The Thompson River Indians

Tattooing and face and body painting of the Thompson Indians, British Columbia

James Alexander Teit is known primarily as one of the main informants and guides for anthropologist Franz Boas. James Teit was also one of the first activists for Indian rights in British Columbia. It is seldom noted that he became a Marxist and a member of the Socialist Party of Canada.

Born on the Shetland Islands, Scotland in 1864, he immigrated to Spences Bridge in the Frasr Canyon in 1884 to help manage his uncle's store. He married a Thompson (Nlaka'pamux) Indian, Lucy Antko, who died in 1899, and he met Boas in 1894. Fluent in several tribal languages, Teit was also a self-taught botanist, an amateur entomologist, photographer of plants and people, and an anthropologist. Between 1911 and 1918, he also worked for the Geological Survey of Canada, then afterwards as a rancher and prospector. Teit died on October 30, 1922 in Spences Bridge having co-founded the Allied Indian Tribes of British Columbia in 1916, and having previously helped form the Interior Tribes of British Columbia and the British Columbia Indian Rights Association.