Fonds paa-8210 - Paul Coze fonds

Between 1928 and 1934, the French artist Paul Coze made four trips across western Canada collecting ethnographic objects for the Musée d’Ethnographie (Trocadero) in Paris and the Heye Foundation in New York. An ardent admirer of Indigenous cultures, Coze helped organize the Cercle Wakanda, a group of Parisian ‘Indian hobbyists’ who staged theatrical productions on Indigenous themes. Coze also assembled a substantial private collection of ethnographic material from the Canadian Plains and Subarctic. One hundred and twenty two items from his personal collection, ranging from garments and horse gear to model canoes and games, now form part of the Ethnology collections at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton. They are accompanied by 58 photographs and 119 paintings, many of them portraits of individuals whom Coze met during his travels, as well as props used in Cercle Wakanda productions. Together with Coze’s writings, published (Moeurs et Histoire des Indiens Peaux-Rouges and Wakanda, among others) and unpublished, this assemblage of diverse objects offers a unique perspective on Indigenous life of the early 20th century as well as European attitudes towards Indigenous peoples and cultures.