Little is known of his early life in Lax Kw"alaams (aka Portuguese Simpson), British Columbia He was probably the son of Arthur Wellington Clah, an hereditary chief and prominent early Christian convert who had taught the Tsimshian language to the Anglican lay missionary William Duncan in the 1850s.
In 1903 Boas wrote to Clah, on the recommendation of his Tlingit-Kwakwaka"wakw informant George Hunt, expressing an interest in finding someone with whom to work on a description of Tsimshian culture. Clah turned the correspondence over to Tate, and Tate began to send Boas information, especially transcribed oral narratives, through the mail. lieutenant seems certain that Boas and Tate never met face to face.
When that volume appeared, Boas wrote in its preface that "Mr.
Tate died in April 1914."
Boas and Tate"s correspondence is housed at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. lieutenant includes complaints by Boas that Tate is resisting his instructions by writing the stories in English first, and then translating into his own Tsimshian, instead of transcribing his informants" Tsimshian first.
In the 1930s, Tate"s widow, now known as "Mistress Sam Bennett," of the Gits"iis tribe, served as a key informant to the anthropologist Viola Garfield during her fieldwork in Lax Kw"alaams.
The literary historian Ralph Maud has written at length on the complicated give-and-take which resulted in the publication of Tate"s stories and the possible cultural distortions that resulted.
Maud has also produced a volume which reformats Tate"s stories to bring out the poetry in his English.
