1909 concertina picture

Ph D candidate Paul Krejci correctly figured out that the white man playing the concertina was Walter Fry, an Anglican missionary who had just come north on the Mackenzie with Bishop Isaac Stringer to Fort McPherson. I was able to confirm that hunch through Stringer's diary, which tells of Fry's playing the instrument on board during the boat trip. Other missionaries, such as Whittaker (in 1910) and Mrs. Fry (in 1918) tell of Fry's helping the service and singing by playing his instrument. Fascinating, as Paul is doing, to see the mission contact phenomenon through the medium of music. As early as 1868 Father Petitot mentioned he played the concertina. And Stringer, in his first summers at Fort McPherson in 1892 and 1893 taught the Kukpugmiut of the eastern delta how to sing several hymns. When he visited them in August 1893 at one of their home sites (Kittigazuit) they greeted him as his canoe arrived by singing those very tunes. Still, none converted until sixteen years later. Singing and other forms of white people's music were enthusiastically adopted or taken part in, but it would be hard to prove (I think at this point) that that phenomenon sped adoption of Christianity. When that did happen, however, it meant that their own form of music (dancing and chanting to drums) had to be abandoned for it was during those sessions that shamans often contacted spirits and got advice about the hunt and other matters. That is why, when one sees a picture of the Kukpugmiut in 1909 all looking at their hymn books as they are about to begin to sing, one sees in the background the ruins of an abandoned kajigi, or communal hall, in which the dancing and chanting used to occur on a nightly basis during the beluga hunting season. Do let me know if there is something wrong in this assessment, and since I know little of music myself, please let me (and Paul) have your input. If someone can identify one or more of the native people in the picture that would be terrific. One way to do so is to look at pictures taken by Anderson (Stefansson's partner), so I must haul those out from a box here somewhere, as they have misteriously disappeared from my computer. If I recall correctly, the originals are in the National Archives in Ottawa.