Postcards From Alaska introduces KNLS listeners to America's last frontier.  Remember, this is a broadcast transcript and so may include editor's notes.

Alaska's Lending Museum

A postcard from Alaska for you now. Today’s postcard comes from the Alaska State Museum, located in the state capital, Juneau. Beginning in 2000, the museum held a two year long centennial celebration of its founding. Unlike many American museums, the Alaska State Museum had a great deal to celebrate.

In 1990 the United States Congress passed a law requiring American museums to return sacred or ceremonial artifacts to their original native tribal owners upon request. The effect on many of the country’s largest early American collections has been dramatic. During a single month in 2001, just one museum alone - the Peabody at Harvard University - agreed to return more than two thousand objects to tribes in four states.

Dr. Wallace Olson is a cultural anthropologist, professor emeritus at the University of Alaska, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on Alaska native culture. Dr. Olson says, "At the end of the nineteenth century and throughout the early years of the twentieth century, there were many collectors who were just nothing more than grave robbers, and they would take ceremonial objects and religious objects that were left at the graves, or they would trade with native people - pay them - for these traditional, tribal, or, you know, native property…community property. And a lot of those items are religious items. And so the repatriation act was an act to try to restore and bring back those objects so the native people could keep them and have that part of their native heritage back where it came from."”

By contrast, Alaska natives have asked the State Museum to return very few sacred artifacts. Curator of objects Steve Henrikson says this is due in large measure to the surprisingly enlightened policies of the museum’s first director, a Russian Orthodox priest named Father Kashavaroff.

"I think he really tried to work within native culture in such a way that it didn’t destroy the culture. So, certain things like masks and other artifacts were considered sacred objects to native people and it would be harmful if those objects were taken into the museum and taken out of circulation so to speak among native people. So, rather than collecting original artifacts, he hired native artists to make replicas of some of the original objects and he collected the replicas. For educational purposes in many cases having a nice replica of an object was perfectly fine. At the same time, the original - it is considered a sacred object - can stay within the native culture and help perpetuate that spirituality."”

In spite of the best efforts of sympathetic supporters like Father Kashavaroff, many sacred objects still wound up in the hands of other museums or private collectors. Over the years a surprising number of these artifacts made their way back to Alaska, having been purchased by the State Museum with the permission of the native tribes involved. These items are now made readily available to native researchers and artists for close study. Where religious objects are involved, the museum even goes one step further.

Steve Henrikson notes, "Our approach has been, when there are objects in the collection that are needed for ceremonial purposes, we just simply make them available for those ceremonies. When they’re not used for ceremonies they come back to the museum and are kept in a safe place just like all the other objects. We, of course, take a lot of safeguards when the items are out of the museum to make sure that they’re not damaged or stolen. In my opinion it’s really the best of both worlds. The object has the care that it needs to survive for many centuries, but it also is still available for ceremonial use."

One of the native groups taking advantage of the museum’s program is Kiksadi clan of the Tlingit tribe. The museum has in its possession several priceless Kiksadi artifacts, including a ceremonial blanket and a wooden hat carved into the likeness of a frog, a kind of family crest for the clan. The frog hat and Chiklat blanket are now so fragile and valuable that the tribe elected to leave them with the museum for safe keeping. Tribal Elder Raymond Wilson borrows the items from the museum for potlaches, tribal gatherings held on special occasions such as totem pole raisings or funerals.

Elder Wilson explains, "When you’re havin’ a memorial potlach for one of our people, then the hat would be put on him and the reason for this is to give him strength because he had just lost somebody in his family. The frog hat and the chilkat blanket all have spirits from the past leaders who have put it on. So each time anybody puts it on they leave a part of their spirit in the frog hat and the chilkat blanket."

Raymond Wilson says his people will need all the strength they can muster to survive what he calls the “tidal wave” of western culture. He is pleased to see that a growing number of elders are making a conscious effort to pass on the tribe’s heritage.

Elder Wilson continues, "A lot of our people are taking responsibility for what they know. We have tapes that are being made of the old people, they’re explaining how to do things. I was lucky enough to be involved with a children’s dance group in town and I’m currently involved in teaching the young fellows how to dance.“It’s going to be one of the hardest things for the Tlinget people that they try to hold on to as much of the culture as they can and still incorporate it with the western culture, because the people do have to live in the computer age. The children that we’re going to teach have to go out and make a living in the western world. They still have to hang on to some of their culture."

As Alaska’s native people continue that struggle, they have a powerful ally in the State Museum as it enters its second one hundred years preserving the history and culture of America’s last frontier.

Would you like to see:

• or a picture of the museum?
• or a photo of the frog hat on display?
• or visit the Alaska State Museum?

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