Quesalid autobiography of a facebook

Written in 1925, Quesalid's autobiography comes to us through the dubious hands of Franz Boas, by way of George Hunt, and begins: 'I desired to learn.

This article reveals how it is that we may identify the true Quesalid, telling something of his life, and shows him to have been a key figure in early American anthropology and the 'Culture and Personality' school, as well as an augur of many of the central debates within medical anthropology.

The dilemma of Quesalid, and of all people facing an unjust and confusing world, can often be understood in theological terms.

Quesalid was a First Nations shaman who lived on Vancouver Island, Canada. He wrote an autobiography in Kwak'wala, the Kwakiutl language, discovered by Franz Boas and well known by anthropologist s, in which he recounted his experiences as a shaman from an authentic view.