Culturally significant objects to tribes of Alaska including ceremonial drums and masks are found in the museums’ collections across the world. New federal grants totaling $357,000 will enable two of the tribes as well as two museums within the state to bring some of these objects home.
Anthropologist and Explorer Ted Banks collected items from the Aleutians in the 1940s. Some of them were human remains.
“Like human skulls and bones and jaw bones and stuff similar to this,” said Chris Price the CEO of the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska.
It is reported that the Qawalangin Tribe is receiving about $15,000. This money will allow them to bring items back of the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“Lots of archaeologists and explorationists have traveled from all over the world to Alaska,” Price said. “And they took sacred objects like Human remains.”
It is believed that the Qawalangin Tribe plans to bring some of the objects back to their islands, while other items will remain in the museum to conduct research. The items that are returned to the tribe are likely to be given a formal burial, based on the decision of the tribal council.
Carter Price writes grants for the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska. He believes that culturally, it’s vital to take the remains of our ancestors returned to their ancestral homes. He believes museums and other institutions are more cognizant of that today.
“There is a shift between these organizations that want to donate things,” said Carter Price. “I believe there’s an awareness that keeping certain items isn’t morally right. Therefore, we’re seeing more cooperation with tribes, and trying to retrieve the objects.”
The Alaskan grants comprise $3.4 million that was awarded to museums and tribes throughout the United States under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA which was approved by Congress in 1990.
The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska receives two federal repatriation grants, totalling around 144,000 dollars. The Tribe has received similar grants over the last three decades and has collaborated with museums across California, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Maine to repatriate objects. They have so far brought back more than 140 objects.
“They were either purchased by museums or gotten from people who bought the items, sometimes in a way that was illegal,” said Desiree Duncan who manages the NAGPRA program for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.
Duncan says they return and store the cultural treasures in Juneau and lend them to clans at memorial events.
The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska includes more than 36,000 tribal members, as well as a number of clans. The grants assist clan leaders and elders travel to museums which are where they go through archive rooms and locate objects belonging to their tribes.
Duncan says it’s an emotional experience.
“Looking at the things and watching them come alive and being in the presence of the clan elders and clan leaders,” Duncan said. “It’s an extremely, intense experience. It’s extremely emotional. . . you experience different emotions when you’re there.”
They just returned the killer whale’s shirt of the Minnesota Museum of American Art to Juneau. They’re currently trying to get many more items backincluding a wolf clan’s mask as well as a ceremonial mask an shaman figure blanket, blankets, a wooden box drum and totem poles that were seized from communities across the Southeast.
Duncan states that they are thankful for the money which has grown over time, but not enough to cover every task. Duncan says Tlingit and Haida constantly seek more opportunities to take their culturally significant things back home.
The other grantees from Alaska are those from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak.
