Visitors to the Denver Art Museum look at “Drum ,” a cultural item from the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, on display in the Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art Galleries on March 27, 2024. The tribes, from southeast Alaska, have been trying to reclaim their cultural items from the Denver Art Museum for more than 30 years. , painted by a master Indigenous artist. The panels — 67 inches tall, 168 inches wide — illustrate the story of how a raven taught the Tlingits to fish.
John Lukavic, the museum’s curator of Native arts who also attended those meetings, said in an interview that it was surprising and disappointing to hear the tribes’ reaction to their Denver visit. He disputed their characterization of museum officials’ behavior. “An individual clan member has the authority to ‘use’ clan property, but he/she cannot independently transfer or alienate this right,” the tribe wrote in a
When the law that became known as NAGPRA passed in 1990, museums were required to send inventories to tribes of their entire Native American collections that might be subject to the new legislation. The priest recalled one moment particularly vividly: The Denver museum officials, as they were discussing the raven screen, cited Hopi law for why they could keep the Tlingit object.
Lukavic said the tribe never submitted a formal claim for the Shakes family crest. Jacobs countered that museum officials were adamant they weren’t returning the bear screen even with a claim. For the beaver hat, the museum agreed that the claim met two of three guidelines under the law for repatriation. But the evidence for the “right of possession” condition was “not conclusive,” Sinclair said. The item will not be displayed, she said, remaining in a secure location.
Visitors to the Denver Art Museum go through the Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art Galleries on March 27, 2024. The Denver Art Museum’s dealings with the Tlingit tribe stand in sharp contrast to other museums with holdings from the same collections.that it intended to repatriate seven objects to the southeast Alaskan tribes. Several of these pieces, museum officials noted, are visible in historic photos of Chief Shakes V and his successor.
Other museums have developed creative ways to return Tlingit cultural property to the tribes while maintaining educational opportunities.
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