The DAM (Denver Art Museum) rejected return requests from two federally-recognized Native Alaskan Tribes. The institution went on with this action, despite multiple delegation trips and the filing of three formal claims. A article published in the Denver Post earlier this month revealed the various challenges for Indigenous and Native tribes to reclaim funerary goods.
It Would Stop at Nothing to Prevent the Return?
There are also ancestors’ remains, retained by museums and esteemed institutions in the United States, even after the passing of NAGPRA. “They have control of these objects, and they can make it as easy or difficult as they want”, Denver Post investigative reporter Sam Tachnik told Alaska Public Media on April 22.
Twelve tribe members from Alaska’s Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes convened with museum representatives in 2017 over a wooden house partition depicting a raven. It was 14 feet wide, and taught the locals how to fish. The delegation claimed that a federal statute enacted in 1990 required the repatriation of the 170 year old painted panels.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act developed guidelines and also protocols for museums and other organisations returning human remains, burial goods, and other things to “Native Hawaiian organisations” and “Indian tribes.” But did they meet the requests? Following three days of talks, the tribal delegates departed the museum with the impression that it would stop at nothing to prevent the return of artefacts.
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The DAM Has a Reputation of Not Following the NAGPRA
DAM’s curator of Native arts, John Lukavic, attended the meetings in 2017. He disputed that museum officials were “intransigent, condescending and insensitive in consultations”. But, he also said: “We’re not in the business of just giving away our collections. Nobody is”. According to the study, the museum denied three Tlingit tribe claims to a beaver clan.
Former Denver Museum of Nature and Science curator Chip Colwell told the Denver Post that the museum gained notoriety in the museum world for not making much headway on NAGPRA. He also noted that if tribes believe an organisation ignored preliminary talks, they can decide not to jointly file a formal demand for repatriation.
The Denver Post also noted DAM’s response to repatriation claims is markedly different from other institutions which have received repatriation requests from Native Alaskan tribes, including the Burke Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the University of Maine’s Hudson Museum, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
