Aaron Glass

This collaborative project uses digital media to document a large, old collection of Kwakwaka’wakw material in the Ethnological Museum Berlin. This significant collection remains undocumented—there are few photographs of the objects, and original records are not computerized. There is also relevant archival material in North America that has never been made public. The project will result in an innovative, interactive, multimedia database, which will unite archival records with contemporary indigenous knowledge. This database—made public through an extensive new web-based museum network—will provide the foundation for research, exhibitions, and catalogues. Most importantly, it will make this historic collection accessible for the first time to global scholars as well as to the Kwakwaka’wak

This ACLS Digital Extension Grant funds the extension of an existing online platform to enable a new digital Critical Edition of Franz Boas and George Hunt’s landmark 1897 book, "The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians." In creating and later amending the book, Boas and Hunt produced vast archival and museum collections. This project—a collaboration between anthropologists, Kwakwaka’wakw people, and international institutions—has re-assembled and analyzed this archive for a print Critical Edition, and has digitized the relevant materials. It is now expanding its partnerships to extend the functionality of RavenSpace, a Scalar-based platform at University of Washington Press/UBC Press. The development of a new suite of media annotation and navigation tools is supporting the completion of the digital edition and contributing to a powerful new platform for future critical editions in Indigenous Studies.