James Teit

Who was James Teit?

James Alexander Teit was an anthropologist and photographer who worked with Franz Boas to study Interior Salish First Nations peoples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He also worked with Edward Sapir of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1911.

Teit was born in Scotland's Shetland Islands but immigrated to Canada and married a Nlaka'pamux woman named Susanna Lucy Artko. It was through his wife that he became knowledgeable of the culture and language of the Nlaka'pamux people. In 1899 James Teit lost his wife Lucy to pneumonia. After his wife's death Teit moved to the small town of Spences Bridge, British Columibia. While living in Spences Bridge he married a lady named Josephine Morens. Together they had six children: Erik 1905, Inga 1907, Magnus 1909, Rolf 1912, Sigurd 1915, and Thorald 1919. They also had a stillborn they named Teit. Inga and Erik are buried in the Morens family graveyard with their baby brother. James and Josephine are buried in Merritt B.C.