William Jamieson

Ethnologist, Museologist, Antique Tribal Art Consultant. Bill’s interests evolve around the forgotten cultures and customs of the South Pacific, Indonesia, sub-Sahara Africa, pre-Columbian Americas, and North American First Nations. His expertise has been drawn upon by National Geographic’s documentary production unit, as well as by numerous museums and researchers. Bill’s much publicized home, termed “Collector chic” by the Globe and Mail, is the first residence in Canada to be architecturally designed to incorporate a living museum.

Through an interest in disappearing Andean-Amazonian tribal rituals, Bill has financed and led five expeditions into Ecuador and Peru from 1995 to 2001, researching traditional naturopathic healings and related rituals. Focusing on the Shuar tribe of Ecuador, made famous for their past custom of shrinking heads, Bill has amassed the most extensive Shuar library and archival photos in existence, including a collection of shrunken human heads. Bill’s next expedition will be to the formerly restricted region of Nagaland in eastern India and north-western Myanmar to visit the Naga tribe.

During 1998, Bill purchased Canada ’s oldest museum, the Niagara Falls Museum. Established in 1828, the museum held title to the name The Explorers Club in Canada. Bill donated the name to The Explorers Club in New York City. Amoungst the collections of his newly acquired museum was a whale skeleton, as well as nine Egyptian mummies that had been in the museum’s collection since 1861 Suspecting that one of the mummies might be a royal mummy, Bill sold all nine of them to the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, were it was confirmed that one of the mummies was that of Pharaoh Rameses I. Rameses I was returned to Egypt.

Bill is also an antique tribal art dealer and he has set records at Sotheby’s in New York for the sales of Polynesian antiquities. Bill attended Toronto’s York University.

Gegor, Jan T. "Head-Hunting in the '90s." Implosion #9. P. 32-38 1999

Smith, Steven. "Weirder than Taxidermy." Toronto Life. P.98-104 April 1996