ethnological data, including facial casts, body measurements, photographs, folklore texts, wax recordings, archaeological artifacts, and linguistic records. He dispatched his field crews to the Northwest Coast . . . and Siberia with the imprimatur of the AMNH and with funds provided by Morris Jesup together with his own detailed instructions on data collecting. Fieldwork lasted from several summer months (for Boas, Dixon, and Farrand, in North America) up to two full years (for the Jochelsons in Siberia).” Krupnik and Fitzhugh conclude that “the expedition’s greatest accomplishment was to gather invaluable collections and publish masses of ethnographic data that documented cultural practices of the North Pacific peoples at a transitional time in their history.”67

Boas grounded his meticulous planning of the JNPE on the importance of collaboration. He drew on individuals who either showed promise of developing expertise—a promise he saw in Teit, Farrand, Hunt, and Smith—or who were scholars with established expertise, as with Laufer, Jochelson, and Bogoras. As he consistently did, Boas forged relationships with international scholars. For the JNPE, these relationships were with American, Canadian, German, and Russian scientists. Replicating his earlier desire for multiyear fieldwork in the Northwest Coast, Boas had a grand sweep to his vision for the JNPE.68

Fitzhugh and Krupnik note that Boas’s “last (and practically his only) general review of the expedition’s outcomes, methodology, and theoretical framework was presented in German in [September] 1908 as the opening address at the 16th International Congress of Americanists in Vienna.” This address was not published in English until 2001, as “The Results of the Jesup Expedition,” in Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897–1902. Beginning his remarks with a review of attempts by anthropologists to explain the similarities shared by widely dispersed cultural groups—either through “parallel evolution of humankind in all parts of the globe,” or through uniform “psychological laws”—Boas gave his own perspective: “In opposition to these views is a more individualized theory in which culture is a product of a specific history and development that relies not only on the mental and physical accomplishments of a people but also acknowledges that new ideas and modes of living arise through contact with neighboring peoples and external forces. Supporters of this theory tend to attribute cultural similarities between discrete areas to a common history.” Boas explained the difficulty in producing a synthesis from such complexity: “One should demand a gradual exploration of a problem that is of such sweeping importance.” The success of the JNPE lay in “the wealth of ethnographic information” gathered, not in the search for the origins of the peoples, the routes of diffusion of culture traits, or the culture history. Boas concluded, “As expected, the members of the expedition have collected a wealth of ethnological, linguistic, and anthropological data.”69

The heart of Boas’s approach lay in finding the people’s view of their life, from their own cultural perspective: “Aside from the geographic comparison, no research method now seems more promising than surveying how different tribes perceive their own customs and interpret their own traditions. If it is true that a large part of every tribe’s culture is acquired, then it is no less true that the acquisition only becomes a genuine part of the culture if it fuses with the native perceptions into a comprehensive whole which has a more or less expressed character. In other words, the foreign element in a culture becomes native by being permeated by the spirit or style of the native culture.” Thus, for Boas, the anthropologist needed to see the people’s own “point of view.” Such an approach, Boas posited, would give “the people’s own interpretation of their traditions. It thus seemed supremely important to document the anthropological material through uncensored accounts of natives in their own words and in their own language, to preserve the original meaning.”70

In a resounding understatement Freed, Freed, and Williamson note, “Jesup and the American Museum may have put too much emphasis on Boas’s failure to write the summary volume.” Indeed, Krupnik and Fitzhugh state that “the Jesup Expedition [was] one of the most extensively published anthropological projects ever,” with “11 Jesup Expedition volumes comprising 31 separate reports on detailed ethnographic descriptions, folklore, and physical anthropology, [and] several dozen external articles and other monographs.” In “A Jesup Bibliography,” Krupnik examines the complexity of the JNPE publications and divides these into thirteen thematic sections. The total page count alone of the eleven volumes in the JNPE Series/Memoirs of the AMNH (1898–1930) is 6,037 pages.71

In The Museum at the End of the World, Alexia Block and Laurel Kendall write of their 1998 journey to the Russian Far East as a much later tracing of the JNPE. In appraisal of the JNPE in Siberia, they write of the “monumental” work of the ethnologists: “Traveling by horse, dogsled, skin boat, and raft, and camping for long and short periods in Native villages, Bogoras, Jochelson, and Laufer gathered data for a shelf of ethnographic monographs, including some ‘classics,’ substantial archives of photographs and correspondence, wax cylinders of songs and stories in Native languages, head casts and body measurements, and uniquely comprehensive collections documenting the lifeways of the Native people of the Russian Far East.” The Northwest Coast portion of the JNPE was parallel to the Siberian expedition, though less traumatic, absent the Tsarist political intrigue. The results were equally bountiful and spectacular. Laurel Kendall and Krupnik write in the introduction to Constructing Cultures Then and Now: Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, “Boas and his colleagues collected about half of the American Museum’s 16,755 Northwest Coast artifacts under the auspices of the Jesup Expedition. Although the numbers themselves are noteworthy, it is their diversity, comprehensiveness, and documentation that make the Jesup Expedition acquisitions so valuable. The American Museum’s Northwest Coast collection is generally regarded as the world’s strongest, holding artifacts from every known group and nation in this culture region. For over 100 years, this collection has been studied by almost every anthropologist, art historian, and historian engaged in research of any magnitude on the Northwest Coast native cultures.”72

Krupnik remarks, “With the emphasis upon concerted teamwork of field and museum ethnography, linguistics, physical anthropology, and archaeology, the Jesup Expedition was clearly at the root of everything produced in Arctic/North Pacific anthropology for the next 100 years.” Krupnik also emphasizes the feat of “an international anthropological project” that was “disseminated skillfully in three languages—English, Russian, and German—to both international and domestic audiences.” The century following the Jesup Expedition served up tumultuous events in the United States, Germany, and Russia that washed over the accomplishments of the anthropologists who had joined forces on two continents: revolutions in Russia in 1905 and two in 1917; two world wars; the Cold War; the warming of perestroika in the 1980s; and the breakup of the former Soviet Union in 1991. Finally, there has been recognition of what had been left to us by the Jesup legacy. Drawing Shadows to Stone (1997) examines, as the subtitle indicates, The Photography of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897–1902. The bridge of cooperation between Siberia and Alaska was opened with the September 18, 1988, exhibit Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. All of this led up to the two Jesup celebrations to mark the centenary, which yielded important publications examining both historical aspects of the JNPE and “coordinated research activities in the Greater North Pacific Region.” Gavril Nikolaevich Kurilov and Vladimir Karlampovich Ivanov translated Jochelson’s 1926 The Yukaghir and the Yukaghirized Tungas into the Russian and Yukaghir languages. Laurel Kendall writes, “They saw Jochelson’s work as a testimony to the richness of Yukaghir culture before Soviet times; an accessible translation would help the Yukaghir recapture pride in their own history and culture after decades of forced assimilation.” Recently, in “Jochelson and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition: A New Approach in the Ethnography of the Russian Far East,” Erich Kasten and Michael Dürr have shown continued interest in the JNPE by stressing the value and importance of the original publication by Vladimir Jochelson on the Koryak. Kasten has edited a book on the “etnotroika” of Jochelson, Bogoras and Shternberg: A Scientific Exploration of Northeastern Siberia and the Shaping of Soviet Ethnography.73

The very magnitude of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition could not be appraised close up. The perspective of time was needed to perceive the results. All of this rich tapestry comes to us through the years because Franz Boas had the amplified vision to dream on a large scale, to plan without a foregrounded fear of failure, and the courage to dare. Morris Jesup may have died disappointed in the endeavor bearing his name, but he lives on in the monumental work that he so generously funded. As Boas had written Jesup in 1900, this was, indeed, “the greatest undertaking of its kind.”74