A teacher of Tsimshian grammar in Prince Rupert, Jay Miller is an independent scholar who was formerly the assistant director and editor at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library. In addition to his important work editing works pertaining to Mourning Dove, he co-edited The Tsimshian and Their Neighbours of the North Pacific (1984) and produced Tsimshian Culture: A Light Through the Ages (1997). The sub-title of the Tsimshian work refers to the importance of light, brought into the world by Raven, and its subsequent refraction in Tsimshian society to generate social, religious and symbolic institutions. Miller describes how family heraldic crests express light in one way, masks in another. His earlier work on shamanism formed the basis for Lushootseed Culture and the Shamanic Odyssey: An Anchored Radiance (1999), an overview of Aboriginals in Puget Sound who speak the Coast Salishan language called Lushootseed. Miller also provided an introduction to Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, edited by Katherine Berry Judson, reissued in 1997. First published in 1910, it contains stories from the Klamath, Nez Perce, Tillamook, Modoc, Shastan, Chinook, Flathead, Clatsop and other tribes. The stories concern the creation of the universe, the theft of fire and daylight, the death and rebirth of salmon, and the formation of geographical features such as the Columbia River, the Yukon River and Mounts Shasta, Hood, Rainier, Baker, and Adams.

Review of author's work by BC Studies:
Tsimshian Culture: A Light Through the Ages

BOOKS:

Miller, Jay & Carol M. Eastman (editors). The Tsimshian and their Neighbors of the North Pacific (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984).

Miller, Jay. Shamanic Odyssey: The Lushootseed Salish Journey to the Land of the Dead (Menlo, Park, California: Ballena Press, 1988)

Miller, Jay (editor). Mourning Dove: A Salishan Autobiography (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).

Miller, Jay. Tsimshian Culture: A Light Through the Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997)

Miller, Jay. Lushootseed Culture and the Shamanic Odyssey: An Anchored Radiance (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).

[BCBW 2004] "Anthropology" "First Nations"