Arthur Wellington Clah (1831–1916) was aCanadian First Nations employee of theHudson's Bay Company atLax Kw'alaams (Port Simpson), B.C., known for having written extensive journals detailing his life and that of others in the settlement in the late 19th century. He was a hereditary chief in theTsimshian nation, ananthropological informant, and aMethodist missionary.[1]
Arthur Wellington was his English name. "Clah" is a spelling of one of his hereditary Tsimshian names, Ła'ax. He also held the name T'amks, which carries with it leadership of a matrilineal house-group of the same name in theGispaxlo'ots, one of the "Nine Tribes" of Lax Kw'alaams.[1]
Clah was born in 1831 at a settlement called "Laghco," near where the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Simpson at Lax Kw'alaams in 1834. He married Catherine (a.k.a. Dorcas) Datacks, of theLaxgibuu (Wolf clan) of theNisga'a nation. Catherine was niece of the wife of W. H. McNeill, the HBC's chief trader at Fort Simpson. Clah began working as McNeill's house servant but gradually came to be a trader in his own right.[1]
When the Anglican lay ministerWilliam Duncan arrived inPort Simpson in 1857, Clah taught him theTsimshian language in exchange for instruction in English, a mutual education which began through the medium ofChinook Jargon. Clah also became a mediary between Duncan and the Tsimshian. Clah converted to Christianity but never entirely abandonedpotlatching. In a famous incident, Clah intervened and saved Duncan's life when Clah's own tribal chief,Ligeex, ordered Duncan at gunpoint (some versions say knifepoint) to cease tolling churchbells on the day of his (Ligeex's) daughter's initiation into a Tsimshian secret society. Ligeex later became a key convert of Duncan's. This incident is described both by Clah himself and by an eyewitness, his nephew the Rev.William Henry Pierce, theMethodist missionary.[citation needed]
For nearly fifty years, from the late 1850s until his death, Clah kept a remarkably detailed diary, which is now housed by theWellcome Library in London.[1]
In 1903 the anthropologistFranz Boas wrote to Clah, having been referred to him by hisTlingit-Kwakwaka'wakw informant and collaboratorGeorge Hunt, expressing an interest in recording Tsimshian culture. Eventually, Clah turned the correspondence over toHenry W. Tate—who, indications are, was his own son—which led to the first detailed descriptions of Tsimshian culture. In 1915 Clah, near death, served as informant to the anthropologistMarius Barbeau, who was collecting information on Tsimshian social organization. Clah's grandson,William Beynon, served as interpreter and facilitator and went on to become a renowned ethnographic fieldworker in his own right.[citation needed]
Clah died in Lax Kw'alaams in 1916.[1]
Australian historianPeggy Brock spent 15 years researching and transcribing Clah's journals, and in 2011 published her major workThe Many Voyages of Arthur Wellington Clah: A Tsimshian Man on the Pacific Northwest Coast.[2][3]
With the exception of the volume for 1906, Clah's diaries were purchased by Henry Solomon Wellcome in 1910, and are preserved in the collections of the Wellcome Institute for the Hist. of Medicine, London.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
