Marjorie Halpin (February 11, 1937 – August 30, 2000) was a U.S.-Canadian

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

best known for her work on Northwest Coast art and culture, especially the

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace and Prince Rupert, and Metlakatla, Alaska on Annette Island, the only r ...

and

Gitksan Gitxsan (also spelled Gitksan) are an Indigenous people in Canada whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English (: means "people of" and : means "the River of Mist"). Gitksan territory encompasses approxim ...

peoples. She earned an M.A. from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...

in 1963. She worked for five years for the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

. In 1968 she moved to

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

, to begin doctoral work at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thr ...

, where she worked closely under the anthropologist

Wilson Duff Wilson Duff (March 23, 1925 in Vancouver – August 8, 1976) was a Canadian archaeologist, cultural anthropologist, and museum curator. He is remembered for his research on First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast, notably the Tsimshian, Gitx ...

. Her 1973 Ph.D. thesis, ''The Tsimshian Crest System: A Study Based on Museum Specimens and the

Marius Barbeau Charles Marius Barbeau, (March 5, 1883 – February 27, 1969), also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthropology. A ...

and

William Beynon William Beynon (1888–1958) was a Canadian hereditary chief of the Tsimshian Nation and an oral historian; he served as ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists who studied his people. Early life and educatio ...

Field Notes,'' is considered an important early structuralist study of Northwest Coast culture. It was also the first monograph based on systematic and theoretically engaged analysis of the unpublished Barbeau-Beynon treasure-trove of ethnographic data, for which Duff had compiled a voluminous set of summaries. Also in 1973, Halpin was appointed to UBC's anthropology faculty, where she served for the remainder of her career. She eventually became curator of the Northwest Coast collection at UBC's Museum of Anthropology, a collection which she helped bring to international prominence. In that capacity she worked closely with Northwest Coast artists such as

Bill Reid William Ronald Reid Jr. (12 January 1920 – 13 March 1998) (Haida) was a Canadian artist whose works include jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and paintings. Producing over one thousand original works during his fifty-year career, Reid ...

and Robert Davidson. In 1980 Halpin did fieldwork on Tsimshian personal naming practices in

Hartley Bay Hartley Bay is a First Nations community on the coast of British Columbia. The village is located at the mouth of Douglas Channel, about north of Vancouver and south of Prince Rupert. It is an isolated village accessible only by air and wate ...

, B.C., working with descendants of some of Beynon's informants. Her list of publications included a best-selling guide to

totem poles Totem poles ( hai, gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually m ...

, a well-known edited volume on the

sasquatch Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a purported ape-like creature said to inhabit the forest of North America. Many dubious articles have been offered in attempts to prove the existence of Bigfoot, including anecdotal claims of ...

, and an early study of Beynon's life and work. In 1997, Halpin, with her colleague Margaret Seguin Anderson, did fieldwork in the Gitksan village of

Gitsegukla Gitsegukla (also Kitsegeucla or Skeena Crossing) is a Gitxsan community of about 500 at the confluence of the Kitseguecla and Skeena Rivers, approximately 40 km southwest of Hazelton, British Columbia, Canada. The community is on Gitsegukl ...

, B.C. This was part of her process to realize a long-term ambition to publish Beynon's four volumes of fieldnotes from a 1945 totem pole-raising ceremony in that community. The resulting volume, with extensive commentary and new information, was published shortly before Halpin's death in 2000. Also in the last year of her life, Halpin participated in a major Northwest Coast studies conference in Paris in honor of

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthr ...

, a renowned French anthropologist. She was recognized for her pivotal role at the intersection of French structuralism and the study of Northwest Coast cultures. Marjorie Myers Halpin died August 30, 2000, of cancer, at her home in White Rock, B.C., at the age of 63.

Works

* (1973) ''The Tsimshian Crest System: A Study Based on Museum Specimens and the Marius Barbeau and William Beynon Field Notes.'' Ph.D. thesis, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. * (1978) "William Beynon, Ethnographer, Tsimshian, 1888-1958." In ''American Indian Intellectuals: 1976 Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society,'' ed. by Margot Liberty, pp. 140–156. St. Paul: West Publishing Company. * (1980) (ed.) (with Michael M. Ames) ''Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence.'' Vancouver: UBC Press. (Halpin's contributions: "Investigating the Goblin Universe," "The Tsimshian Monkey Mask and Sasquatch.") * (1983) ''Totem Poles: An Illustrated Guide.'' Seattle: University of Washington Press. * (1983) (ed.) (with N. Ross Crumrine), ''The Power of Symbols: Masks and Masquerade in the Americas.'' Vancouver: UBC Press. (Halpin's contributions: "The Mask of Tradition.") * (1984) "Feast Names at Hartley Bay." pp. 57–64 In ''The Tsimshian: Images of the Past: Views for the Present,'' ed. by Margaret Seguin, pp. 57–64. Vancouver: UBC Press. * (1984) "'Seeing in Stone': Tsimshian Masking and the Twin Stone Masks." pp. 281–307 In ''The Tsimshian: Images of the Past: Views for the Present,'' ed. by Margaret Seguin, pp. 57–64. Vancouver: UBC Press. * (1984) "The Structure of Tsimshian Totemism." In ''The Tsimshian and Their Neighbors of the North Pacific Coast,'' ed. by Jay Miller and Carol M. Eastman, pp. 16–35. Seattle: University of Washington Press. * (1990) (with Margaret Seguin) "Tsimshian Peoples: Southern Tsimshian, Coast Tsimshian, Nishga, and Gitksan." pp. 267–284 In ''Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7: Northwest Coast,'' ed. by Wayne Suttles, pp. 267–284. Washington: Smithsonian Institution * (2000) (ed.) (with Margaret Anderson) (2000) ''

Potlatch A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Scie ...

: William Beynon’s 1945 Field Notebooks.'' Vancouver: UBC Press. * (2004) "Lévi-Straussian Structuralism on the Northwest Coast." In ''Coming to Shore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Traditions, and Visions,'' ed. by Marie Mauzé, Michael E. Harkin, and Sergei Kan, pp. 91–105. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Sources

* Obituary for Marjorie Myers Halpin, ''Anthropology News,'' vol. 42, no. 5 (2001), p. 29. {{DEFAULTSORT:Halpin, Marjorie American women anthropologists Canadian women anthropologists 1937 births 2000 deaths Columbian College of Arts and Sciences alumni 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American anthropologists