Making history visible: Culture and politics in the presentation of Musqueam history

The ongoing struggle for aboriginal rights in British Columbia has been matched by an ongoing attempt on the part of scholars to analyze it. The focus of many of these studies has been the court room, that is, the legal battles to define aboriginal title and sovereignty. While important, this research does not address the political content of aboriginal cultural expression as it occurs in varied contexts.;Throughout the twentieth century, mainstream Canadian society has understood aboriginal culture and politics as separate areas of activity. This thesis suggests that First Nations have not made such a rigid distinction between culture and politics. Musqueam cultural forms such as houseposts, dances, and weavings were a form of political expression about the past. Indeed, the thesis argues that they were a form of public history, produced to identify the community to others and to further their land claims vis-a-vis non-Natives and other First Nations. While these cultural presentations served particular political ends, they did so without violating Musqueam boundaries between public and private knowledge.;This thesis examines three instances of Musqueam presentations of their culture and history to non-Natives. In preparation of the 1913 visit of the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs to the reserve, the Musqueam decorated a community hall with two carved houseposts. In 1966, they organized a dance performance for a provincial centennial event. More recently, in the early 1980s a group of Musqueam women produced weavings for sale and display in non-Native contexts. Over the course of the last century, Musqueam's traditional territory has been engulfed by the City of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. This proximity to a major urban centre has tended to overshadow the community's visibility. Cultural presentation was a way to identify a distinct community with continuing ties to a territory---it was a way to make history visible.