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E. Pauline Johnson
Dress 1892
with
Necklace undated
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How can a performance costume
be seen as a self-portrait?
Pauline Johnson (Six Nations of the Grand River, 1861–Vancouver, 1913) was a writer and poet born to a Mohawk chief and a British mother. From 1892 to 1909, she travelled across Canada, the United States, and Britain, performing her poetry to enthusiastic audiences.
She moved deftly between her two ancestries, in her life and her concerts, wearing a self-assembled “Indian Princess” attire in the first part of her shows, and a Victorian gown in the second half.
Canada’s Indigenous peoples were subject to destructive settler attitudes and colonial policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By using her paternal Mohawk great-grandfather’s name, Tekahionwake, and wearing her costume, which featured buckskin fringe, fur pelts, a bear claw necklace and her father’s hunting knife, Johnson resisted such oppression. Through the recitation of such poems as The Song My Paddle Sings, she brought Mohawk culture to settler audiences, and her costume was an essential component of her performed identity.
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Pauline Johnson, in her performance costume
1/12
Ad for Chiefswood, home of the Johnson family
2/12
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Ad for Flint and Feather, Johnson’s collection of poems, 1912
3/12
Chief George Johnson
4/12
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Pauline Johnson and friends
5/12
Autographed photograph of
6/12
Profile portrait of Pauline Johnson, in her performance costume
7/12
Pauline Johnson in formal gown
8/12
Pauline Johnson Poster for an International Tour
9/12
Article on Pauline Johnson, source unknown
10/12
Steinway Hall Poster, 1906
11/12
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Brantford Canoe Club, 1892 (Pauline Johnson and friends)
12/12
The Artist Herself: Self-Portraits by Canadian Historical Women Artists is curated by Alicia Boutilier and Tobi Bruce, and organised and circulated by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the Art Gallery of Hamilton, with the generous support of the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Hamilton, the City of Kingston Arts Fund through the Kingston Arts Council, and the Janet Braide Memorial Fund, Celebrate Agnes Fund and Iva Speers Fund for Art Education, Queen’s University.
The exhibition is on view at the following Canadian venues:
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University,
Kingston, ON (2 May–9 August 2015)
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, BC
(2 October 2015–3 January 2016)
Kelowna Art Gallery, BC (23 January–3 April 2016)
Art Gallery of Hamilton, ON (28 May–11 September 2016)
The interpretive material was compiled by Alicia Boutilier and Pat Sullivan, Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Photo credit for Johnson dress: Museum of Vancouver (AG 27a-b and AF 108)
Photographs: E. Pauline Johnson fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Libraries, Hamilton
The Song My Paddle Sings performed by Kim Renders
Recorded by Josh Lyon
Maria Hupfield produced by Dylan McLaughlin at Invisible Laboratory for the Nordamerika Native Museum, Zurich, Switzerland
Used by permission
