Berlin Museum Returns Native American Artifacts to Tribe in Alaska

 

For years, European and American researchers dug up land where Native Americans buried their dead. They recovered countless¹ bones and cultural artifacts as part of their studies.

Now, museum officials have begun returning some of these artifacts to Native American tribes³.

Late last month, the Prussian Cultural Heritage⁴ Foundation returned nine such objects to the Alaskan Native Chugach tribe². The objects included a wooden mask, a wooden idol⁵, and a basket for carrying a baby. They were taken by a Norwegian explorer, Johan Adrian Jacobsen, in the late 1800s. He found them in tribal⁶ lands along the northwest coast of North America.

Jacobsen gave the artifacts to the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. They were stored for many years at Berlin’s Ethnographic Museum. Hermann Parzinger is president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. He said that since the artifacts were taken from the Chugach people without their approval, they do not belong to the museum.

The first step of cooperation

John F.C. Johnson is with the Chugach Alaska Corporation. He represented the tribe in Berlin at a ceremony marking the official return of the nine artifacts.

Johnson told VOA that, for years, he has traveled to Europe to document all the objects taken from the tribe’s territory. He plans to create an online registry showing where the artifacts can be found around the world.

The process for returning the mask, baby’s basket and other objects began in 2015. That is when a Chugach delegation⁷ visited the Berlin museum to identify Chugach artifacts in its collection. Some of the artifacts were found to be funerary objects.

Johnson said he does not expect that everything will be returned to the tribe, but it is important that funerary or religious objects are sent back.

“When we do reburials, different elders will say that it’s a basic cultural value that you have to...respect…honor, and give dignity to the human remains⁸ and funerary objects. If different cultural organizations or states went by those value systems, I think our world would be a lot better place to live in.”

After the German museum confirmed that the nine objects had been taken without the tribe’s approval, museum officials agreed to give them back.

After the artifacts are officially returned to the Chugach, Johnson says they will be kept in local museums or community centers.

Returning their history

In the United States, the federal government is supporting Native Americans' efforts to recover lost or missing artifacts. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation⁹ Act requires museums to make Native American artifacts available to government-recognized tribes.

Johnson said this means that if tribes wish to have objects returned from an American museum, they need to make an official request.

However, European countries do not have such laws. So Native American tribes depend on the willingness of European museum officials to return artifacts. Johnson said that with Berlin’s Ethnographic Museum, this was not a problem.

“People in Germany are doing it out of their own good will, and I’m really impressed with their efforts of doing that.”

Monika Zessnick is the curator of American ethnology at the Ethnographic Museum. She said the return of the artifacts was a first step in an ongoing¹⁰ cooperation between the museum and the Chugach people.

She added that this event comes at a time when many museums in Europe are looking closely at how their artifacts were collected.

Future cultural exchanges

Zessnick said that working directly with tribal representatives helps museum officials widen their own knowledge about the artifacts in their collections.

“These are old collections of about 130-150 years, and evidence and information is sometimes very thin… it’s really a lot of help for us for presenting collections,” she noted¹¹.

Johnson agrees, and said the Chugach are working with the Berlin museum for possible future exchanges.

“With Berlin, we’re developing cultural exchanges where in the future we can have some of our members come to Berlin and see some of the collections,” he said.

Zessnick said that she and Johnson are also working on having the museum’s members travel to Alaska to experience a Chugach culture camp, called the Nuuciq Spirit Camp. The camps bring the tribe’s young and older members together for cultural programs, such as dancing, language, art and cooking.

Johnson added that he would also like to see community artists create models of the returned artifacts, which they can then give to museums overseas.

Zessnick said the two sides have discussed working together on a possible exhibition, or a long-term loan of the more than 200 other Chugach objects the museum has in its collection.

Artifacts coming home

This is not the only time a museum has returned artifacts back to Alaska Natives.

Last year, National Public Radio reported on the return of human remains to the small Yupik village of Igiugig from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Local tribal leaders accepted and later reburied the remains of their ancestors.

The bones had been taken in 1931 by Ale? Hrdli?ka, the director of the museum’s department of anthropology¹² at the time. He dug them up as part of his research of how people first came to North America.

In 2016, The Anchorage Daily News reported that two artifacts were returned to Alaska Native Organizations after they were discovered on sale in Paris. After assistance from the U.S. State Department, the artifacts were purchased in secret by a nonprofit group, which then returned them to the tribes.

The two objects were small wooden boxes belonging to the Chugach tribe and the Chilkat Tlingit tribe. Experts believe that at one time the boxes probably were used to transport important religious objects.

I'm Dorothy Gundy. And I’m Phil Dierking.

Words in This Story

artifact - n. a simple object (such as a tool or weapon) that was made by people in the past

curator - n. a person who is in charge of the things in a museum, zoo, etc.

dignity - n. a way of appearing or behaving that suggests seriousness and self-control

elder - n. a person who has authority because of age and experience?

idol - n. a picture or object that is worshipped as a god

online - adj. connected to a computer, a computer network, or the Internet

exhibition - n. an event at which objects (such as works of art) are put out in a public space for people to look at : a public show of something

impress - v. to cause (someone) to feel admiration¹³ or interest

mask - n. a covering for your face or for part of your face

museum - n. a building in which interesting and valuable things (such as paintings and sculptures or scientific or historical objects) are collected and shown to the public

1 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

2 tribe   

n.部落，种族，一伙人

参考例句：

• This is a subject tribe.这是个受他人统治的部落。
• Many of the tribe's customs and rituals are as old as the hills.这部落的许多风俗、仪式都极其古老。

3 tribes   

n.部落( tribe的名词复数 )；（动、植物的）族；（一）帮；大群

参考例句：

• tribes living in remote areas of the Amazonian rainforest 居住在亚马孙河雨林偏远地区的部落
• In Africa the snake is still sacred with many tribes. 非洲许多部落仍认为蛇是不可冒犯的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 heritage   

n.传统，遗产，继承物

参考例句：

• The ancient buildings are part of the national heritage.这些古建筑是民族遗产的一部分。
• We Chinese have a great cultural heritage.我们中国人有伟大的文化遗产。

5 idol   

n.偶像，红人，宠儿

参考例句：

• As an only child he was the idol of his parents.作为独子，他是父母的宠儿。
• Blind worship of this idol must be ended.对这个偶像的盲目崇拜应该结束了。

6 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

7 delegation   

n.代表团；派遣

参考例句：

• The statement of our delegation was singularly appropriate to the occasion.我们代表团的声明非常适合时宜。
• We shall inform you of the date of the delegation's arrival.我们将把代表团到达的日期通知你。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 repatriation   

n.遣送回国，归国

参考例句：

• The Volrep programme is the preferred means of repatriation. 政府认为自愿遣返计划的遣返方法较为可取。 来自互联网
• Arrange the cargo claiming and maritime affairs,crews repatriation,medical treatment,traveling so on. （六）洽办货物理赔，船舶海事处理，办理船员遣返，就医，旅游等。 来自互联网

10 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

11 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

12 anthropology   

n.人类学

参考例句：

• I believe he has started reading up anthropology.我相信他已开始深入研究人类学。
• Social anthropology is centrally concerned with the diversity of culture.社会人类学主要关于文化多样性。

13 admiration   

n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕

参考例句：

• He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
• We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。