Browse Exhibits (3 total)
Jesuit Sacraments of the Columbia Plateau
This exhibit details archival records regarding three Jesuit Sacraments on the Columbia Plateau: Confession, Communion and Confirmation. There were a variety of differences in culture between the Jesuit missionaries and the Native Americans of the Plateau. However, the ceremonial nature of the sacraments struck a chord with a variety of Native Americans and they often led to an increased interest and connection with Catholicism.
Cultural Change in the King Island Community
The photographs in this exhibit come from the archives of the Oregon Province of Jesuits housed at Gonzaga University. Information for this exhibit has been drawn from letters and journals of Father Bellarmine Lafortune, S.J. who lived amongst the King Islander community. His main goal was to bring Catholicism to the indigenous community. King Islanders had been isolated from white culture prior to the Nome Gold Rush of 1898 and this collection captures images of the period of transition that ensued.
This exhibit highlights photographs that reveal the tension formed by the Jesuits entering the King Island community and bringing entirely new religious and cultural ideas with them. The documents cited in this exhibit are written from a Jesuit perspective and reveal the inherent biases that the white people had against these indigenous peoples.
Special Collections at Santa Clara University have also digitized photographs of the King Islanders. For images taken by Bernard Hubbard, S.J. see: https://content.scu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/kingisland
Much of those photographs are from mid-twentieth century. Thus the Treca collection here are some of the earliest archival photographs of the King Island community.
King Islanders
The photographs in this exhibit and much of the background research that accompanies them come the archives of the the Oregon Province of Jesuits. This exhibit also drew from the writings of Paul Tiulana, a King Islander born in 1921 on the island who wrote in the 1980s about his community's heritage. Thus, with the exception of Tiulana's writings, much of the information about and all of the images of the King Islanders presented here come to us through a Jesuit perspective.
This is a collection of photographs taken by Jesuit Joseph M. Treca in 1916. The photographs provide a snapshot of the King Islander community while they were in Nome.
King Island is about 40 miles off the coast of Alaska and 90 miles northwest of Nome. The first twenty years of the twentieth century was a time of change for this area. Following the Nome Gold Rush of 1898, whites came en masse to an area that had been relatively isolated from white culture beforehand. Thus, these photographs capture a community in a period of change.
Special Collections at Santa Clara University have also digitized photographs of the King Islanders. For images taken by Bernard Hubbard, S.J. see: https://content.scu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/kingisland
Much of those photographs are from mid-twentieth century. Thus the Treca collection here are some of the earliest archival photographs of the King Island community.