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- Title
Mixed Messages: Deciphering the Okanagan's Historic McDougall Family.
- Authors
Legault, Gabrielle
- Abstract
Historical Archaeology is founded on the process of cross-referencing written historical records with archaeological remains, yet the demand to reconcile contradictions between historical and archaeological data can restrict analytical results. In a recent study of the ethnicity of the Okanagan's historical McDougall Family (18591905), historical and genealogical records suggested that the family was increasingly identifying with their Indigenous (Syilx) kin and community (Legault 2012). An archaeological survey of the vernacular architecture of Métis trader Jean Baptiste McDougall and his sons contradict the historical data, as the five houses studied increasingly exhibit features associated with upper class Euro-Canadian society. The discrepancies between the data sets are not indicative of a problem with the written and material assemblages, but are rather a matter of theoretical orientation. By overcoming the binary analysis (colonizer/ colonized) that is typically prescribed to historical peoples during the colonial period and instead employing nuanced notions of hybridity, the results suggest that the McDougall family was replicating the complex and contradictory identification that is commonly found amongst people of Métis and/or mixed Indigenous and Euro-Cana dian heritage.
- Subjects
OKANAGAN River Valley (B.C. &; Wash.); CANADA; BRITISH Columbia; FAMILIES; METIS; ETHNICITY; NATIVE American ethnic identity; IMPERIALISM &; society; HISTORICAL archaeology; DWELLINGS; NINETEENTH century; HISTORY; DWELLING design &; construction
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 2015, Vol 39, Issue 2, p241
- ISSN
0705-2006
- Publication type
Article