Wilner spoke with contributing editor Nuala P. Caomhánach about his essay “Body Knowledge, Part I: Dance, Anthropology, and the Erasure of History,” which has appeared in the current issue of the JHI (83.1).
Nuala P. Caomhánach: In your article, you trace the evolution of the Hamat̓sa dance and the “remarkable effusion of ideas in dance” of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw over the course of the nineteenth century (133). Your argument is multi-layered and extremely generative. First, by analyzing Indigenous knowledge systems—such as storytelling, potlatch, and the Hamat̓sa dance—you are encouraging the field of intellectual history to move beyond its reliance on textual (particularly state) sources. You argue that state and nonstate histories are not only “equal” and legitimate forms of knowledge/political systems, but that they are inextricably linked during this tumultuous period. Indeed, you ask the reader to consider the provocative question “who is civilizing whom?” and demonstrate the influence of Indigenous knowledge on modern thought (114). Second, the “political genius” of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw to adapt and survive in the increasing violence of a capitalistic system offers a direct challenge to the western/other and primitive/modern binaries. Lastly, the expressive dance of the Hamat̓sa not only impacted the development of modern anthropology but shared in the making of today’s global indigeneity. With reference to the scholarship on modernity and sovereignty, how can understanding the body knowledge of the indigenous cultures of the Northwest Coast of North America expand the field of intellectual history and contribute to debates on modern thought?
Isaiah Lorado Wilner: We are commonly taught that modernity flows in one direction, from the West to “the rest.” The history that I’ve traced in this essay reveals the flow of knowledge in the opposite direction, from nonstate people to the state. The evidence I present is the work of the Kwak’wala-speaking peoples to civilize the man who came to study them, converting Franz Boas to the principles of potlatch, which led Boas directly to the transformational insights with which he is associated today. The deconstruction of race and the rise of the modern concept of culture—major steps toward decolonial thinking—resulted from the influence of Indigenous thinkers, specifically the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw, who inculcated Boas in a system of knowledge enacted by means of dance.
In the example of the civilization of Boas by the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw, we see evidence of a deep and profound Indigenous influence on modern thought. This influence has been erased from the state’s account but it remains legible in the primary sources created by the community. It opens up a question about the Indigenous influence on modernity. What ideas have Indigenous peoples contributed to the modern world? How have Indigenous peoples, as sovereign political communities, influenced global culture and politics? In what ways have Indigenous ideas been erased, obscured, appropriated, distorted, and denied? Where is this history of erasure recorded, and what might accessing it mean for the ways we live and think going forward? To read for the Indigenous influence on the making of modernity, I suggest that we need to change the way we research, turning to the historical archives created by Indigenous peoples themselves rather than relying on state sources.