Constance Cox (''ca.'' 1881-1960) was a Canadian

schoolteacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. wh ...

of part

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

ancestry who lived and taught with the

Gitksan Gitxsan (also spelled Gitksan) are an Indigenous people in Canada whose home territory comprises most of the area known as the Skeena Country in English (: means "people of" and : means "the River of Mist"). Gitksan territory encompasses approxim ...

First Nation in northwestern

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

and served as interpreter for several anthropologists.

Biography

She was born to Thomas and Margaret Hankin in Hazelton, B.C., and was considered, despite her mixed ancestry, the

first white child The birth of the first white child is a concept that marks the establishment of a European colony in the New World, especially in the historiography of the United States. Americas Canada Snorri Thorfinnsson, born around 1010 in the Viking settle ...

born in that community. She was baptised by William Ridley, Bishop of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

's Caledonia (northern B.C.) diocese. Her father, Thomas Hankin, sponsored a $3,000 (Cdn)

potlatch A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Science ...

feast to present the infant Constance to the large population of Gitksans who had come to live at Hazelton. Hankin, a former

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

employee, had founded Hazelton on his English godmother's legacy, built a store there, and also provided founding investments in the cannery communities of

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

, and

Port Essington Port Essington is an inlet and historic site located on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory. It was the site of an early attempt at British settlement, but now exists only as a remote ...

, B.C. Margaret Hankin was Tlingit on her mother's side, while her father was an HBC employee. Margaret spoke seven different First Nations languages and passed much of this profiency on to Constance. (Later, Margaret remarried, to Captain R. E. Loring, Indian Agent at Hazelton.) While serving as Hazelton police interpreter in the trial of three Gitksans arrested in a near-battle between settler miners and Gitksans at Hazelton, Constance met a telegraphist named Eddie R. Cox, whom she married. Starting in the 1920s, she served as interpreter and sometimes informant during some of the anthropologist

Marius Barbeau Charles Marius Barbeau, (March 5, 1883 – February 27, 1969), also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthropology. A ...

's fieldwork among the Gitksan. (Some of Barbeau's use of her and her mother's ethnographic and historical information in print led to a recriminatory letter from Cox.) Barbeau eventually began to rely more on the Tsimshian chief

William Beynon William Beynon (1888–1958) was a Canadian hereditary chief of the Tsimshian Nation and an oral historian; he served as ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists who studied his people. Early life and education ...

's services as interpreter in his Gitksan work. In 1958, Cox served as interpreter when the anthropologists

Wilson Duff Wilson Duff (March 23, 1925 in Vancouver – August 8, 1976) was a Canadian archaeologist, cultural anthropologist, and museum curator. He is remembered for his research on First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast, notably the Tsimshian, Gitx ...

and

Michael Kew Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...

brokered an agreement with the nearby Gitksan community of Kitwancool (a.k.a.

Gitanyow Gitanyow is an Indian reserve, Indian reserve community of the Gitxsan people, located on the Kitwanga River 8 km south of Kitwancool Lake, at the confluence of Kitwancool Creek. The community is located on Gitanyow Indian Reserve No. 1. Gi ...

), arranging for some of the village's totem poles to be removed to the

Royal British Columbia Museum Founded in 1886, the Royal British Columbia Museum (sometimes referred to as Royal BC Museum) consists of The Province of British Columbia's natural and human history museum as well as the British Columbia Provincial Archives. The museum is loca ...

for preservation. She also served as interpreter in creating the monograph by Duff that resulted. She eventually moved to North Vancouver, B.C., with her husband when his employer transferred him there.

Sources

* Cox, Constance (1958) '' Simon Gun-a-Noot: The Authentic Story.'' ''Native Voice'' (special ed.), pp. 34–37. * Duff, Wilson (ed.) (1959) ''Histories, Territories, and Laws of the Kitwancool.'' (Anthropology in British Columbia Memoir no. 4.) Victoria, B.C.: Royal British Columbia Museum. * Neylan, Susan (2003) ''The Heavens Are Changing: Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...

Christianity.'' Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. * Nowry, Laurence (1995) ''Marius Barbeau, Man of Mana: A Biography.'' Toronto: NC Press * Pedelty, Donovan (1997) "Constance Cox." In ''Pioneer Legacy: Chronicles of the Lower

Skeena River The Skeena River is the second-longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada (after the Fraser River). Since ancient times, the Skeena has been an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan—whose n ...

, Volume 1,'' ed. by Norma V. Bennett, pp. 227–230. Terrace, B.C.: Dr. R. E. M. Lee Hospital Foundation. * Sterritt, Neil J., Susan Marsden, Robert Galois, Peter R. Grant, and Richard Overstall (1998) ''Tribal Boundaries in the Nass Watershed.'' Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Constance 1880s births 1960 deaths 20th-century anthropologists 20th-century First Nations people 20th-century linguists Anthropological linguists Canadian schoolteachers First Nations academics Interpreters Linguists from Canada Tlingit people Canadian women anthropologists Women linguists 20th-century translators 20th-century Canadian educators Canadian women educators First Nations women