September 2019 marked a major milestone for NMAI: the last claims submitted from 1997 to 2015 to NMAI for Tlingit items was completed. This was celebrated at a ceremony at the museum, during which three daggers, a beaded dancing shirt and a robe were returned to the Tlingit people and care- fully prepared for their journey home to Alaska. Blue cloth shirt decorated with killer whales made of red cloth bead work and mother-of-pearl buttons, circa 1900, 14/7335
member told him upon the house front’s return, “We now have something we can tell our children about.” Clans have begun to use the items returned
to them from NMAI’s collections. Luella Knapp, a spokesperson for the Naanya.aayí clan, says the return of the Marmot Hat to her people in 2014 was “powerful, very powerful.” Her son wore the hat at the 2016 Celebration of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Tribes of Alaska as a reaffirmation of their culture. In 2015, NMAI repatriated three 300-year-
old battle helmets to the Kiks.ádi clan. Battle helmets are essential for certain ceremonies, and only those who have fought in war can touch them. Yet the clan had few left. In 2018, when its people fought to limit the herring being taken by a commercial fishery, three veterans donned the helmets. As Jacobs ex- plains, this was a statement: “We’ve gone into battle for this.” “Everything we give back to these com- represents another
munities story being
retold,” Snowball says. “Ultimately, it is the re- coupling and reconnecting that allows them to move forward.”
MAKING IT WHOLE
The objects from NMAI and NMNH col- lections that the Tlingit clans wished to have repatriated were intact enough that they could still serve a role in their com- munities. So what if an item is critical to a clan but too damaged to be used? Harold Jacobs proposed a unique solution: digi- tally “repair” it. He asked Eric Hollinger, a tribal liaison for NMNH’s Repatriation Office who had been working with Smith- sonian’s digitization experts and tribes to create 3-D replicas since 2006, whether the Smithsonian might be able to create a new Sculpin Hat. The idea had sprung from a whale. Jacobs
found a Killer Whale Hat (Kéet S’aaxw) be- longing to the Dakl’aweidi clan in NMNH’s collections. Around 1900, Yéilnaawú,
a
well-known Deisheetaan clan artist carved the hat for his brother-in-law, Dakl’aweidi leader Gusht’eiheen. Smithsonian ethnolo- gist John Swanton acquired the hat in 1904. Harold alerted his father, Mark Jacobs Jr., who was leader of the Dakl’aweidi clan that then submitted a claim for the hat. A report by Hollinger recommended its return, and the request was approved in 2004. As Mark Jacobs was severely ill, Hollinger
rushed the hat to him while he lay in his hos- pital bed. With members of both the Raven and Eagle/Wolf moieties as witnesses, Jacobs wore the hat in ceremony at the hospital the next day. “It was quite emotional,” says Hollinger. With the Killer Whale Hat by his side, Jacobs died just 11 days later. Edwell John Jr. took on leadership of the
Dakl’aweidi clan in 2007. As an IT specialist, he sees 3-D replicas of clan objects as cul- tural “back-up” in case an item is suddenly lost. “If all we have is a picture and an artist tries to replicate a hat, it won’t be quite the
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 13
PHOTO BY NMAI STAFF
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