Odille Morison

Odille Morison (July 17, 1855 – 1933) was a linguist, artifact collector, and community leader from the Tsimshian First Nation of northwestern British Columbia, Canada.

She was born July 17, 1855, in the Tsimshian village of Lax Kw'alaams, then known by its colonial name of Fort Simpson or Port Simpson. She was the daughter of a Tsimshian traditional healer and midwife named Mary Quintal (later Curtis) and French Canadian employee of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fort in the village, François Quintal. Following her mother in the matrilineal system of the Tsimshian, Odille was a member of the Gitlaan tribe and most likely of the Killerwhale crest. She grew up trilingual, in English, Tsimshian, and French, and also knew the Chinook Jargon trade language. When, in 1862, the Anglican lay missionary at Port Simpson, William Duncan, relocated a portion of his flock to found the nearby utopian Christian community of Metlakatla, the Quintals moved with him. Odille was educated in Metlakatla's mission school.

In August 1872 Odille, aged seventeen, married Charles F. Morison, an Englishman and a clerk with the HBC. They were married by a ship's chaplain because the missionary in charge, the Rev. Robert Tomlinson, for unknown reasons refused to marry them. The Morisons also kept a home in Port Essington, a cannery town whose founder, Robert Cunningham, had been Mary Quintal's brother-in-law.

Odille waded into the doctrinal rivalry between Duncan and his Anglican bishop William Ridley by translating (against Duncan's instincts) sections of the New testament and prayer book into the Tsimshian language, Sm'algyax. Her work became the basis for the first practical spelling system of Tsimshian, the so-called "Ridley orthography." Odille's partisanship in the Duncan-Ridley schism contributed to her decision to stay in "Old" Metlakatla when Duncan, in 1887, founded a new community at "New" Metlakatla, Alaska, with 800 Tsimshian settlers. She was entirely devoted to her extended Tsimshian family, who also remained behind.

In 1888 Odille met the anthropologist Franz Boas during his visit to Port Essington. He facilitated the publication of an article by Odille on Tsimshian proverbs for the Journal of American Folk-Lore in 1889 and over the next few years she gathered for Boas over 140 artifacts to be displayed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, including two totem poles. She also sent Boas ethnographic data.

Both Charles and Odille Morison died in 1933 in Metlakatla, B.C.

Sources

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