Marianne Boelscher drew upon data she collected during fieldwork with the Masset Haida in the late 1970s and early 1980s for The Curtain Within: Haida Social and Mythical Discourse (1988), an examination of moiety and lineage, social rank, the rules of entitlement to inherited property, and the mode of thought encoded in mythology in Haida society. Boelscher suggests that intentional ambiguity in rhetoric regarding rank, kinship categories, marital alliances, names and crests has permitted these symbols to be continuously renegotiated and redefined. When the book appeared, Boelscher was a researcher with the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council and a visiting assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Simon Fraser University. Having received her M.A. in Anthropology and Linguistics from Georg August Universitaet in Goettingen/Germany and her Ph.D. in Anthropology from SFU, she has concentrated her research on the Secwepemc (Shuswap) people and has married Ron Ignace, former Chief of the Skeetchestn Band. Together they launched an educational partnership program between SFU and the Shuswap Nation for Aboriginal learners in the B.C. Interior. In 2005 she received a career achievement award from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C. for her work in preserving some of the 30 Aboriginal languages belonging to eight separate linguistic families in B.C. She has also taught her eight children the Secwepemc language.

Marianne Ignace again teamed up with her husband, Chief Ronald E. Ignace, to produce an authoritative tome on the 10,000-year history of the First Nations people who live in the Interior Plateau of B.C. Secwepemc People, Land, and Laws (McGill-Queen's $39.95) has contributions from ethnobotanist Nancy Turner, archaeologist Mike Rousseau, and geographer Ken Favrholdt that weave together Secwepemc narratives about their ancestors' deeds. Hence the book's stories are filtered through past and present Secwepemc storytellers. The information not only details land stewardship, social order, and spiritual concepts, it relates how the Secwepemc peoples resisted oppression and the theft of their land, and how they fought to retain political autonomy between the mid-1800s and the 1920s.

2018: The Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize winner

The Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia was established in memory of Basil Stuart-Stubbs, a bibliophile, scholar and librarian who passed away in 2012. The sixth "Bazzie"; was presented to the husband-and-wife team of Marianne Ignace and Ronald E. Ignace for their comprehensive, 588-page study, Secwepemc People, Land, and Laws: Yeri7 re Stsq'ey's-kucw (McGill-Queen's University Press).
Runners-ups were Ben Bradley for British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape (UBC Press) and the editorial team of Richard J. Hebda, Sheila Greer, and Alexander Mackie for Kwäday Dän Ts'ìnchi: Teachings from Long Ago Person Found (Royal BC Museum Press). The winning book has been described as a model for collaborative approaches to Indigenous history, integrating both oral histories and 'western' scholarship. New University Librarian Susan E. Parker announced the doubling of annual prize money to $2,000 due to prize patron Yosef Wosk. The presentation ceremony was held on Thursday, May 31st at 4:00 pm in the Dodson Room of the Barber Learning Centre at UBC in Vancouver.

Marianne Ignace is professor of linguistics and First Nations studies at SFU.

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
The Curtain Within: Haida Social and Mythical Discourse

BOOKS:

Secwepemc People, Land, and Laws (McGill-Queen's) Co-author Chief Ron Ignace. $39.95 978-0-7735-5130-5

Boelscher, Marianne. The Curtain Within: Haida Social and Mythical Discourse (UBC Press, 1988).

[BCBW 2017] "QCI" "First Nations" "Ethnology"