The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

INTEGRATING CULTURALLY SENSITIVE AND BEST MUSEUM

PRACTICES AT TWO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MUSEUMS:

THE PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

AND THE KARUK PEOPLE’S CENTER

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University, Chico

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirement for the Degree

Master of Arts

Anthropology

Museum Studies Option

______

Fall 2010 INTEGRATING CULTURALLY SENSITIVE AND BEST MUSEUM

PRACTICES AT TWO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MUSEUMS:

THE PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

AND THE KARUK PEOPLE’S CENTER

A Thesis

Hélène Rouvier

Fall 2010

APPROVED BY THE DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH:

Katie Milo, Ed.D.

APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Georgia L. Fox, Ph.D., Chair

______Stacy B. Schaefer, Ph.D. PUBLICATION RIGHTS

No portion of this thesis may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author.

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My graduate studies journey began in 2001 while completing my undergraduate program at the University of California Berkeley. Considering my career options as an older returning student, I was encouraged to first experience the real life world of cultural resource management, and to then pursue a graduate degree in the anthropological field of my choosing. For this advice and mentorship during a period of personal and professional change I am indebted to Professor Kent Lightfoot who reignited my passion for the field and who has continued to encourage and follow my graduate studies.

Faculty, staff, and students in the California State University, Chico

Department of Anthropology provided the support and gentle prodding to complete my graduate degree while working full time several hours distance from campus and classes.

My thanks to graduate committee members Georgia Fox and Stacy Schaefer for helping to design my program, direct and focus my research interests, and provide invaluable advice on achieving those goals. I am also grateful for the academic rigor required by department faculty – their critiques have served me well in conducting research and analyzing the data gathered.

My research agenda could not have been completed without the participation of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Karuk Tribe. My graduate internship at PAHMA was directed by Victoria Bradshaw, Head of Collections and

iv Facilities; she provided the advice and direction needed to design my research survey. I am also grateful to North American Collections Manager Natasha Johnson for sharing her experience in collections management. I am deeply grateful to the Karuk Tribe for inviting my research as a guest in their culture. Karuk people openly shared their knowledge and experiences for this study, including Erin Hillman, Verna Reece, Terry

Tripp, Yukon Sakota, André Cramblit, Susan Gehr, Frank Lake, and Leaf Hillman. Erin

Hillman and Arch Super took time to review my drafts for accuracy and cultural sensitivity. I hope that my research gives back to the Karuk community as much as I have gained personally and professionally.

Many thanks also to family and friends, who believed in my success and supported my decisions throughout. My son Joe and daughter Ruth have patiently indulged my return to college and a second career. My parents always supported my educational goals. Although they have both passed I expect I have made them proud.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Publication Rights ...... iii

Acknowledgments ...... iv

List of Figures...... viii

Abstract...... ix

CHAPTER

I. Introduction...... 1

II. Literature Review...... 8

History of Museology...... 8 Western Best Museum Practices ...... 11 Indigenous Perspectives ...... 13 Theoretical Models in Museology...... 16

III. Development of Mainstream Museums...... 23

Development of Curatorial Practices...... 28 Contemporary Museums in a Complex World...... 33

IV. The Rise of Tribal Museums ...... 36

Heritage: Tangible and Intangible...... 48 Voices of a Thousand People: The Makah Cultural and Research Center...... 52 Mediating Knowledges: Origins of a Zuni Tribal Museum ...... 56 Two Examples, One Perspective...... 60

V. Museological Theory and Shifting Paradigms ...... 63

vi CHAPTER PAGE

VI. Methodology...... 75

Survey for the Phoebe Hearst Museum...... 75 Survey for the Karuk People’s Center...... 86 Quantitative and Qualitative Questions and Data ...... 91

VII. The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology ...... 93

Response from Mainstream Museums ...... 98 Tribal Practices: Perspectives from Tribal Museums and Cultural Centers...... 101 Other Tribal Commentaries...... 105 The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology – From the Inside Out ...... 109

VIII. The Karuk People’s Center ...... 114

The People’s Center and the Karuk Community...... 122 Relationships with the Mainstream Museum World...... 134 Qualitative and Quantitative Data: Community Responses ...... 138

IX. Analysis and Discussion...... 151

X. Concluding Remarks and Further Research...... 165

References ...... 171

Appendices

A. Human Subjects Approval...... 183 B. Survey Questions...... 186 C. Survey Summaries...... 207 D. Permissions...... 244

vii LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. Interior of Makah Cultural and Research Center, Neah Bay, Washington...... 55

2. Map Showing Karuk Ancestral Territory ...... 115

3. Basketweavers for the Curio Trade Elizabeth and Louise Hickox at Orleans...... 119

4. Trinket Basket by Elizabeth Hickox...... 120

5. Karuk Dugout Showing Damage...... 126

6. Kishvoof Root in Dugout ...... 127

7. Loaned Necklace Showing Damage ...... 129

8. Karuk White Deerskin Dance Before 1900 ...... 131

9. Baskets from the People’s Center Collection ...... 133

10. Terry’s Granddaughter, Isabell Gomez ...... 147

11. Cooking Acorn Soup at the Fall 2010 Baskeweavers Gathering...... 149

viii ABSTRACT

INTEGRATING CULTURALLY SENSITIVE AND BEST MUSEUM

PRACTICES AT TWO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MUSEUMS:

THE PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

AND THE KARUK PEOPLE’S CENTER

Master of Arts in Anthropology

Museum Studies Option

California State University, Chico

Fall 2010

Contemporary museums are at a crossroads. Challenged by internal and external critiques, they are struggling to reinvent themselves and to remain relevant in a sociopolitical context of resource depletion, global conflict, and issues of human and civil rights. Issues of social and economic justice, and their accompanying legal mandates, are fueling demands of indigenous and source communities to be part of museum decision- making and discourse.

This thesis focuses a lens on two museum experiences within the theoretical framework of museums as “contested arenas” in which cultures come into contact, collide, and negotiate difference. Such “arenas” or forums function as “borderlands”

ix where the agency of subjugated knowledges and peoples are acknowledged, and where the figurative “peripheries” of the underrepresented help to redefine the “center” of the dominant cultural paradigms.

Two museums were researched within this framework, using the hypothesis that both would demonstrate this collision of contesting voices, and would also be participating in a process of negotiation and shifting paradigms. Both museums house

Native American collections, both facilities are in Northern California. They are dissimilar in other areas. The Phoebe Hearst Museum is a large, established university museum in the urban San Francisco Bay area; the Karuk People’s Center is a smaller, and a younger tribal museum in a remote region of Siskiyou County.

Research was limited to collections management – in particular the incorporation of culturally sensitive protocols into standard “best museum practices.”

Surveys in both settings provided both quantitative and qualitative data; follow up interviews were completed with those interested. Participation was voluntary and respondents could request anonymity. The Phoebe Hearst survey was designed both as community outreach and to gather information for internal procedural review – it was provided to over 200 tribal and mainstream museums, and to source communities. A similar survey was given to interested Karuk community members.

Two case studies are not representative of either mainstream or tribal museums, but their unique experiences reflected the disconnect that continues in the museum world. While this study was designed to document an “arena” (however contested and uncomfortable) where communities converse, what exists is more

x boundary than borderland. Collections management at the Karuk People’s Center is negotiating traditional and science-based stewardship, the result of recruiting museum professionals trained in “best museum practices” but also willing to challenge entrenched assumptions and the status quo. The Phoebe Hearst has incorporated traditional protocols as requested during tribal visits (most often for repatriation documentation and consultation), but there is little evidence of ongoing positive dialogue with native communities.

My research reinforces the need for creating spaces for these conversations, benefiting both tribal and mainstream museum communities. Reinventing museum practices will require vision, leadership, and resources. Museums must put their words into action to build the “contested arenas” that will build the partnerships needed for museums to matter for future generations.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I am speaking from a place in the margin where I am different, where I see things differently. I am talking about what I see. This is an intervention. A message from that space in the margin that is a site of creativity and power, that inclusive space where we recover ourselves, where we move in solidarity to erase the category colonizer/colonized. Marginality is a site of resistance. Enter that space. Let us meet there. Enter that space.

[bell hooks 1990:152]

Contemporary museums are at a crossroads. The purpose of my thesis research is to explore the challenges and opportunities museums face, with a focus on how museums are reinterpreting and revising their collections management practices to incorporate traditional care protocols from indigenous communities. To illustrate these changing values and approaches, I will study, compare, and contrast evolving collections care policies and practices at two museums—the Phoebe Hearst Museum of

Anthropology at University of California Berkeley (PAHMA), and the Karuk Tribe

People’s Center in Happy Camp, California.

Museums in the twenty-first century face a myriad of challenges. They confront dwindling funding and other resources, respond to legislative mandates with limited funding, must answer postmodern critiques that question their assumed authority, and face mounting pressure from the indigenous communities they represent.

Fundamentally, museums must reinvent themselves to remain relevant to changing

1 2 audience expectations and needs. This process requires a profound reassessment of museum paradigms—of mission, management, and underlying assumptions mandating historic preservation. It is process requiring proactive agency, and no small measure of self-reflection and risk taking (Janes 2009; Kreps 2003).

Change of this magnitude, particularly involving entrenched and somewhat exclusive professional standards, does not come easily. As a result, museums have emerged as contested arenas for the negotiation of nascent perspectives and practices, recreating their relevance and responsiveness to constituent communities.

Notwithstanding the recent emergence of “ecomuseums” and “museums without walls,” institutional forms questioning object-based experience, collections remain at the core of contemporary museum practice. The oftimes dynamic discourse surrounding these museum collections have foregrounded new voices in display and interpretation, especially those of indigenous peoples. Yet, indigenous perspectives extend beyond exhibit halls into the storage and curation facilities outside public view. It is in these backrooms that native ways of caring for their cultural property are being voiced and incorporated into established “best museum practices.”

Two case studies will be used to explore a series of research questions, and investigations designed to explore the development of hybrid collections care policies.

Some of the questions include: What is the expressed mission of the museum? What are the underlying attitudes regarding cultural heritage management? How were the collections obtained? How are they cared for? What are the differences and similarities between Western and Native American collections care? How are culturally respectful collections care policies being developed, approved, and implemented? What are the

3 challenges to implementing indigenous care practices? What have been the community and institutional responses to incorporating traditional care practices?

Although differing in scale, context, institutional perspective, and experience, both PAHMA and the People’s Center share an appreciation of the value and historical significance of these cultural treasures. From the responses solicited in my research design, I anticipate finding common ground for evolving practices that honor both approaches to collections care.

Chapter II provides an overview of the relevant literature discussing museum history and theory, the development of Western “best museum practices,” and contemporary museum experiences from both mainstream and tribal perspectives. The literature review also informs and defines the theoretical framework used in my research.

This theoretical framework will be detailed following the literature overview.

Chapter III focuses on Western-focused museology, both historical underpinnings and contemporary context(s). The development and justification of associated collections care policies will be discussed and analyzed in some depth, and placed in the context of classical museum mandates and perspectives. The commoditization of material culture and the emergence of national narratives also inform this history.

Chapter IV traces the recent proliferation of tribal museums and community centers in North America. This chapter looks at both early and contemporary examples of tribal museums, their political context, challenges and resources, mandates and mission, and community support and engagement. Collections care perspectives and policies in these facilities are discussed in some detail.

Chapter V frames contemporary issues and paradigm shifts in the museum field. Asked to prove their relevance in a changing sociopolitical landscape, one that mandates democratization, community outreach, and civic engagement, museums are beset by demands for indigenous representation and ownership of cultural property, declining private and public funding, outcome-based evaluation of programs, and competition from a variety of virtual and market-driven venues. Consultation with source and stakeholder communities, fueled by repatriation legislation, has now become accepted protocol in many museum activities. Conversations address several dimensions of collections care – ranging from the handling of sacred items to ceremonial use of regalia contaminated with toxic treatments. Previewing often divergent voices—museum, tribal, academic, professional—fundamental assumptions mandating heritage preservation are acknowledged and critiqued.

Chapter VI describes the methodology utilized in my research. This includes the process of developing the surveys used, the questions used and why, the distribution methods and scope, and the questions asked. Both the quantitative and qualitative approaches are defined and compared.

Chapters VII and VIII introduce two case studies of museums negotiating new collections care practices, building on written surveys addressing various experiences and dimensions of culturally respectful collections care, personal interviews with staff of both facilities, community response (both written and in person), and personal observation working in both environments. Chapter VII discusses evolving protocols within the

Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology (PAHMA) as a mainstream museum model.

Institutional history, collections acquisitions, mission and values, and the contemporary

5 climate provide the context for that museum’s stated goal for culturally sensitive collections care. Chapter VIII showcases the Karuk Tribe People’s Center as a tribal cultural center, providing a comparative case study of collections care practices. To understand and appreciate the new and evolving collections care policies of this museum,

I discuss tribal and cultural history in addition to the Center’s beginnings, mission, and current operations.

Chapter IX presents my primary data, analysis, and interpretation. The written survey forms the bulk of this information; however, anecdotal and personal interviews provide additional qualitative data. The initial survey was designed under the supervision of PAHMA staff with the intent to inform internal collections care revision. The survey was later adapted and distributed under the direction of the Karuk People’s Center, with a similar design and purpose. Follow-up interviews were conducted with Hearst Museum and People’s Center staff and volunteers, and constituent community members. Written policies and procedures were reviewed as well as any draft language being developed.

Summaries of the findings are found in the appendices.

Concluding remarks, contribution to museum studies, and suggestions for further research are presented in Chapter X. My focus in this overview is the real life application of indigenous and Euro-American collections care within a theoretical framework of “contested arenas” or “borderlands,” where mainstream and tribal museum models meet, of the progress made in those situated sites of negotiation and reinvention.

How do both museums respond to the push and pull from source communities, how have they remained relevant to their constituent communities? How have these conversations changed ways of caring for collections in both contexts?

The raw primary data provides evidence (albeit inconclusive due to modest response to the written survey) of the potential for integration of the two approaches.

Although somewhat divergent on specifics, Native American and mainstream practices are not mutually exclusive. More challenging is the need to bridge differing worldviews, requiring renewed dialogue, trust, and respect. In both museums, similar questions are being asked: What are the underlying assumptions and perspectives being written on material culture? What is the meaning of heritage preservation? What is the role of living culture in the museum experience? How can the priorities of mainstream and tribal museum mandates be reconciled? What changes are needed to rework collections management policies? What are the challenges and solutions, pitfalls and opportunities?

Relying on the voices of those living and experiencing the changing museum landscape, I present their stories to be heard in the following chapters.

I approached my research from an “insider” perspective informed by direct institutional knowledge, experience, and biases. Participating as a “guest” in both Wiyot and Karuk cultures, I have endeavored to actively listen to tribal concerns, issues, and goals; in my official capacity, I represent and pursue those tribal priorities, including consultation with the Phoebe Hearst Museum. Critical to my acceptance into these cultures, although always viewed at least partly as an outsider, has been the ability to suspend judgment and to avoid any suggestion of academic arrogance or exploitive agendas. When conducting surveys in Indian country, I stressed voluntary participation, confidentiality, and transparency in research questions.

My research at the Phoebe Hearst Museum built on my undergraduate experience with the University of California Berkeley Anthropology Department and two

7 museum internships. My academic career continues to be supported and encouraged by

UC Berkeley professors, including Interim Museum Director Kent Lightfoot, and I also developed working relationships with several staff members at the Phoebe Hearst

Museum. Those confidences led to an understanding and appreciation of the internal pressures and frustrations experienced on the inside, and the ability to hear both institutional and tribal perspectives on the sociopolitical struggles directed at the museum.

Maintaining a semblance of fairness and objectivity in the resulting climate of polarized rhetoric proved difficult, but was tempered by an awareness that all dialogue is ultimately about people who are struggling to do the right thing (however differently defined). The need for respectful and good faith dialogue was all too apparent, and negotiation to dispel claims of hidden agendas and conspiracy theories long overdue.

Unfortunately, neither side was able to bridge the gap, and an opportunity lost for inclusive negotiation. Although in the position to hear all sides, my best option was to remain under the radar and to focus narrowly on my research study of collections care practices.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

History of Museology

Published scholarship relevant to my study can be categorized into distinct, yet, interrelated research areas. First, the history of museology informs an understanding of how museums developed both “best museum practices” and positions of authority. In his seminal work, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926, Stephen Conn

(1998) effectively traces the development of museums in the United States beginning with the Victorian pursuit of classification and control; an ordering of the natural world in tandem with an abiding belief in “objects” as central. Conn observes that

The intellectual architecture used to build the museums of the late nineteenth century was predicated on the assumption that objects could tell stories “to the untrained observer,” an assumption I will call an “object-based epistemology.” Late-nineteenth-century Americans held a belief that objects, at least as much as texts, were sources of knowledge and meaning. [1998:4]

Interwoven historical components of the American museum experience— scientific positivism and social evolutionary schemes, national identity and pride, public access and education, academic research and authority—are central to the character of the twentieth-century mainstream museum in North America. Museums functioned as

“places to produce new knowledge, and [to] bring that knowledge, often for free, to the people. In a world understood through objects, and in a society wrestling with questions of citizenship and national identity, many hoped museums would assume a central and

8 9 public role in the intellectual, and therefore moral, life of the age” (Conn 1998:16).

Understanding this unique context of the American experience is critical to understanding how museums developed into institutions whose authority and relevance are now being questioned and debated.

Canadian museum professionals Miriam Clavir (Preserving What is Valued:

Museums, Conservation, and First Nations) and Michael Ames (Cannibal Tours and

Glass Boxes) preface their discussions with a similar historical overview, one that acknowledges the volatile and evolving challenges to cautious museum approaches based on preservation, political neutrality, and a mandate to emphasize the positive official versions of history. This emerging struggle is most evident in museum relationships with

Native and First Nations communities. As Ames notes

What is to be done about these indigenous peoples who are developing the awkward habit of speaking out and talking back? What are these peoples to do about the rest of us? Maintaining traditional academic and curatorial associations with the Native—treating them as specimens, informants, subjects, or students— will no longer be sufficient, because thee associations involve relations perceived as unequal or hierarchical, with the anthropologist, teacher, or curator as superior. [Ames 1992:80-81]

The object-based epistemology referenced by Conn (1998) is central to understanding what the fuss is all about. What does this material culture represent, and to whom? The museum and its collection have their own histories and stories, the so-called

“object” described as a “palimpsest” of its myriad forms and texts. Anthropologist

Patricia Erickson (2002:26) describes this concept and the museum’s role in a process of reframing culture:

The museum is now a place for attempting to understand how identity is formed and represented, how social inequalities are established, reproduced, and disrupted…The anthropology of museums has analyzed how objects are repeatedly

recontextualized throughout the stages of creation, collection, exhibition, and viewing … Objects or works or art are like palimpsests: layers of meaning are superimposed upon objects, each layer failing to completely obliterate the previous one. Similarly, layers of meaning are laid down upon the museum itself. Despite this layering process, some meanings, or interpretations, are given greater credence than others.

A related and cogent framework for appreciating the life of objects is presented in The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process by anthropologist Igor Kopytoff (1986). A cultural anthropologist who worked in Africa,

Kopytoff contends that the economic valuation of objects in human exchange systems is socially constructed, changing as it passes through time and space. This lens on socially constructed economic value has particular relevance to museum collections. Thus an object removed from its tribal ceremonial context is perceived as reduced to a “mere art object,” while it has become a fetishized commodity of great value in the rarified atmosphere of the museum. Particularly germane to discussing the role of objects is the

Western “conceptual distinction between the universe of people and the universe of objects” (Kopytoff 1986:84), a cultural choice that is not shared by indigenous peoples in the Americas. Native American worldviews more accurately respect the interconnectedness and importance of all life, and further integrate the physical and spiritual, tangible and intangible in all its manifestations. Thus, the history of museums in the Americas illustrates a fundamental conceptual disconnect in how collections are viewed by the various stakeholders in heritage preservation. As discussed in the following chapters, non-Western stakeholder communities view museum objects as having continuing value in contemporary culture, performing roles necessary to ongoing

11 cultural practices. Indeed they remain “respected relatives” to be welcomed back into tribal life.

Western Best Museum Practices

A second category of literature describes Western “best museum practices,” based on a scientific approach that emphasizes preventative care, stabilization, and preservation measures. Integral to this approach are the accompanying records— condition reports, accession catalog records, donor information, and so forth. The field is focused and specialized, one that venerates the object, but not necessarily the context in which it was created. These are the tools of the trade, developed partially in response to modern threats to collections from the products and by-products of industrialization.

Standard texts include The Elements of Archaeological Conservation (J.M.

Cronyn), Registration Methods for the Small Museum (Daniel Reibel), The Museum

Forms Book (Texas Association of Museums), A Legal Primer on Managing Museum

Collections (Marie Malero), Museum Registration Methods (Rebecca A. Buck and Jean

Allman Gilmour, eds.), and The Conservation of Artifacts Made from Plant Materials

(Mary-Lou Florian, Dale Kronkright, and Ruth Norton). Sherylyn Ogden seeks to integrate both standard and cultural care practices in Caring for American Indian

Objects: A Practical and Cultural Guide.

Developing in step with the museum profession are the umbrella organizations that seek to provide organizational and ethical frameworks for museums, a term historically defined as public and private institutions holding natural objects and human artifacts, but in contemporary times include both collecting and non-collecting

12 institutions. Museums reflect the expanding scope of human vision, and encompass anthropology, art and natural history, aquariums, arboreta, art centers, botanical gardens, children’s museums, historic sites, nature centers, planetariums, science and technology centers, and zoos. Of particular influence in the United States is the American

Association of Museums (AAM), which offers a variety of services to museums such as publications, Codes of Ethics, professional standards, and accreditation procedures.

These standards are continually being reviewed and updated to reflect changing museum priorities and needs, most recently in the context of tribal museums that may not have the resources for meeting rigorous accreditation requirements.

Other resources for the museum profession are the Northeast Document

Conservation Center, the Northern States Conservation Center, the Canadian

Conservation Institute, Getty Museum, the Minnesota Historical Society, and

Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute. All of these institutions provide valuable advice and print materials for up-to-date conservation strategies and disaster response, and on contemporary pesticide mitigation strategies and experimental procedures.

Innovations in the museum profession are introduced in a variety of museum journals such as Curator, Museum Management and Curatorship, Museum News, Museum

Anthropology, and Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals. Two books geared for the lay audience are Caring for Your Family Treasures: Heritage

Preservation (Jane Long and Richard Long) and Saving Stuff: How to Care for and

Preserve Your Collectibles, Heirlooms, and Other Prized Possessions (Don Williams and

Louisa Jaggar).

Many collections are at risk due either to benign neglect, or to inadequate facilities and resources. Museums continue to add to their collections, without the resources or space for adequate storage and care, often under pressure from their governing boards, and apparently misunderstanding or ignoring their responsibilities for the public trust. For indigenous peoples whose material culture is held in museums for safe-keeping, this practice represents the height of hypocrisy. In those institutions under federal jurisdiction, minimum standards have been partially addressed by government- wide regulations for the curation and care of archeological collections as defined under

“Curation of Federally Owned and Administered Archaeological Collections” (36 CFR

79). These regulations establish procedures and guidelines to manage and preserve collections, and have been adopted by other institutions responsible for collections, particularly archaeological materials. However, although providing a template for responsible curation, these regulations contain no deadlines for compliance and no enforcement powers. Nor do they provide a process to identify or accredit repositories that meet the standards outlined.

Indigenous Perspectives

Indigenous perspectives on Western museums comprise a third area of research. Although the most visible direction of this conversation has been on the display and interpretation of indigenous cultures, there is emerging discussion of how objects are handled, stored, and cared for “behind the scenes.” The most thorough and in-depth discussion of these issues is presented in Miriam Clavir’s Preserving What is Valued:

Museums, Conservation, and First Nations and her other publications.

More recently, Liberating Culture: Cross Cultural Perspectives on Museums,

Curation and Heritage Preservation (Christina Kreps), effectively contextualizes the global movement towards a shifting museum paradigm. Native scholar Phil Cash Cash

(Cayuse/Nez Perce), recognizes the museum as contested arena:

At sites where cultures intersect, such as museums, the mobilization of meaning and ritual expression often loom larger than life when originating cultures assert claims of authenticity and authority over objects. More often than not, these indigenous claims are counter-hegemonic since they often arise out of lived cultural realities that exist outside the boundaries of the museum. As a result, the exclusive domains of property, representation, and control that constitute the common, everyday functions of the museum are directly challenged, thus calling into question traditional museum policies and practices. [Bray 2001:141]

In the United States, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) has led collaborative approaches as discussed in Merging Traditional Indigenous

Curation Methods with Modern Museum Standards of Care (Gillian A. Flynn and

Deborah Hull-Walski), and Integrating Native Views into Museum Procedures: Hope and

Practice at the National Museum of the American Indian (Nancy B. Rosoff). Yet, the

NMAI is itself a site of contestation and adaptation. In The National Museum of the

American Indian: Critical Conversations (Lonetree and Cobb 2008), a variety of perspectives are voiced. Acknowledging that the Smithsonian museums are institutions of the nation-state, serving its officially sanctioned versions of history and culture, Amanda

Cobb (2008:xxvii) asserts that Native Americans have “ingeniously turned what has historically been an instrument of colonization and dispossession…into an instrument of self-definition and cultural continuance.” For others, “the museum is always part of the larger social forces in the world. For red people, that space is highly problematic” (Smith

2008:133), and as Cobb (2008) recognizes, “Native Americans have a tortured

15 relationship with museums,” one in which they “care very deeply about the continued existence and appropriate care of these objects in spite of the often tragic ways in which they were acquired.”

Patricia Erikson (2008:49) notes “museums are also bureaucracies and cultural institutions that are embedded in a social order. Museums are themselves ‘social artifacts’…they also are “crucibles in which notions of citizenship, personal identity, community, and nationhood are negotiated and possibly forged” (2008:49). Arenas of self-definition and discussion extend beyond the exhibition halls into the realm of indigenous curation. According to museum professional Christine Kreps, “We may come to see how professional curatorial practices, regarded as ‘natural’ and ‘logical,’ are cultural constructs and products of our own museum culture” (Lamar 2008:156).

Native peoples have leveled abundant criticism at both museums and the encompassing fields of anthropology and the sciences. Of particular relevance to understanding these Native worldviews are Spirited Encounters: American Indians

Protest Museum Policies and Practices (Karen Cooper), Stewards of the Sacred

(Lawrence E. Sullivan and Alison Edwards, eds.), and Decolonizing Methodologies:

Research and Indigenous Peoples (Linda Tuhiwai Smith).

Alternately, Native American scholars reflect that integrating indigenous and

Western museum practices may not be insurmountable. With a shared commitment to cultural preservation, Native and non-Native approaches are not mutually exclusive. As noted by Amanda Cobb (2008:336), “Caring for cultural property is hardly a new idea for

Native people, and indeed, may exist at the center of many cultures. Consequently, adapting the old ways to museums is not the same as adapting the old ways to a new or

16 foreign idea. Instead it is about adapting new and foreign methods of collection, care, and preservation to a very old idea.”

Recognizing that culture is process, and that indigenous living cultures are dynamic and fluid, Paul Chaat Smith (2008:140) reminds us that notions of “tradition” and “authenticity” are themselves deadly and inaccurate concepts, where “Evidence seeks to upend one of the most enduring beliefs about Indian people: that we fear change, and are only really Indian as long as we don’t change, or don’t change very much. Evidence argues that we love change, have always changed, and that change is key to our survival.”

A body of literature from tribal museum perspectives lends itself to more in- depth discussions of Native agency in adapting Western museum practices to the Native

American museum experience. Although the objectives differ, Zuni (Isaac 2007) and

Makah (Erikson 2002) museums have incorporated both approaches in caring for their collections. Using an ethnography of the Makah Cultural and Research Center, Erikson

(2002:27-28) argues that “Native American museums/cultural centers are hybrid embodiments of Native and non-Native perspectives. As a synthesis of cultural forms, they reveal a process of collaboration between diverse peoples amid conditions of unequal empowerment. Native American museums/cultural center are both translators and translations, agents of social change and products of accommodation.”

Theoretical Models in Museology

A final category of literature addresses the theoretical frameworks and paradigms that may apply to emerging struggles in museology. The seminal work on the history of anthropological theory to the 1960s is Marvin Harris’ The Rise of

Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories on Culture; subsequent models are presented in Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory by Sherry

Ortner (1993). The postmodern self-critique of the 1980s is represented in Writing

Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (James Clifford and George E. Marcus, eds., 1986), and Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the

Human Sciences (George E. Marcus and Michael M.J. Fisher, 1986).

Post-modernist self-reflexivity and associated rejection of Western science acutely impacted research methodologies in the social sciences, and challenged implicit assumptions of heritage preservation. However, the application of postmodern theory to museum practice, while a facile seduction, is fraught with practical pitfalls and has been critiqued by Native and non-Native alike. “Postmodernism is a crumbled conceptual architecture, and we are tired of walking among someone else’s ruins” (Gomez-Pena

1992). The following examples of mediating contesting voices within a postmodern framework illustrates the challenges of applying theory to practice at two Smithsonian museums.

Faced with a myriad of value-laden perspectives and memories, the museums of the Smithsonian Institution must attempt to balance conflicting stories in construction of individual and national histories. At the National Museum of the American Indian

(NMAI), Kiowa people differed strongly on which stories should be told and how in the

“Our Peoples” Exhibition, which required extensive discussion and anything but smooth consensus building (Lassiter 2005). The difficulties of sorting, representing, and ultimately selecting among the various “truths” revolving around the end of the Second

World War, and in particular the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, became

18 politicized in a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum exhibition featuring the B-

29 bomber Enola Gay. The internal and external controversies, with international implications, were avoided and resolved by scaling back the exhibition to its bare bones

(Zolberg 1996).

Theoretical applications relating to the contemporary museum field are less well defined, but clearly articulated. Finding theoretical models for museums is problematic in part due to the shifting nature of museums themselves. Merriam-Webster

(2003) defines a museum as “an institution devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest or value,” a museum model contrasting with the

ICOM Statutes, adopted during the 21st General Conference in Vienna, Austria, in 2007:

“A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment” (ICOM 2007, emphasis added).

As museums rely less on an object-based epistemology, as the boundaries between museums and other institutions are blurred, the shape of the museum continues to shift: “The truth is, we do not know any more what a museum institution is” (Šola

1992:106). Form and content are becoming increasingly diversified, and the advent of

“virtual museums” offers museums without walls. Top down models of museum process that assume both the authority of the museum professional and the passive and unitary public ignore the messiness of decision making and the interpretive agency of museum audiences.

Museums are too distinctive and too malleable to fit neatly contemporary theoretical models: museums are like and unlike literary texts; museums are instruments of colonialism, and yet sites where dominant knowledge is turned on its head; museums are creative agency as well as contested terrain; museums negotiate a nexus between cultural production and consumption, and between expert and lay knowledge (Macdonald

1996). Within this dynamic framework, museums are a theoretical thoroughfare, offering a somewhat distorting mirror of the various anthropological and sociological perspectives that seek to classify and explain their internal multivocality.

In a theoretical re-envisioning of the “new museology,” Theorizing Museums

(Sharon Macdonald and Gordon Fyfe, eds.) suggests that museums must be approached from interrelated lenses—contextualized and contextualizing; contestable and contested; having content through both exhibition and within institutional form and practice.

Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Ivan Karp, Christine

Kreamer, and Steven Lavine, eds., 1992), and Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and

Politics of Museum Display (Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, eds., 1991) offer theoretical models particularly applicable to indigenous involvement with exhibitions and civic engagement. Karp and Lavine (1991:8) suggest that the “melting pot” of shared culture is being reevaluated, prompting debates about pluralism and future society that echo in museum precincts, and suggest the concept of museum as contested arena. “If the museum community continues to explore this multicultural and intercultural terrain consciously and deliberately, in spite of the snares that may await, it can play a role in reflecting and mediating the claims of various groups, and perhaps help construct a new idea of ourselves as a nation.”

Mary Louise Pratt (1992), drawing from sociologist Fernando Ortiz, frames a theory of contact zones, places of colonial encounter and indigenous agency. Both Pratt and Clifford define this process of negotiation as “autoethnography,” a concept applied to both participants in the “power-charged set of exchanges, of push and pull” (Erikson

2002:29). Inherent in any understanding of this discourse, are the twin concepts of

“subjugated knowledge” (Foucault 1974) and the “palimpsest” of recontextualized objects. Both concepts underscore unequal power relations established, reproduced, and now being disrupted in the contemporary museum experience. Again, the concept of the museum as ever reinscribed and reworked text is underscored:

Museum professionals increasingly recognize that museums’ historical ability to assemble these collections was made possible by their political and economic position in American society relative to indigenous peoples. Contemporary museum collections are inescapably palimpsests, entities whose surfaces have been inscribed repeatedly with meanings such as former native lifeways and values, mentalities of scientists and collectors, colonial and national practices of assimilation, and newer Native efforts at self representation. [Erikson 2002:146]

Framing the changing museum landscape as “contact zone” containing

“palimpsests” and social biographies, new forms of “autoethnography” and self- representation, and evidence of Foucault’s “subjugated knowledges,” Pratt provides an additional dimension of the “periphery” as both anthropological borderland and frontier within the museum itself. Tracing the development of the Makah Cultural and Research

Center, Patricia Erikson (2002:29) draws on discussions by James Clifford, Aldona

Jonaitis, and Gloria Cranmer Webster, observing that

The organizing structure of the museum-as-collection functions like Pratt’s frontier. A center and a periphery are assumed. The center a point of gathering, the periphery an area of discovery. Historically, national or mainstream museums have been the center, the terrain where non-Native paradigms have been institutionalized and

legitimated, leaving Native American cultures as the periphery or zone of discovery.

However, Pratt notes that this relationship and process is more nuanced:

Those who have been marginalized and discriminated against rarely remain passive bystanders. Instead, they select elements of the dominant culture and create self- made portraits to engage with, accommodate, and negotiate with the dominant culture…Although the people responsible for knowledge making (museum curators, for example) tend to understand themselves as representing and determining the periphery, they blind themselves to the way the so-called periphery constructs the center. [Erikson 2008:48]

Museums are therefore redefining and reinventing themselves in a social, political, and academic contexts that are shifting shapes; this crucible of change offers little guidance other than the goal of “civic engagement” and “collaboration.” My research traces changing museum practices within this sociopolitical landscape and discourse of social justice. The theoretical framework that informs my research design and methodology draws heavily from Clifford’s (1991) lens on museums as contact zones, by Pratt’s recognition of agency, periphery, and autoethnography, and by Ames’

(1992) and Kopytoff’s (1986) analysis of object as palimpsest with unique social biographies.

As articulated by Karp and Lavine (1991:1), this perspective defines museums as “socially and historically located; and as such, they inevitably bear the imprint of social relations beyond their walls and beyond the present.” However museums are never just spaces for the playing out of wider social relationships; a museum is a process as well as a structure, it is a creative agency as well as “contested terrain.” Acknowledging the scholarship, experience, and vision of those in the contemporary museum field, the

22 following thesis statement has been influenced by these musings of James Clifford

(1991), Mary Louise Pratt (1992), and Michael Ames (1992):

“Museums are contested arenas reflecting and engaging the larger sociopolitical landscape. Within this forum, the stakeholder communities collide, negotiate, and reinvent themselves in an ongoing process of cultural transformation.”

In Chapter III and Chapter IV, the development of mainstream and tribal museums provides a backdrop for the theoretical models that are now in a state of flux and change, as both internal and external pressures question what museums are and how they matter as global, national, and ethnic identities are being questioned and reformed.

CHAPTER III

DEVELOPMENT OF MAINSTREAM

MUSEUMS

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where-” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “-so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

~Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The strongest temptation of man is the temptation of inertia.

~ Albert Camus

The development of mainstream museums and their practices is perhaps best discussed from the perspectives of their institutional histories, of the professional field of conservation, and of the defining role of objects in museum activities. Tracing their evolution through millennia, museums both reflect and affect changing sociopolitical contexts and cultural protocols. Indeed “museums are the product of the society that supports them” (Conaty 2003:227).

Until recently, museums were defined by their collections, by the acquisitions, preservation, display, and interpretation of objects from the natural and cultural worlds

(although these were often intermingled by changing classificatory systems). Museums included those dedicated to natural history, art, anthropology, and science; they included

23 24 botanical gardens, zoos, art museums, and archaeological sites. Technological tools and recognition of intangible heritage have expanded both the role and definition of contemporary museums, expanding the museum experience into cyberspace, engaging all the senses, and incorporating innovations in education and learning.

Although early examples of museum collections can be traced back to ancient

Greece, contemporary museum philosophy and purpose was shaped in eighteenth-century

Europe. During the Age of Discovery, material culture from exotic new lands and peoples formed the princely collections that represented imperial dominance, and were valued as possessions rather than for display. These privately owned “cabinets of curiosities” later formed the permanent collections of such preeminent museums as the

British Museum and the Louvre. The exotic “other” excited the imaginations of European rulers and populace alike, and the quest for new riches revealed unknown worlds to a

Europe emerging from medieval politics and economies.

The development of the nation state, imperial initiatives, and colonial expansion were accompanied by profound social experimentation and unrest. The rise of secularism challenged entrenched monarchies and the Church; the development of

Western scientific methods found fertile ground in the natural history of new lands (and peoples); and these developments were abetted by a Victorian rage for classification and order. As observed by anthropologists Claude Levi-Strauss and Igor Kopytoff, this human tendency to impose order upon the environment, to sort out and make sense of the chaos of the unfamiliar and newly experienced, yields the cognitive and linguistic classifications necessary to know the world, framing observations in ways that are culturally unique.

Museums were willing handmaidens for these new paradigms, becoming increasingly democratized and available for public use. By the late nineteenth century, it was assumed that the world itself could be categorized and put under glass, a comforting view in the face of new realities. Conn notes that (1998:15) “as the world beyond the museum became to many Americans increasingly chaotic and incomprehensible, rationality and order could be maintained, at least within the museum.”

Collections grew exponentially, fueled by human curiosity and acquisitiveness, by scientific exploration, and by the assumption that cultures would either disappear or be assimilated. The “salvaged” material culture of indigenous peoples was folded into the rubric of “natural history,” displayed in that rarified context and disconnected from the communities in which it had meaning. Natural history provided the intellectual framework and justification for American expansion and for the establishment of museums, recognizing that the American frontier needed taming both physically and intellectually.

These vast collections became the foundation for continued research and the ordering of the natural world, a research opportunity available to scientist and non- academic alike. If science was predicated on the careful examination and study of objects, then the layman with access to collections could be trained to scientific research.

Museums democratized that access and knowledge and therefore fulfilled national aspirations. As new scientific disciplines formed and transformed themselves, museums fostered the resulting explosion in publicly available knowledge. The museum mandate encompassed public education of the natural world, and constructed a narrative where

God, Progress, and Darwin coexisted in harmony. According to early anthropologist

Franz Boas, “The museum, in the proverbial nutshell, is to serve the progress of science”

(Ames 1992:28).

Flourishing for a brief few decades, the populist involvement in museums as sources of knowledge was challenged and supplanted by academic institutions. By the

1920s, amateurs were removed from research, museum collections were no longer considered up-to-date anthropological knowledge, and the focus changed to experimentation in the biological sciences (Conn 1998). Universities began building their own teaching collections; museums competed with universities for intellectual control.

The stakes were high – universities were by definition exclusive and restricted access, museums claimed to be open and publicly inclusive. With a dwindling role and relevance, museums transformed themselves from sites for knowledge-making and the display of specimens, to the development of habitat halls and audience experience. As

Conn states (1998:71), “The natural history museums which had given an institutional home to a nascent American science would, one hundred years after the first museum opened, no longer be major contributors to the growth of scientific knowledge.”

Redefining its role in the public sphere, the contemporary museum functions as a civic temple both expressing and authenticating the official, if unexpressed, values of the dominant society (Ames 1992). In the past century, American museums have struggled with changing sociopolitical landscapes, most recently the civil rights movement, repatriation legislation, and increasing pressures from source communities for true partnership in decision-making. Museums must once again redefine and reinvent themselves within a contemporary context characterized by the self-critiques of postmodernist theory; increased competition from “mall” type venues, electronic media,

27 and other leisure pursuits; declining revenues, visitorship, and failure to attract minorities; and storage and conservation challenges of ever-expanding collections. This transformative process involves not only museum board and museum staff, but stakeholder communities who have a vested interest in display, interpretation, collections care, and ultimately ownership of cultural heritage.

As noted in the theoretical framework discussed earlier, there is renewed attention to exactly what path will lead museums into an era of renewed relevance. Much attention has been given to the museum as forum rather than temple, providing a venue for community dialogue. While it is unlikely that museums will completely eschew their position as cultural “seed banks,” there is potential to engage the twin concepts of temple and forum. Contemporary Canadian museologist Robert Janes (2009) concurs, urging museums to embrace their function as community organizations, grounded in an awareness of the larger global issues, and renouncing complacency and the status quo.

The reinvented museum belongs in this public sphere, active agents in advancing the collective good, and beyond the realms of education and entertainment. “Anything else foreshadows irrelevance, decline, and the possibility of collapse” (Janes 2009:185). Janes also observes (2009:83) that few museums have put those words into action:

Although much has been written, and much said, about the role of the museum as a forum, or the more fashionable museum as agora, little has been done to consciously nurture the visitor’s active participation apart from the passive consumption of museum services – exhibits, shops and restaurants. A dialogue centre is a tangible focus for visitor interaction, and could even be used to explore the future of museum exhibits from the visitor’s perspectives. This is an opportunity for the rhetoric about museums as ‘forums of public discussion and safe havens for dialogue’ to actually assume tangible expression. [Janes 2009:83]

Development of Curatorial Practices

Interwoven with the development of the museum as institution, whether serving the ruling class or the masses, was the role of caring for the collection itself. Prior to the eighteenth century, the focus of those holding cultural and artistic treasures was restoration to a condition and appearance defined either by contemporary standards or by the assumed intent of the creator. Repair could involve procedures that ultimately risked damaging the object, in some cases destroying works of art. The shift to conservation was defined by a respect for the integrity of the object and a systematic analytical approach to preserving it, and began as a response to changing conditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Large numbers of archaeological materials were entering collections for scientific purposes, and ethnographic objects were obtained with the belief that material culture had to be collected before indigenous cultures disappeared or were assimilated. Public museums recognized their responsibility for preservation of these physical objects, a mandate to preserve collections considered to be in the public trust. At the same time, the condition of these collections was being degraded by pollution from an increasingly industrialized Europe.

Enlightenment principles led to the influence of science in understanding the universe, and in providing the tools for human progress. This belief extended to the use of science, particularly chemistry, in determining the agents and processes of deterioration, and in developing methods to stabilize and reverse the damage affecting museum collections. The nature and condition of the materials precluded any attempt at restoration. In recent years, beginning during the post Second World War period, the

29 emphasis has been on preventative conservation, taking measures to protect collections from damaging environmental conditions.

The First World War provided yet another challenge to the field. To avoid destruction during aerial bombing, British collections were hidden underground, suffering damage from temperature and humidity. Following the war, the British government extensively funded scientific research considered to be in the national interest, including the preservation and restoration of antiquities in the British Museum.

In the United States, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard employed chemist Rutherford

John Gettens beginning in 1927. Scientific conservation as a field was recognized in 1930 by the International Museums Office of the League of Nations at an international conference in Rome. In Canada, conservation was recognized and supported by the establishment of the Canadian Conservation Institute in 1972, by laboratories at Parks

Canada, and by the conservation segment of federally funded Museums Assistance

Program (Clavir 2002). In the United States, the American Institute for Conservation of

Historic and Artistic Works serves in a similar capacity.

The methods and goals of conservation were folded into mainstream “best museum practices” as furthering the accepted mandate of preservation. Conservation practices furthered an assumed moral authority of museums for the preservation of material culture as a public trust; collections were viewed as part of the larger “human heritage,” which legitimized both their acquisition and preservation for future generations. As Clavir states:

Many of the objects become cultural icons, symbolizing values and providing tangible evidence of them. The museum, as an institution, becomes a signifier as well as a creator of cultural meanings. Museums, therefore, have vested interest in

preserving their collections, and preservation is a primary mandate of most museum policies. At the same time, the cultural value of collections can be the product of a circular and self-fulfilling path in museums. [Clavir 2002:27]

As described in this historical context, the object is central both to museums as institutions and to the field of conservation. This object-based epistemology has become the focus of discussion, redefinition, and debate in both anthropological and museum disciplines. During the height of collecting, objects were seen as keys to knowledge, albeit mute texts requiring interpretation. The intellectual architecture used to build nineteenth century museums assumed that objects could “speak” however mutely to the untrained observer, that objects like texts were themselves sources of knowledge and meaning (Conn 1998).

Museums therefore attempted to use objects as words in a visual sentence, much as linguist Jacobsen saw the process of constructing meaning in language. The museum visitor moved horizontally from case to case, viewing objects deliberately selected from museum storage to further social and national agendas. These displays furthered the social theory of the time. As noted by Conn (1998), almost without exception, these visual sentences represented the meta-narrative of evolutionary progress, underscoring and legitimizing a positivist, progressive, and hierarchical view of the world based on nineteenth-century scientific paradigms.

This communicative process is neither simple nor straightforward. The stories objects tell are at best social constructs reflecting meanings invented by the observer.

Troubling questions arise as to the absence of context, and disregard for the intent of the object’s creator. Indeed, the object holds many meanings, palimpsests of former social contexts and lives (Ames 1992; Bourdieu 1984; Kopytoff 1986). The object moves

31 through time and space, with different roles and uses, both in the museum setting, and often within the community itself.

Concepts of time itself appear malleable in the museum environment. Exhibits traditionally focus on the freezing of the ethnographic present into static displays, conservation acting on the object so it may appear forever young, avoiding deterioration or physical change. This ambivalence is revealed as the museum views time as external to the object, with best museum practices operating as bulwarks against the inevitable ravages of time, and at the same time places objects within historical and contemporary contexts. In J.D. Salinger’s novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” a young Holden Caulfield expresses this irony while visiting the Museum of Natural History:

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. [Salinger 1945:121]

The deeply held, if unconscious, assumptions developed over the history of the museum discipline are now being questioned, both from within the profession itself, and by the communities requesting a new museum experience. Such beliefs and values include the importance of heritage objects and their preservation, the encoded information contained in these objects (both tangible and intangible), museum roles as keepers of a “public trust,” indigenous history and culture as national/global shared heritage, the superiority of Western perspectives and science, the “right to know” and academic freedom, definitions of authenticity, and concepts of property ownership itself

(Clavir 2002). Who owns this past – the “stuff” that is part and parcel of ongoing cultural life? Who has the authority to define “stewardship” of this cultural patrimony?

Museums must themselves be active agents in meaningful transformation. To succumb to inertia, to take a path of least resistance, would be to abdicate the museum’s role in civic society itself. As noted by late Canadian museologist Duncan Cameron

(Janes 2009:33), museums may be in desperate need of psychotherapy to resolve their problems of role definition, but the answers will not be found in the continued self- reflective critiques of postmodernism. Reformed principles of ethical curatorship will be not be found in postmodern concepts that decry objective evaluation of competing points of view, however biased by race, gender, and culture. What is needed is both the recognition of these biases and a renewed commitment to critical thinking and preservation values. A postmodern culture of no resistance within a museum setting risks the collections and the communities museums serve. Effective and ethical stewardship demands such resistance.

Issues of care, ownership, and stewardship are being played out on a national and international scale. The difficulties faced are apparent in the stated unwillingness of well-known museums to consider more than token change or to address the challenges outside museum walls. This state of denial has fueled an inertia few museums can overcome (Janes 2009:87), and is peculiar to the complex nature of the curatorial process.

The elitist stance of these institutions is evident in their opposition to repatriation on the grounds of universal heritage, as Janes states:

Signed by such luminaries as the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum and the British Museum, the Universal Museum Declaration refuses to consider repatriation claims on the grounds that ‘universal museums,’ with their encyclopaedic collections, are

best positioned to act on behalf of the world. By claiming to know what is in the world’s best interest, the prestigious signatories have violated a cardinal tenet of anthropology, which is to avoid deciding what is in other people’s best interests. [Janes 2009:85]

Mounting pressure to recognize the importance of indigenous heritage, the role of that heritage in community identity and health, and the goal of preserving cultural diversity for the good of all humankind, has found its voice in other global action supporting changing museum paradigms. Advocating for the “Indian behind the artifact” and the participation of contemporary peoples in their sustained and dynamic cultures, international organizations are promoting self-determination in museum practices. The

ICOMOS New Zealand Charter promotes indigenous decision making as it acknowledges the complexities inherent in local decision-making, and recognizes that culture is an adaptive process rather than static product, as noted below:

The indigenous heritage of Maori and Moriori…is inseparable from identity and well-being and has particular cultural meanings. The Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of our nation and is the basis for indigenous guardianship. It recognizes the indigenous people as exercising responsibility for their treasures, monuments and sacred places. This interest extends beyond current legal ownership wherever such heritage exists. Particular knowledge of heritage values is entrusted to chosen guardians. The conservation of places of indigenous cultural heritage value is therefore conditional on decisions made in the indigenous community, and should proceed only in this context. Indigenous conservation precepts are fluid and take account of the continuity of life and the needs of the present as well as the responsibilities of guardianship and association with those who have gone before. In particular, protocols of access, authority and ritual are handled at a local level. General principles of ethics and social respect affirm that such protocols should be observed. [ICOMOS 1993, sec.2]

Contemporary Museums in a Complex World

Today’s museums are struggling to survive in a complex, indeed, troubled world. A cacophony of different voices demand that museums prove their worth, while

34 they stand on increasingly shaky financial ground. Although staff who work in the trenches and have direct contact with visitors and constituent communities may recognize that the times are changing, entrenched boards may be out-of-touch and are often less forward-looking and willing to take risks. By definition, many boards are comprised of the “old guard” with moneyed connections, community ties that go back generations, personal agendas, and little training in museum governance or professional practices.

Change comes hardest for those who look back with nostalgia and cling to familiar and established ways of operating.

For those museums relying on volunteer staff, economic realities have shrunk the available human resources; at the same time paid staff are experiencing cuts to their hours and benefits, and the elimination of positions. Collections are often the least visible victims of diminishing support and attention, hidden from public view and often ignored by governing boards. Meanwhile, dwindling public support in the face of municipal budget crises has increased competition for the remaining available grants and for any associated non-federal matching contributions. Grant-funded projects now require

“outcome based evaluations” that focus on quantitative rather than qualitative results, giving rising to a business model of increasing the bottom line and visitor numbers; grants are also frequently designed to fund projects rather than sustainable operations or programs, and are therefore a temporary fix at best. To stay afloat, the museum is increasingly commoditized and marketed, while attempting to retain its commitment to heritage preservation and public education.

The good news is that the professional museum community is keeping its head above these troubled waters, directly addressing these challenges and providing the

35 opportunity for open discussion of where to go from here. This conversation inevitably includes the inclusion of Native voices, and the introspection needed to remake museum identities and vision. Museum conferences increasingly include a tribal component, and the Canadian Conservation Institute 2007 Symposium Preserving Aboriginal Heritage:

Technical and Traditional Approaches was designed with and geared to indigenous peoples and their museums. Graduate programs in museum studies are offered at several

North American universities, providing hands-on experience in collections management, training in museum management and governance, and the opportunity for student internships in working museums. The National Museum of the American Indian also offers a variety of internships and fellowships, with scholarships available for Native

American students. As museums begin to listen to their audiences, communities are welcomed into the conversations, and different programs and ideas are tried out and evaluated. The quest for renewed relevance requires that museums are willing to put their ideas to the test, to be willing to fail, pick themselves up, and try again. The old adage that “anything worth doing is worth doing wrong” makes sense in finding new directions on the museum map. The next chapter discusses some of these new directions taken by tribal museums and cultural centers.

CHAPTER IV

THE RISE OF TRIBAL MUSEUMS

The Spirit of Dancing, referred to as “Klassila,” had been imprisoned in Ottawa for many years and was now being released to the Kwaguilth people. The Power of the Spirit was symbolically thrown ship to shore, where it was “caught” and set the catcher dancing. He in turn hurled the spirit across the beach and through the museum doors. The spirit has entered the ceremonial house (museum). (Assu 1989:127-128)

Do you see these feast dishes? When we were children they used to be stored under our house, and when the river flooded we would paddle around in time as if they were canoes. (Ames 1992:57) ~Kwakiutl describing several large wolf feast dishes on display

The first tribal museum was established as early as 1828 by Cherokee Indians; the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, was built as a joint Works Progress

Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps project and opened in 1938. The majority of Native American museums, however, more often self-identified as cultural centers, were founded during and following the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Today, there are well over 200 tribal museums in the United States alone, as well as significant numbers of other indigenous or First Nations museums throughout the

Americas (Jacknis 2008:31).

The size and scope of these institutions ranges from small display areas in tribal administration offices to stand-alone buildings with state-of-the-art design and systems; museum staff have varying degrees of professional training and experience.

With few exceptions, these community-based museums face challenges of funding and

36 37 sustainable operations, a situation exacerbated by the remote locations of the Indian communities they serve and represent. At the same time, the level of community support and engagement remains strong, with tribal museums and cultural centers serving as a potent reminder of cultural survival, identity, and revitalization.

Several factors converged in the past half-century to enable the emergence of tribal museums and cultural centers. As noted earlier, the civil rights movement of the

1960s fostered an awareness of social inequities, and the demand for social and economic justice. These demands found expression in both legal and legislative response, most notably in national support for heritage preservation and ultimately repatriation. Like the

Antiquities Act of 1906, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 originated out of a concern over looting of archaeological sites on public lands, and requires a federal or tribal government permit for the removal or excavation of archaeological resources on public lands. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in

1978, and was created to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians, including access to sacred sites, freedom to worship through ceremonial and traditional rights, and use and possession of objects considered sacred. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 is far reaching preservation legislation intended to preserve historical and archaeological sites in the United States, which resulted in the National Register of Historic Places, the list of National Historic Landmarks, and the State Historic Preservation Offices, and requires Federal agencies to evaluate the impact of all federally funded or permitted projects on historic properties. Finally, the Native American Graves Protection and

Repatriation Act of 1990 requires federal agencies and institutions that receive federal

38 funding to return Native American human remains and funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to federally recognized tribes. It also provides grant funding for these activities. NAGPRA also regulates excavation and inadvertent discoveries on federal and tribal lands.

Federal legislation also overturned termination laws designed to “assimilate”

Native peoples into mainstream American values, allowing if not supporting the arduous process of reinstating federal recognition and status to tribes. In 1970, President Richard

Nixon issued a landmark statement calling for a new federal policy of “self- determination” for Indian nations, followed by legislative initiatives such as the Indian

Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 (Getches et al.1998:226-228).

In California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Supreme Court upheld tribal gaming rights on trust lands, spurring economic development and associated political power for tribes with few other options for sustained growth. With growth in the social, political, and economic spheres and the status of federal recognition as sovereign governments, tribes have become increasingly politically astute and able, working in many areas to bring funding, technical support, and a broad spectrum of services back home to their communities and constituencies.

Tribes have not been immune from the economic meltdown of the past decade. While gambling continues to be part of Indian life, the modern gaming industry is a double edged sword that has overshadowed diversified economic development and has brought a host of problems to Indian country. Although gaming spurred the building of state-of-the-art museums, the continued operations of those venues are at risk. As gaming revenues fall, the often over-leveraged debt that financed this growth is coming

39 due, and tribes are either refinancing at higher interest rates, or defaulting on loans and bonds. The tribal chair of the Mashantucket Pequot Museum in Connecticut announced that he would rather keep remaining casino profits and tribal member incentive payments than pay off outstanding debt, a decision that sent shock waves through the financial community and resulted in Standard and Poor’s lowering the tribe’s credit rating to D, the lowest possible (Indian Country Today 2010). At the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and

Research Center staff are being laid off and budgets cut, with more reliance on non- gaming revenue for sustained operations (Indian Country Today 2010).

Community-based and regional museums also gained momentum in the larger sphere, reflecting international efforts to preserve cultural as well as biological diversity.

The impact of globalization on cultural survival is foregrounded in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), the International Council on Monuments and

Sites (ICOMOS) (2002) ethical commitment statement for members, and the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) International

Conventions for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage (2003) and the Protection and

Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). Specific reference is made to indigenous heritage in Article Four of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural

Diversity (2001):

The defense of cultural diversity is an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for human dignity. It implies a commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the rights of persons belonging to minorities and to those of indigenous peoples.

UNESCO’s World Culture Report (1998) acknowledges indigenous agency in this cultural survival and reinvention. “… indigenous people also want the freedom to

40 maintain and recreate culture, and to adapt cultural and social forms to the new conditions of intensified interaction with the surrounding world” (UNESCO 2002).

Museums thus function as seed banks for this cultural diversity. Archaeologist

Charles Stanish (Janes 2009:180) notes that small “site museums” provide the positive tools “by which indigenous peoples and their descendants have resisted many of the negative cultural effects of globalization.” In rural Brazil, “virtual museums,” those without walls or objects, are being used as “tools for self-expression, self-recognition, and representation; as spaces of power negotiation among social forces, and as strategies for empowering people so that they are more able to decide their own destiny” (Horta

1997:107-108). Anthropologist Patricia Erikson (2008:47) views the Native American museum movement as reflecting the “much wider, even global trend of ‘democratizing’ or decolonizing museums.”

Tribal museums have been built within these changing national and international frameworks, and are proactive responses to the postmodern ennui and inertia afflicting the social sciences, and in particular the field of anthropology. Their development reflects more than a simple postcolonial context, recognizing tribal agency in interpretation of its own heritage. While postcolonial critiques illuminate the changes resulting from deconstruction of colonial perspectives and values, they voice only part of the story – ignoring tribal self-representation within both colonial and postcolonial contexts (Isaac 2007:13).

Rejection of positivist traditions and distrust of Western science does not preclude indigenous reworking and reuse of Western methods. Maori educator Linda

Tuhiwai Smith notes that decolonization does not result in a total rejection of all theory

41 or research or Western knowledge, but rather is “about centering our concerns and world views and then coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives for our own purposes” (Smith 1999:39). It is about removing the Native or

“exotic Other” from the colonial “gaze,” which objectifies and thereby dehumanizes in order to justify an outside research agenda. By reclaiming these research tools, tribal museums can set their own agendas. Maori academic Kathie Irwin notes, “We don’t need anyone else developing the tools which will help us to come to terms with who we are.

We can and will do this work. Real power lies with those who design the tools – it always has. This power is ours” (Smith 1999:38).

Thus, tribal museums may partially operate on the terms of the dominant majority culture and its mainstream museum models (Clifford 1991:215). More accurately, tribal museums use both Western museum practices and indigenous stewardship in developing new collections management protocols and procedures, underscoring the pragmatism and dynamism of contemporary Native cultures. Indeed, in many instances, stewardship of material culture builds on indigenous practices developed over millennia. Native people have always cared for their cultural property, and this stewardship may exist at the center of many cultural worldviews. As a result, adapting indigenous practices to collections care in museums is not a foreign concept; rather contemporary indigenous care involves adapting new ideas and tools to a very old idea

(Cobb 2008:336).

These indigenous spaces reflect core values, incorporate knowledge systems and languages, and promote the preservation of living cultures. They serve the varied needs within and among hundreds of diverse Indian nations – undertaking historic and

42 cultural preservation projects, educating tribal youth, restoring dignity to tribal elders, or providing community outreach to the larger public. Tribal cultural centers also represent a growing desire for Native interpretation, use, and control of their material culture. The collections that had flowed from Native hands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are now coming back home, if only partially; with their original context and condition altered, tribes need new venues for their stewardship and care, however short or long term. Folklorist Richard Kurin recognizes the role of material culture and its stewardship in contemporary Native life:

If culture is to be conserved, it must live. It cannot be frozen in time and preserved by museums, anthropologists, folklorists, or historians. For a culture to live, its bearers must be empowered to practice that culture, to revise, transform and adapt it to new and changing circumstances – to find new meanings for old practices and old meanings for new practices. [Kurin 1991:342]

Tribal museums must also address and sort out the varied perceptions, and often misconceptions, that essentialize Indian people and culture. On the one hand, there are self-described cultural systems of cognitive classification, of views of human morality, of gender and identity, of ownership, of space and time that markedly differ from Western ways. Often these ways of being become apparent in Native languages: For example, the Maori word for time or space is the same (Smith 1999:50), although this may be a linguistic oversimplification suggesting more in-depth analysis.

At the same time, the notion of the “authentic” Indian or “traditional” culture is a deadly concept, one that serves to trap Native peoples in a static past that, in fact, never existed. The danger of such romanticized imaginings, whether outdated notions of the primitive “Noble Savage,” a contemporary reconfigured “Noble Ecological Indian,” or the inherently “spiritual” Native, is an assumed identity that both simplifies and

43 distorts culture. Such Western assertions, unwittingly internalized, are criticized even by

Native scholar Vine Deloria (1997:213), who laments that “as self-righteous piety has swept Indian country, and it threatens to pollute the remaining pockets of traditionalism and produce a mawkish unreal sentimentalism that commissions everyone to be

‘spiritual’ whether they understand it or not.”

Native views that define what it means to be “Indian” vary between and within communities, as Native peoples struggle to regain cultural identities fractured by assimilation and removal. In the Northcoast region of California, the cultures most impacted by Western invasion tend to romanticize pre-contact lifeways as without disease, violence, or discord; cultures that retained more of their cultural lineage work to regain their tools for resolving inherent social ills. Thus, the downriver coastal groups talk of their 90 percent spiritual (but unspoken) native language, while upriver people mock the “mystical/magical” New Age simplification of contemporary Indian life. Both groups must still confront the realities of substance abuse, violence, and poverty within their communities.

These notions of authenticity and the traditional both ignore and discourage the dynamic nature of culture, failing to see culture as process not product. Indigenous and Western cultures are fluid, recreating themselves within the internal push and pull of diverse, complex, and often contradictory forces. Static and pristine cultures are a fiction as best, a holdover from the glass boxes of early Western museum classificatory systems to order the natural world. Smith (2008:133) notes that, “Evidence seeks to upend one of the most enduring beliefs about Indian people: that we fear change, and are only really

Indian as long as we don’t change, or don’t change very much. Evidence argues that we love change, have always changed, and that change is key to our survival.”

Such issues are best left to Native peoples to sort out. Tribal museums and cultural centers are well suited for this community dialogue, occupying a position outside the postcolonial yet insidious gaze from outside. Given the overwhelming depictions of the “essentialized” Indian, the tribal museum offers a forum for the cultural reconnection vital to community identity and well-being, as well as the emergence and maintenance of new cultural forms. This dynamic process of creative invention and reinvention, of borrowing, adoption, and adaptation, is vital within a context of development and globalization: the question is not whether a cultural practice should change or be used differently, but who holds the power to implement and manage that change (Kleymeyere

1994:325).

The museum thus functions for cultural conservation of a higher order, following the argument that there is a direct connection between cultural control, heritage, health, and social well-being (Galla 1997:142-143). As noted by anthropologist

David Maybury-Lewis (1994:xiv),

People…cling to their cultures…because it is through them that they make sense of themselves. We know that when people are forced to give up their culture, or when they give it up too rapidly, the consequences are normally social breakdown accompanied by personal disorientation and despair. The attachment of people to their culture corresponds then, to a fundamental human need.

The larger museum community is struggling both with its own self-identity, and with coming to terms with the role of these ethnically and community-based institutions. Tribal museums are viewed as “marginalized” from the larger heritage preservation community, although the communities represented may not see the problem

45 with this position. Canadian museum professional Michael Ames sees parallel institutions among underrepresented communities as short-term responses to the need for increased representation and more significant change in mainstream museums. Ames notes that

(1992:13), “both separate and integrated institutions are needed if the cultural apartheid or ‘ghettoization’ of minority interests is to be avoided.”

Indian people have had a tortured and often ambivalent relationship with mainstream museums, an ambivalence that extends to the role and motivations of those educated in universities. From an indigenous perspective, museums were instruments of colonization, of cultural genocide, and of the appropriation of material culture for the nationalist agenda. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “indigenous people were “sources” to be collected – objects, bodies, languages, and ethnographic information—for consumption by museums that sought to reframe Indigenous history, culture, and lifeways into their own Western knowledge systems” (Lonetree and Cobb

2008: xviii). This appropriation of Native history and lifeways was then repackaged as consumer product, manifested as contemporary cultural pornography, as illustrated by

Spokane/Coeur d’Alene author Sherman Alexie:

Evolution

Buffalo Bill opens a pawn shop on the reservation right across the border from the liquor store and he stays open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

and the Indians come running in with jewelry television sets, a VCR, a full-length beaded buckskin outfit it took Inez Muse 12 years to finish. Buffalo Bill takes everything the Indians have to offer, keeps it all catalogued and filed in a storage room. The Indians pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for the last, they pawn

their skeletons, falling endlessly from the skin and when the last Indian has pawned everything but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks

closes up the pawn shop, paints a new sign over the old calls his venture THE MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES charges the Indians five bucks a head to enter. [1992:48]

By the 1870s, most tribes had been removed to small reservations, their homelands taken by the federal government. Thereafter, the pattern shifted from real estate to personalty and continued until most Native cultural property, including Native bodies, had been transferred to Euroamerican hands and institutions.

This transfer was accomplished by a variety of methods; from trade to trickery to theft. In some cases, Native peoples placed their cultural treasures in museums for safe-keeping; in other instances, their relinquishment represented a loss of cultural lineage. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Native peoples were concerned both with physical survival and the continuance of their communities and ways of life. Significant cultural patrimony was traded or sold for food, medical care, and clothing; in other cases Native people gave their wealth to museums to protect from fire or theft (Ackley 2009:265).

Demand for Indian curios pulled Native artists into a market economy promoted by a new breed of entrepreneurs, and provided much-needed income to Indians removed from their traditional subsistence and lands. The cultural genocide unleashed by national thirst for land and gold was exacerbated by policies of assimilation, Indian boarding schools, and Native participation in two world wars. In the resulting interruption of culture, Native ceremony and culture appeared gone and unrecoverable, and remaining family treasures were often sold for pennies to collectors and tourists.

Collections were utilized to support science in the guise of eugenics, and exhibitions furthered such socially constructed paradigms as cultural evolution.

Misrepresentations of Indian cultures furthered “official” versions of an historical imperative to subjugate Native narratives and knowledges (Foucault 1974). Amy

Lonetree and Amanda Cobb note that the Smithsonian occupies a similar position:

As an institution of the nation-state, the Smithsonian serves a powerful nationalistic function. By offering officially sanctioned narratives of history and culture, Smithsonian museums shape the cultural memory of U.S. citizens as well as the perceptions of the United States held by international audiences. These narratives, without question, act in and promote the best interests of the nation-state. [Lonetree and Cobb 2008: xxvi]

For Native and non-Native alike, museums represent the static and ancient past – one imprisoned in glass boxes or reconstructed in natural history dioramas. The narrative is one of death, as “graveyards focused on the detritus of the dead” (Isaac

2007:102), as “cemeteries” which killed ideas (Conn 1998:21), as dead circuses (Weil

1995).

Warnings were sounded early in the development of the museum field. John

Cotton Dana cautioned that a finished museum is a “corpse” (Weil 2002:192); in 1889,

Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian George Brown Goode predicted that a museum failing to make living thoughts rather than inanimate things its central concern might in the end be little more than “a cemetery of bric-a-brac” (Weil 2002:111). According to

Zuni staff Vernon Quam, the word museum is daunting to many people who imagine a place “where it is dead – there is nothing but objects in a quiet room” (Isaac 2007:97).

For a people whose cultural memories and lifeways have suffered sanctioned disruptions over three centuries, these problematic spaces also offer a valuable repository

48 to reconnect and recover indigenous ways of being. In the 1990s, Yup’ik elders traveled to the Museum für Völkerkunde in Germany to visit the collection and study the field notes of Norwegian Johan Adrian Jacobsen’s 1883 expedition to Alaska. Their goal was described as “visual repatriation,” to re-own the knowledge and experiences embodied in the objects, “to explain our culture to our young people and to our children. We will be able to tell them things with no reservations…with this work, our roots and culture will come closer to us” (Fienup-Riordan 2003:29). Rather than resentment at what had been taken and lost to them, the elders expressed thanks both to the collectors who saved the objects from certain destruction, and the museum that carefully preserved the objects for future research. Peers and Brown note the ambivalence that museums elicit among Native

American communities:

Particularly for indigenous peoples, for whom the effects of colonization have produced rapid and wrenching change, museum artifacts represent material heritage and incorporate the lives and knowledge of ancestors. They are also crucial bridges to the future. For people whose way of life has changed dramatically but whose identity rests on historical cultural knowledge, artifacts offer the possibility of recovering a broad range of cultural knowledge for use in the present and future. [Peers and Brown 2003:5]

Heritage: Tangible and Intangible

Although there are no pan-Indian ways of caring for collections, the importance of “intangible” heritage characterizes indigenous approaches to material culture. Within the museum context, indigenous intangible heritage takes two forms – that which recognizes and honors the living spirit of objects, and that which highlights the contexts in which these objects perform vital roles. In this way, indigenous stewardship distinguishes itself from mainstream museum collections care.

Western museums and other academics recognize the disparity between the meanings objects fulfilled in their originating communities and in the other social lives or biographies they have occupied. As Vogel (1991:192) reflects: “We are aware that the meanings we give to the objects visiting in our homes and museums are not those that inspired their creators.” Accordingly, those meanings are dependent on distinctive cultural perspectives. As noted by French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu (1984:2-3), “A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, this is, the code, into which it is encoded.”

Such meanings go beyond the Western view of mere symbolism, and facile descriptions of ethnographic “works of art.” To their indigenous creators, such descriptors as “symbolic” or “artistic” are inadequate as best. Thus, James Baldwin observes a “curious dichotomy in the West about form and content. The form is the content” (Vogel 1991:194). Similarly, a West African delegate noted that a stolen ceremonial carving was located in an American art museum where “it had been reduced to nothing more than a work of art” (Weil 2002:170). Within the context of the indigenous world, this “material” culture is imbued with life, a Native perspective that differs from Western cognitive categories. This worldview relies on notions of reciprocity, and of human responsibility for life in all its forms.

The Northern California Yurok describe baskets, ceremonial regalia, and so- called “wealth” items as “respected relatives,” and Yurok museum professional Dale Ann

Sherman observes (personal communication, March 14, 2004) that there is no word in the

Yurok language for “goodbye.” Native peoples in the Klamath River region of Northern

California explain that regalia “cry” to be danced in ceremony, to be put into use, and to

50 be part of the daily life of the community (Daniels 2009:289). Caring for objects with ancient cultural practices and perceptions serves both to reunite them to contemporary culture and to give them life and integrity. As Alutiiq anthropologist Sven Haakenson notes, “To Alutiiq people, the world is alive. It is a place where all objects are sentient— aware of and sensitive to human action…In this world, carelessness, waste, and poor repair are signs of disrespect. They unsettle the natural balance and can poison a person’s luck” (Haakenson and Steffan 2004:155). The following story illustrates this sentient nature of objects in the Navajo world and the stewardship required:

An old Navajo walked into the trading post and headed over to the display case where the silver and turquoise jewelry was kept locked up. Speaking only Navajo, he motioned for the Anglo salesclerk to come over and put on a particularly exquisite and expensive turquoise necklace. She demurred, fearful of what her boss might say. But the man was adamant and, by now, was creating a scene. She did as he asked, to his immense satisfaction. Continuing his shopping, he would check on her now and then to make sure she was still wearing it. When the old man’s son eventually arrived to fetch him, the puzzled clerk asked why this was such an issue for his dad. “The necklace has been in the showcase maybe four months now,” he carefully replied. “Before that, it was in the pawn vault. Maybe over a year. My father’s been watching it. Each time he comes in, it looks worse and worse. He’s afraid it isn’t going to make it.” [Martin 1999:25-26]

Objects also perform an invaluable role in the cultural heritage of Native

American communities. Collections that were “salvaged” from cultures predicted to vanish, are used in the revitalization of modern Indian lifeways and identity. The focus is on preservation of culture – language, ceremony, traditional foods, hunting, fishing, gathering, land and water rights, basketweaving, self governance, and so forth.

Collections are valued as more than remnants of the past – they are “coming home” to be danced again for present and future generations; they are being allowed to complete their own life cycle by returning to the earth; they are being used to create contemporary

51 pieces. Reconnection to such intangible heritage is referenced in this text from Ziibiwing

Center for Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways:

Blood memory is an inherent connection we have to our spirituality, ancestors, and all of Creation. Blood memory can be described as the emotions we feel when we hear the drum or our language for the first time. The Creator gives these emotions to us at birth. We use these emotions or blood memories to understand our heritage and our connection to our ancestors. Blood memory makes these connections for us. Today, many Anishinabek use their blood memory to relearn our language. Our beautiful and descriptive language is deeply rooted in the land and our connections to it. As more and more Anishinabek recall their blood memory, our language and our spirituality will be spoken for the next Seven Generations. [Lonetree 2009:331]

These expressions of Native perspectives—of intangible heritage, of non-

Western cognitive categories, of ongoing cultural survival and adaptation—do not preclude very different manifestations of tribal museums and cultural centers. As tools for cultural renewal, tribal museums are reimagining and reconfiguring both Western museum models and indigenous practices and protocols to serve contemporary priorities.

For example, tribal collections management policies may limit access according to training, family lineage, ritual authority. Handling may be regulated by gender, age, menstrual cycle, or pregnancy. Offerings or feeding, ritual cleansing and burning of sacred herbs, and specific protocols for storage often distinguish indigenous collections care. The categories used for ordering and describing objects may conform to indigenous rather than Western cognitive and linguistic distinctions (Erickson 2002).

Tribal museums struggle with issues common in the contemporary discipline: preservation versus use, interventive physical conservation versus cultural meaning, “the paradox between a use that eventually destroys an object and conservation that bleeds the life from it” (Greenberg 2004:45). Yet, as noted by James Clifford (1991), the local histories, politics, cultural traditions, and Native community represented in tribal

52 museums are themselves differently interpreted and often contested. This diversity of goals, variety of formats, and negotiation of internal procedures is recounted in the development of Zuni and Makah tribal museums in this chapter, as well as the experience of the National Museum of the American Indian in Chapter VI.

Voices of a Thousand People: The Makah Cultural and Research Center

In her discussion of the Makah Cultural and Research Center (MCRC) in

Neah Bay, Washington, Patricia Erickson (2002) employs frameworks informed by a number of social theorists. Drawing from Foucault (1974), Makah ways of knowing become in Western eyes “subjugated knowledge – a set of knowledge that has been disqualified … one shown to be mere superstition or primitive thinking” (2002:15).

Western museums have legitimized particular versions of knowledge, often based on

Western science, and have categorized others as “myth” or “folklore.”

The “biography of things” or history of an object’s social life, described by

Igor Kopytoff (1986), has been employed by museum anthropologists to understand the process of recontextualizing objects throughout stages of creation, collection, exhibition, and viewing. Drawing on this concept and utilizing Michael Ames’ (1992) view of objects as “palimpsests” or writing tablets used repeatedly, Erikson (2002:26) proposes a larger perspective: “Objects or works of art are like palimpsests: layers of meaning are superimposed upon objects, each layer failing to completely obliterate the previous one.

Similarly, layers of meaning are laid down upon the museum itself. Despite this layering process, some meanings, or interpretations are given greater credence than other.”

Erikson describes the MCRC as an “autoethnography” or self-made cultural portrait, described by Mary Louise Pratt (1992). This is but one shape of active indigenous action by engaging, negotiating, and counteracting the paradigms and official knowledges of the dominant culture. Thus, the museum-as-collection operates as

“frontier,” a space of contact and negotiation that assumes a center and periphery, “the center a point of gathering, the periphery an area of discovery” (Clifford 1997:192-193).

Historically, mainstream museums have occupied the center, the sanctioned site where non-Native paradigms have been institutionalized and legitimated, leaving Native

American cultures as the periphery or zone of discovery (Erikson 2002; Cranmer Webster

1991; Jonaitis 1991).

Arguing that Makah antoethnography is rooted in colonial resistance rather than stemming from the activism of the 1960s, Erikson sees tribal museums as a potential arena for counteracting social inequalities and stimulating social change. In the process,

Native American communities are adopting and reforming mainstream museum models to fit their own needs and priorities. For the Makah, this has reflected both “the heart and soul of a people at once connected to tradition yet thoroughly engaged with the modern world” (Erikson 2002:145) and the “voices of a thousand people.”

Mainstream methods are also adapted to preserve the living and contemporary

Makah culture. The MCRC has implemented industry standard archival collections management while honoring traditional cultural standards and indigenous cognitive categories, but is valued as a living building (“grandparent”) to teach future generations of Makah people. Erikson (2002:171) states that “the museum project became not only a place for storing and caring for the private and personal property of ancestors but a

54 facility serving a living, thriving, growing culture through language preservation, oral history research and preservation, and educational programming.”

Makah conceptual categories are used for organizing and classifying the collection and also for stimulating worldviews reflected in Makah language. Standard scientific archaeological collections management systems are adopted, but also adapted to preserve living culture as well as artifacts. In addition to Makah conceptual categories, collections management respects traditional ownership values (by house/extended family), and gender restrictions. As Erikson notes, “This adaptation of the museum—akin to a shift from an object-orientation to a people-orientation—is indigenization of the mainstream museum model” (Erikson 2002:184).

“Welcome to this house, all of you who have traveled near and far. Welcome to our beach; we tie up your canoe” (Erikson 2002:18). These words of welcome illustrate the two-fold mission of the MCRC: striving to maintain its relevance to its tribal constituency as well as reaching out to the larger community interested in learning about

Makah heritage, culture, and people. Using the metaphors of the traditional longhouse and canoe, the MCRC welcomes visitors (numbering from 15,000 to 22,000 annually), while providing a space for the Makah people to represent and perform their cultural identity. The building itself is modeled on a traditional longhouse, housing the remarkable collection of artifacts from the pre-Contact village of Ozette (excavated in partnership with Makah people), providing an outlet for contemporary work from Makah artisans, and hosting a variety of cultural programs (Figure 1).

The MCRC is the contemporary shape of an ancient building, with its meaning extending beyond architectural form into functional uses for dwelling, food

FIGURE 1. Interior of Makah Cultural and Research Center, Neah Bay, Washington.

Source: Makah Cultural and Research Center. n.d. Photo: Interior of Makah Cultural and Research Center Gallery. Neah Bay, Washington: Makah Cultural and Research Center. Image courtesy Makah Cultural and Research Center. Any alteration of the image other than routine cropping must be approved in advance. Printed with permission.

processing and storage, workshop, recreation center, temple, theatre, and fortress. Today, the “longhouse” has been revisioned to accommodate contemporary uses and needs, but the core cultural values continue to be represented, and the MCRC serves the Makah people on their own terms, reflecting a commitment to engaging contemporary ideas as well as old ways.

Mediating Knowledges: Origins of a Zuni Tribal Museum

By comparison, Gwyneira Isaac (2007) describes another tribal reformation of the mainstream museum model – the Zuni A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, located on the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, approximately 150 miles west of

Albuquerque. Established by a small group of Zuni tribal members in 1992, the A:shiwi

A:wan Museum and Heritage Center is a private federally registered not-for-profit

501c(3) organization dedicated to serving the community with programs and exhibits that help reflect on Zuni past and are relevant to current and future interests.

As in Erikson, Isaac employs several theoretical perspectives in her analysis of the Zuni experience, and develops a framework for mediating knowledges through an examination of methodologies based on the political, social, ideological interactions between different cultures. In developing this approach, she draws from Clifford’s contact zones, where museums operate as contested sites of both “past histories of dominance” and “power-charged set of exchanges” (1997:192-193), and Richard White’s

“middle ground…as the place in between cultures, people, and in between empires and the non-state world of villages” (1991:15). Recognizing this indigenous presence in both the colonial experience and contemporary relationships, and the often academically unrecognized and uninterrogated diversity within as well as among Native communities,

Isaac describes a process of Zuni mediation within complex sets of relationships and myriad voices. Isaac argues that the act of mediation regularly occurs in many, if not all, societies, and that the term “mediator” has various culturally determined meanings. The mediating process itself may not be free from political, cultural, and economic biases; the

57 mediator may also be biased or less than neutral in the process. However, what is important is the negotiation and reconciliation of differences, even if the outcome benefits one set of values.

The tension between knowledge systems – the indigenous “subjugated knowledges” and dominant Western science-based epistemologies – is but one example of such mediation. Utilizing Nancy Mithlo’s term “the third space,” Isaac predicts the resolution of “existing and oversimplified dichotomy between scientific and indigenous knowledge” (Isaac 2007:168), a mediation of differences with precedents in culture resource management, repatriation, and the discourse of anthropology. Disparities and different perspectives also emerge from the generation gap between young and old, and within the museum staff itself. Indigenous perspectives facilitate the use of mediation through the Zuni perception “that the art of conversation or oration requires people to be fair and balanced in their views. An emphasis is placed on understanding the alternative perspectives that oppose one’s own viewpoint and at the same time on not taking an absolute stand on any issue to the detriment of reaching a consensus” (Isaace 2007:133).

In this fashion, the Zuni have embraced mediation as a process adapted to contemporary issues, but deeply rooted in indigenous ways.

Isaac also draws on the “ecomusuem” concept pioneered by French museum professional George-Henri Rivière, which advocates a holistic approach supporting living cultures and the ongoing practice of tradition as well as an object-centered interpretive focus. The ecomuseum is a “museum without walls,” a political vehicle representing community and rural concerns, and promoting self-exploration. According to Rivière, the ecomuseum “is a mirror in which the local population views itself to discover its own

58 image, in which it seeks an explanation of the territory to which it is attached…It is a mirror that the local population hold up to its visitors so that it may be better understood and so that its industry, customs and identity may command respect” (Rivière 1985:182).

Within the community, the ecomuseum offers a neutral ground, a forum where the community can come together to understand its roots, to look at what is coming in from the outside world, and to redefine those unfamiliar elements in culturally appropriate terms (Isaac 2007:116).

The Zuni A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center has experienced several transformations since early inception in the 1970s, (re)forming as different indigenous goals have been defined. Isaac chronicles that journey from the lens, as always, of mediated knowledges. The museum itself was envisioned and funded with a certain set of criteria partly imposed from the outside. In fact, no one in the Pueblo of

Zuni embraced the initial existence or purpose of a tribal museum, perhaps seeing institutionalized knowledge as antithetical to oral traditions and the linking of generations through that transmission.

As economic development in a disadvantaged region, the National Park

Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs encouraged the museum as a tourist destination, with an object-centered focus. The founding mission of the museum was therefore as a visitor center, using interpretive displays to educate both Zuni and non-Indian people on the importance of site protection. The focus shifted to indigenous priorities when the museum committee agreed that “… the role of the museum as a Visitor Center should always be secondary to the role of the museum as an educational institution for the Zuni people” (Isaac 2007:90), and privileged Zuni values by including careful negotiation with

59 religious leaders and the tribal community. The independence of the museum extended to the Zuni community itself by insisting that the museum remain independent of the Zuni

Tribal Council “to be part of the community, and that all the community could feel that it was their museum, rather than it being the ruling group or the tribal council’s museum,” as quoted from former director Nigel Holman (Isaac 94-95:2007).

Zuni unease with an object-centered museum, based on indigenous experiences with mainstream museum collections of “past” or “extinct” cultures, was subsequently reinforced by the fiscal realities of building and operating a large storage facility. Faced with the start-up and ongoing costs of curation and storage, there was general agreement that the museum should minimize its collection; other museums with

Zuni collections should be encouraged to continue to care for and maintain those collections. This extraordinary decision also reflected the difficulties presented by the politics of ownership within the tribe itself, particularly of objects from sacred sites. By engaging the Zuni community, however, the museum consciously strove to honor the protocols and decisions of cultural and religious leaders. For the objects remaining in

Zuni museum collections, this resulted in differential access policies “that distinguished between initiated and uninitiated members of the religious societies” (Isaac 2007:108).

Zuni knowledge is concerned with appropriate use and meaning over content of oral tradition. This responsibility is not to be underestimated or taken lightly. In the early 1990s, the Zuni Catalog Project embarked on a comprehensive compilation of Zuni objects and materials housed at the Smithsonian Institution, including duplicating the vast collection of photographs housed at the National Anthropological Archives. After viewing a selection of the photos, Zuni religious leaders became concerned that the

60 images contained esoteric and sacred material that should not be viewed by the uninitiated. The sensitive photos were subsequently deaccessioned from the Zuni A:shiwi

A:wan Museum and Heritage Center collection and transferred to the Zuni Heritage and

Historic Preservation Office with restricted access that followed internal mechanisms for the control of knowledge, but did not conform to national standards of equal access. In reconciling different approaches to archival photographs, the museum and religious leaders developed a compromise between modern museological principles and practices, and traditional religious protocols. In so doing, the museum became an extension of indigenous collections management based on living cultural traditions and the community’s wishes. With this objective, the museum could mitigate external influences, and support Zuni identity and exclusivity. As argued by Zuni museum board members, the museum could help “reaffirm that it is okay to be who we are” (Isaac 2007:111).

Two Examples, One Perspective

The different manifestations of the Makah and Zuni tribal museums illustrate the diversity within the Native community, and the function of these museums to serve the unique needs and objectives of their dynamic cultures. Both are in some respect palimpsests, having evolved in a framework of Native discourse, each bearing the imprint of earlier discussions and stories. Both also reflect the “contested arena” of developing museum protocols that work for the community represented, a community of many voices and tensions. Both museums also have appropriated and reused mainstream museum practices in some fashion to preserve what they value. This process of

61 reworking, of hybridizing the old ways with new technologies is ongoing in both the Zuni and Makah tribal museum experience.

Tribal museums engage and use best museum practices in their own unique ways, illustrating that there are no “pan-Indian” traditions of caring for either cultural materials or the remains of their ancestors. In fact, the concept of “pan-Indian” agendas is itself a political tool rather than a shared identity, and was built on the recognition that

“the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Even those alliances are tenuous, as expressed by the deep resentment of some local Native Americans of the American Indian Movement’s appropriation and occupation of Alacatraz Island in San Francisco Bay by Great Plains tribes.

Tribal museums/cultural centers do not claim to represent the larger spectrum of many diverse Indian nations, but rather are modeling hybrid museum practices to serve their own individual goals and cultural protocols. Museums representing this cultural diversity, such as the National Museum of the American Indian and the Canadian

Museum of Civilization, attempt to incorporate different cultural approaches within their evolving collections care practices. One example is the repair and refurbishing of an early twentieth century Hamatsa mask at NMAI; Kawkwaka’wakw artist Kevin Cranmer replaced the damaged cedar bark in a gesture of respect before the mask could be danced in ceremony or displayed in museum or tribal contexts. Such restoration challenged accepted museum standards of stabilization and preservation, but the mask is no less authentic after repair by a respected Kawkwaka’wakw cultural practitioner.

Developments in mainstream and tribal museums can also be discussed within a variety of theoretical frameworks, as shown in the following chapter on shifting

62 paradigms within anthropology, the social sciences, and the related field of museology.

Although collections care and management has been somewhat insulated from the critiques centering on museum interpretation and education, indigenous and other minority groups have more recently focused attention on their material culture and its stewardship within the museum. Chapter V presents the theoretical models that have influenced collections management. In a changing and troubled world, museum paradigms are being utilized, adapted, or discarded in a process of redefinition and renewed relevance.

CHAPTER V

MUSEOLOGICAL THEORY AND

SHIFTING PARADIGMS

The Willow Lake Dene are not pristine hunters frozen in time – they are individuals and families who are playing out their lives in the midst of profound cultural and environmental change. They are no different than many other cultural minorities throughout the world, many of whom are the begetters of the world’s most highly-prized museum collections. The question of how these diverse cultural groupings are faring is not commonly discussed in the museum world – a conspicuous irony when you consider that the role that indigenous peoples and their patrimony have played in the genesis of museums. [Janes 2009:48]

Postmodernism is a crumbled conceptual architecture, and we are tired of walking among someone else’s ruins (Gomez-Pena 1992:71).

It is perhaps all too evident that museums, as the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, embody the pressures and dramas being played out in the larger political, economic, and social landscapes. Futhermore, the forces impacting museums are on a global rather than localized scale, as museums themselves become international in scope and audience.

Modern museums have fallen from grace, in some respects, as they no longer occupy the position of unchallenged expertise they once assumed, having been exposed as complicit in the reproduction of the dominant social order (Bourdieu 1984), or as examples of the essentialism of class, and are under pressure to rethink assumptions of scientific objectivity and premises that mandate heritage preservation itself. Well-known

63 64 museums have also been revealed as willing actors in the illicit trade of looted and stolen antiquities, destroying institutional and professional reputations. Actual implementation of best museum practices is also under scrutiny as inadequate storage and housekeeping within a variety of museum settings puts collections at risk—many museums have simply not practiced what they have preached.

Some of the resulting paradigm shifts are expressions of internal critiques in anthropology and other social sciences, others stem from increasing pressures from under and misrepresented minority communities for more than token partnerships in museum decision-making. These voices are empowered and legitimized by such human rights legislation as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and International

Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and American Association of Museums

(AAM) ethical standards.

Dwindling financial support has also taken a toll on museum operations, while other entertainment venues are bleeding visitorship from museums with limited budgets.

Museums have responded with various solutions—belt-tightening that reduces staffing and hours of operations, a reliance on the museum as “mall” or “theatre,” renting museum space for weddings and holiday events, showcasing expensive blockbuster shows, and an overriding concern with outcome-based evaluations to secure grant funding. With diminished public support, a business model based on increased consumption has supplanted the academic focus museums traditionally embraced. In some cases, this obsession with the bottom line, and the performance objectives needed

65 to achieve profitability, have effectively compromised the larger visioning of museums, both mainstream and tribal. As museum executive Tom Freudenheim observes,

the money worm has burrowed into museum foundations in the last five decades, weakening structures already challenged by power politics, relevancy issues, and contemporary anxieties…the idea of a museum…as a money-making machine is frighteningly pervasive. (as cited in Janes 2009:105)

Struggling to redefine themselves in this context of conflicting pressures and realities, museums can be viewed from a variety of theoretical perspectives and shifting museological paradigms. Their somewhat contradictory, complex, and ambivalent position provides illustration and expression of “key cultural loci” (Macdonald and Fyfe

1996) of the contemporary global landscape, loci defined by questions of official versus popular culture, of contestation versus creative agency, of museums as literary “texts” versus expressive symbols of community, and of a cohesive legitimized nationhood versus discordant cultural diversity. As Sharon Macdonald observes,

Museums are a fertile theoretical field precisely because they can be tackled from a range of theoretical perspectives which cross many of the established divisions of the disciplines (e.g., production and consumption, knowledge and practice, sacred and secular). They are like a kind of theoretical thoroughfare: a place where unexpected meetings and alignments may take place. [Macdonald and Fyfe 1996:6]

Postmodern critiques have fueled calls for recognition of museum subjectivity and inherent biases. Indigenous communities and other museum constituents are demanding reexamination of core assumptions, of the power dynamic embedded in the relationship between dominant culture and marginalized communities, and inclusion of indigenous perspectives, voices, staff, and decision-making in museum operations. These communities also reject the old methodologies based on positivist and structuralist models in favor of research grounded in contemporary issues. Described by educator

Patti Lather (Smith 1999) as “postpositivism,” this approach privileges the museum as an active participant in issues of social and economic justice, and parallels the activism of applied anthropology and of civic engagement. Maori activist Linda Tuhiwai Smith disputes the validity and relevance of the positivist tradition to understand or to effect meaningful change in human society, noting that in the 1960s and 1970s,

. . . the questions asked by critical theory were also being asked by people on the ground. These people were indigenous activists rather than Marxists, but were asking similar sorts of questions about the connection between power and research. Such questions were based on a sense of outrage and injustice about the failure of education, democracy and research to deliver social change for people who were oppressed. These questions related to the relationship between knowledge and power, between research and emancipation, and between lived reality and imposed ideals about the Other. [Smith 1999:165]

However well intentioned their long-held missions and mandates, museums must grapple with the accompanying complexities of this new, more inclusive framework. Native voices are themselves diverse and contradictory, both among and within their communities. Despite agreement that cultural objects should be treated with respect and care, “not all cultures view their sacred, ceremonial, or culturally sensitive material in the same way” (Flynn and Hull-Walski 2001:31).

Who has the authority to speak for and represent a community of divergent views? Museum theorist Ivan Karp recognizes the potential for disagreements, but also the creation of new publics that result from the inevitable political contests over who has the right to speak to whom in museum/tribal dialogue (Karp et al. 1992:14). How does a publicly funded museum negotiate calls for limited access and restricted knowledge- sharing in an institution whose legal mandates preclude discrimination based on gender or religion? How do cultural values of freedom of expression and freedom of information

67 work with tribal protocols that privilege some individuals over others? How does the museum negotiate demands from one community that will oppress another? Who has the authority and right to speak for a community? How does the museum mediate among competing but equally valid claims? How does a museum act responsibly and ethically to these moral dilemmas (Karp et al. 1992:10)?

The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), whose mission and structure endeavors to incorporate Native protocols and priorities within the model of a national museum, acknowledges that “restrictions on access to certain objects…presents a difficult dilemma for our museum. Because it is a public institution receiving federal funding, it is precluded from discriminating or supporting any particular religious point of view” (Flynn and Hull-Walski 2001:35). These issues go beyond public support and funding of legally troubling practices; they reflect the clash of core cultural values held as sacrosanct by both indigenous people and the American public.

Similar concerns revolve around gender restrictions—in a number of tribal communities, women are seen as too powerful or too unclean to touch certain objects in museums, particularly during their moon time. However, tribal community members—in particular Native American women—disagree among themselves and offer a variety of opinions on gender and “traditionalist” struggles, on cultural authority and practice. As gender itself becomes fuzzy (what is one to do with LGBT and intersexed museum staff?), clear implementation of tribal protocols becomes messy, and privacy and civil rights issues come to the forefront in personnel policies.

Implementation of new protocols is therefore profoundly contestatory and also reveals the inadequacies of a postmodern paradigm that discredits objectivity and critical

68 thinking as inherently biased and flawed, removing the intellectual base for decision- making. Although definitions are elastic and debated among postmodernists themselves, the theory is often described as a philosophical orientation that denies the possibility of acquiring “true” knowledge about the world, since all knowledge is personally constructed and must be deconstructed. Metanarratives of science, freedom, truth, and development are only heroic myths that legitimize the existing social order. In anthropology, postmodernism has influenced understanding of reflexivity and critiques of

Western hegemony; the American tradition focused in particular on problems of anthropological texts (inspired by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin), and reflexivity in fieldwork (as formulated by anthropologist Paul Rabinow). American postmodernism is also associated with the cultural relativism of Franz Boas and the interpretive approach championed by Clifford Geertz, who was somewhat ambivalent about postmodernism. Geertz divided it into two movements that emerged in the 1980s— into the inward looking (and brooding) literary matters of authorship, genre, style, narrative, metaphor, representation, discourse, and fiction; and into the outward looking

(and recriminatory) political matters of socially constructed anthropological authority, its inscribed modes of power, ideological assumptions, and complicity with colonialism, racism, exploitation, and exoticism, and Western master narratives.

Postmodernism espouses a systematic skepticism of grounded theoretical perspectives. Applied to anthropology, this skepticism has shifted focus from the observation of a particular society to the observation of the (anthropological) observer.

Post-modern attacks on ethnography are based on the belief that there is no true objectivity, and that ethnography can only be conducted from the inside out. Radical

69 postmodern theorists propose that the very notion of culture should be discarded (a position that assumes that the “Others” to be dissolved in fact want to deny their separate cultural identities). The authentic implementation of the scientific method is impossible

(although critics claim that postmodern dismissals of science are ignorant of the scientific method and based on fallacious logic).

One risk of adopting a postmodernist stance is succumbing to the inertia of post-colonial guilt and abandoning, rather than reevaluating and reworking one’s own perspectives and knowledges. Recognizing biases and worldviews born of personal, family, and cultural experience does not require tossing the baby with the bathwater. That these biases exist is no doubt true, but claiming that all reflective thought and subjective analysis is inherently bad or flawed is itself an untenable moral stance. Postmodernism has been described as process and product of the anti-intellectualism and anti-empiricism that permeates much of the Western world, and has fueled uncertainty in museums

(Harrison 1993:162). However, for better or worse, the beliefs informed by our senses, observation, and honest reflection are the only tools we have to make sense of the world around us. “All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality” (Pascal 1941:116).

Postmodern models offer little in the way of viable alternative moral bases to

Western hegemony, and assume that Western culture continues to oppress and subjugate, cannot change, and must subvert anthropological research and thought. Insistence on grand and unifying metanarratives also ignores the realities of Western societies as internally complicated, multithreaded, and multivocal (Zimmerman 2010:35). As noted

70 by anthropologist Charles Lindholm (1997:755), postmodern goals fail to offer substantive content or direction, rejecting authority and setting one adrift in an ocean of self-indulgence and conceit. In its worst applications, postmodernism has led to

“epistemological hypochondria” (Geertz 1988:71) and to a journalistic bent shunning both theory and data in favor of self-congratulatory literary rhetoric.

Admitting our mistakes and failures is not the solution, but rather the base from which to move on, and to make museums matter in new ways. The inclusion of multiple voices and perspectives presumes that museums themselves are active participants in the process, that Western worldviews have validity, and that to defer to one view only risks a sanitized and purely celebratory vision (autoethnography).

The existence of biases informed by gender, ethnicity, culture, religion and so forth is not questioned, “but the danger in adopting a postmodern perspective in the museum world is the risk of eroding or rejecting values and critical thought in the name of relativism. Postmodernism has been called the culture of no resistance, and the intelligent stewardship of collections and communities demands resistance” (Janes

2009:33).

Museums are therefore cautioned to share rather than relinquish their power and authority. Borrowing Isaac’s (2007) conceptual framework, the process is more accurately one of “mediating knowledges” and thereby allowing flexibility and change, but without abdicating one’s particular values, viewpoint, or subjectivity. Cultural identities and histories collide, resist, reform, and are reconstructed in a process of hybrid cultural formation (Karp 1992:23; Urry 1996:55). It is precisely this process of dynamic adaptation that insures cultural survival, relevance, and authenticity.

Museum critic Stephen Weil articulated these challenges to the museum status quo early in the 1980s. Noting parallel crises of money, power, and identity, Weil recognized that voices of outside groups asking for a place in designing museum activities, predicted a shift from an object-centered to a people-centered orientation, and privileged public service and educational programming over academic research.

Suggesting that museum professionals have “simply assumed the existence of a body of theoretical knowledge that is not really there” (Weil 1988:33), he was instrumental in defining a new museology driven by the local community, a museum without walls centered on social subjects. The new museum was to be devoted to ideas, viewpoint, and insight rather than objects (Weil 1990:56). As counterpoint to this community focus was another type of new museology, one conforming to a business model that took the public service mandate to the extreme. This trajectory promoted a Disney-type venue, submerging the scientist in the showman, mixing education and entertainment, commodifying the museum experience, and evaluating relevance narrowly on financial performance and visitor numbers.

The theoretical framework that best describes the myriad and powerful forces challenging contemporary museums is one that highlights the public sphere or civil society in which museums are seeking to redefine their relevance. The process of civic engagement requires the redefining of roles – both of the museums and of the communities whose cultural materials they control. The resulting conversations and nascent partnerships illustrate the museum as contested arena for the development of hybrid museum models, or at a minimum the inclusion of contestatory voices in interpretation, education, collections management, and indigenous representation. This is

72 the meeting place of contested knowledges, of center and periphery, of Western science and Native ways of knowing. In this fashion, and with these profound changes as background, collections management is reworking protocols and procedures in ways that will redefine the mandates and mission of heritage preservation itself. Once again, artifacts acquire new social meanings, their social biographies extended, and another layer of writing added as palimpsest. Yet, the objects are more than “sites of intersecting histories,” palimpsests, or the embodiment of intangible native heritage; as both sources of shared knowledge and catalysts for dialogue and new relationships, artifacts become contact zones within and between tribal and museum communities (Peers and Brown

2003:5).

In researching these changing approaches to collections management I have utilized the theoretical perspective of the museum as contact zone. As summarized by

Erikson (2002), this conceptual framework effectively engages a number of other research models (autoethnography, subjugated knowledges, center/periphery, and object/museum as palimpsest). How this dynamic plays out in the different contexts of tribal cultural center and mainstream museum, particularly in the realm of collections management, is the focus of this study. In adopting a Euro-American institution, how have tribal communities reworked or “indigenized” the museum to serve their needs?

How are mainstream museums “reimagining colleagues” (Watanabe 1995:41) to create new policies and procedures? Specifically, how has a tribal cultural center incorporated industry standards into culturally respectful collections management; how has a university anthropological museum tried to adapt to the new museology and changing

73 paradigms? How do these two approaches come to define heritage preservation, stewardship, and cultural conservation?

The following chapters explore changing museological practices within this theoretical lens of museum as contact zone. I have selected two Northern California museums for case studies: the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology

(PAHMA) in Berkeley and the Karuk People’s Center in Happy Camp. Although this topic lends itself to trajectories of governance, funding, capacity building, and staffing, I narrowed and focused my inquiry on collections management. Data was collected at both museums using a standard voluntary survey, personal interviews, and archival records.

The Internal Review Board at California State University Chico conducted human subjects approval. This methodology yielded both quantitative and qualitative data, which are provided in the appendices. Requests for confidentiality and anonymity are respected throughout the following chapters.

Research at PAHMA was conducted in Spring 2008, as a student intern under the direction of Victoria Bradshaw, Head of Collections and Facilities. During this period, I was also working as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Wiyot

Tribe, a position that included managing NAGPRA claims, the Wiyot Heritage Center, cultural activities, and community outreach and education. In Fall 2009, I accepted the position of People’s Center Coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, managing grants funds for

NAGPRA documentation/consultation and cultural activities, directing the museum gallery and associated gift shop, and initiating a Tribal Historic Preservation Office. My proposal to research the Karuk People’s Center as a case study for this thesis was reviewed and approved by the People’s Center Advisory Committee and the Karuk Tribal

Council. Drafts were reviewed for comment and revision before submitting to my graduate committee; the Tribe has requested and will receive bound copies of the completed work for its use and archives. The Phoebe Hearst Museum will also be offered a bound copy of the final thesis.

Chapter VI provides a more in-depth discussion of the methodology used to provide the data for two museum case studies, including the development of the questions, modes of survey distribution, target audiences, quantitative and qualitative aspects of the research, and comparisons of the logistical approaches and details. The following chapters describe and evaluate the survey responses for the Phoebe Hearst

Museum of Anthropology and the Karuk People’s Center.

CHAPTER VI

METHODOLOGY

The methodology chosen to collect data for the two case studies was a comprehensive survey of collections care practices in a variety of museum settings, with a particular focus on the development of collections care protocols at the Phoebe Hearst

Museum of Anthropology and the Karuk Tribe People’s Center. The survey was designed to elicit both qualitative and quantitative data, allowing comparison of specific protocols while providing an opportunity for more in-depth reflection on differing approaches to stewardship of objects. In the following discussion, the questions for the surveys are detailed to provide an overview of the scope and complexity of the surveys themselves, as well as a context in which the response rates achieved can be better evaluated.

Summaries of survey responses are presented in the appendices.

Survey for the Phoebe Hearst Museum

The initial survey was developed for the Phoebe Hearst Museum as a tool to inform the museum’s traditional care policies and practices. At the time, the museum had no written policies, but was interested in gathering information on tribal protocols for collections care that might be applied to its collection. Much of the museum’s information had been collected during NAGPRA consultation visits; documented and implemented on a case-by-case basis. A widely distributed survey could better inform the

75 76 incorporation of Native American perspectives and protocols into standard museum practices, and demonstrate the museum’s proactive commitment to engaging indigenous communities in its museum operations. These effects could mend fractured relationships within the highly politicized and contested context of repatriation. The issues are both complex and contested, and require more in depth analysis. California State Senate G.O.

Hearing: “A Review of UC Berkeley’s Reorganization of the Native American Graves

Protection and Repatriation Act Compliance Unit in the Phoebe Hearst Museum of

Anthropology” was held February 26, 2008; the tribal NAGPRA coalition postings can be accessed at http://nagpra-ucb.blogspot.com/. The proposed reorganization has been implemented, and includes the addition of a Native American liaison; however it is unclear if there is a mechanism for “outcome based evaluation” of that program.

The survey was developed over five months. One week per month was spent on site at the museum, consulting with staff and developing both survey questions and mailing lists; other work was completed off-site and provided for review electronically.

Three target populations in the United States and Canada were identified – mainstream museums with Native American / First Nation collections, tribal museums and cultural centers, and federally recognized tribes with collections held at the Phoebe Hearst

Museum. Some survey questions were tailored to specific respondents; other questions were identical for all three populations. In all cases, informed consent mandated voluntary participation, request for anonymity, and strict access and use guidelines for research. Although there are a number collections from non-federally recognized tribes represented at the Hearst, and some discussion of CAL NAGPRA regulations, the issues

77 of competing claims and contending tribal groups are difficult to resolve, and therefore those groups were not included in the survey audience.

Museum staff carefully reviewed and revised the questions – both for tone and content. Particular attention was given to insuring “positive” language in questions, i.e.,

“describe one success story,” which left less opportunity to critique failed relationships or to provide yet another venue for venting frustrations. Given a particularly highly charged climate for surveying tribal stakeholders, such an approach was entirely credible; however the tight framing of questions could be interpreted as controlling the discussion and thereby discouraging tribal participation. Sample surveys were sent to randomly selected museums for review, and were also provided at the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center conference in March 2008, but without response or suggestions.

Staff also discussed at length how to format and distribute the survey.

Although I suggested providing a written survey with return self addressed stamped envelope, staff was concerned with expenses for office supplies and postage. With no defined budget for the project, Survey Monkey© was selected as a cost effective digital option, and required developing mailing lists based on email addresses. Although this format provided tools for easy tabulation and analysis, digital surveys are easily overlooked, ignored, or misdirected, potentially decreasing response rates. Not all tribal staff are computer literate or comfortable with digital formats on sensitive topics.

The survey was sent in fall 2008, followed by a second request for participation. The direct personal contact that may have encouraged responses would have required considerable staff time and resources; other PAHMA projects had taken precedence by that time, and I was no longer “in the loop” to offer my assistance. Of the

250 surveys mailed to tribal and mainstream museums, less than 10 percent responded, with less than six percent agreeing to participate. The disappointingly low response apparently discouraged any further action or final report; staff has not requested compiled and summarized data or any research findings.

The following survey questions, and the format in which they were delivered, reflect the objectives and interests of PAHMA itself, while providing data from mainstream and tribal museums, and from the tribal stakeholders in PAHMA collections.

The questions are detailed and comprehensive, and address issues outside collections management. The scope of the survey therefore provided data beyond the focus of my research into differing approaches to care and handling; those questions were included at the request of PAHMA staff.

 Questions for All Respondents

Informed consent (agreement to participate in this research, decision to request or decline anonymity) and organizational information (name, address, phone number, self identification as tribal or mainstream museum, or federally recognized tribe), and consent for future contact.

 Questions for Mainstream Museums

1. How would you define your museum? (Public, academic affiliated, non-

profit, other)

2. How would you describe the mission of your museum? (Research, public

education, archives, other)

3. Does your staff have training in standard collections management

practices?

4. What types of training has your staff received? (Culturally sensitive care and handling, graduate degree in museum studies, certificate in museum studies, workshops, classes, other)

5. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? (Less than 1,000, 1,000 to 10,000, more than 10,000)

6. Does your collection contain (human remains, funerary items, sacred objects, objects of cultural patrimony, culturally unidentifiable items)

7. How many tribes have you consulted with about collections handling protocols? (None, 1-5, 6-20, 21-50, more than 50)

8. Which tribes have you consulted on collections handling protocols?

9. Did the discussion on object handling protocols occur during one or more of the following situations? (Meeting specifically planned to discuss object handling, NAGPRA visit, exhibit development meeting, loan proposal meeting, research visit, phone conversation, email, other)

10. Which issues and suggested protocols have these tribes brought to your attention? (Display and interpretation, repair, handling, offerings, storage, access, intellectual property rights, loans, contamination from pesticides, intertribal relations, other)

11. What types of collections have tribes addressed and requested protocols?

(Sacred items, ceremonial items, gender specific objects, funerary items, human remains, photographic collection, audio recordings, archival documents, other)

12. What commonalities and differences have you found in requests from tribes?

13. How has your museum accommodated these requests?

14. What are the biggest challenges to implementing these changes?

15. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? If yes, would you be wiling to share this policy for purposes of this survey?

16. Do you have written policies and procedures for loans to tribes? If yes, would you be willing to share this information for purposes of this survey?

17. What has been the most effective means of communicating with tribal representatives?

18. Could you share one success story involving Native American consultation?

19. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?

20. Please feel free to add any other comments that can help PAHMA in this process

 Questions for Tribal Museums and/or Cultural Centers

1. How would you describe the mission of your museum? (Cultural revitalization and research, preservation of cultural treasures/resources, public education and tourism, tribal archives)

2. Does your museum have a formal mission statement?

3. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? If yes, would you be willing to share this policy for purposes of this survey?

4. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? (Less than 1,000, 1,000 to 10,000, more than 10,000)

5. How have you obtained items in your collection? (Gifts, loans, purchases, archaeological excavation, repatriation from mainstream museums, other)

6. Where did archaeological materials in your possession originate?

(Amateur collectors, professional CRM firm, museum sponsored excavation, federal, state, or local agency, academic research, indigenous archaeology, data recovery/mitigation from development, data recovery/mitigation due to soil contamination, other)

7. How has your organization cared for these materials? (Curated in permanent collection, curated in visible storage, returned to tribal members, stored off site, available for education and research, reburied, other)

8. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices?

9. What type of training has your staff received? (Culturally sensitive care and handling, graduate degree in museum studies, certificate in museum studies, workshops, classes, other)

10. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? If yes, please explain.

11. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?

12. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? (Basketry, leather, pottery, bone and shell, feathers)

13. Do you have specific protocols for the following (handling, storage, display, use, etc.)? Please describe. (Sacred items, ceremonial items, gender specific

82 objects, funerary items, human remains, photographic collection, audio recordings, archival documents, other)

14. Does your tribe control access to cultural materials by (age, gender, pregnancy, moon time, spiritual training, family lineage, other)

15. Have any items been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?

16. Has your tribe consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of tribal materials in their collections? If yes, which museums have you consulted with?

17. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? (Display and interpretation, repair, handling, offerings, storage, access, intellectual property rights, loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research, toxic contamination, intertribal relations, other)

18. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? (Sacred items, ceremonial items, gender specific objects, funerary items, human remains, photographic collection, audio recordings, archival documents, other)

19. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)

20. Has your tribe or museum received loans from mainstream museums? If so, how would you describe the process and experience?

21. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums?

22. Could you share one success story involving your tribe’s consultation with these museums?

23. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?

24. In what ways can mainstream museums support your tribe or museum?

25. Please feel free to add any other comments that can assist PAHMA in developing and implementing culturally sensitive object handling and storage, loan and exhibit policies.

 Questions for Tribes

1. Does your tribe hold and care for cultural materials?

2. If so, who is directly responsible for this care?

3. How would you describe the repository for this collection?

4. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? If yes, would you be willing to share this policy for purposes of this research?

5. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? (Less than 1,000, 1,000 to 10,000, more than 10,000)

6. How have you obtained items in your collection? (Gifts, loans, purchases, archaeological excavation, repatriation from mainstream museums, other)

7. Where did archaeological materials in your possession originate?

(Amateur collectors, professional CRM firm, museum sponsored excavation,

84 federal, state, or local agency, academic research, indigenous archaeology, data recovery/mitigation from development, data recovery/mitigation due to soil contamination, other)

8. How has your organization cared for these materials? (Curated in permanent collection, curated in visible storage, returned to tribal members, stored off site, available for education and research, reburied, other)

9. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices?

10. What type of training has your staff received? (Culturally sensitive care and handling, graduate degree in museum studies, certificate in museum studies, workshops, classes, other)

11. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? If yes, please explain.

12. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?

13. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? (Basketry, leather, pottery, bone and shell, feathers)

14. Do you have specific protocols for the following (handling, storage, display, use, etc)? Please describe. (Sacred items, ceremonial items, gender specific objects, funerary items, human remains, photographic collection, audio recordings, archival documents, other)

15. Does your tribe control access to cultural materials by (age, gender, pregnancy, moon time, spiritual training, family lineage, other)

16. Have any items been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?

17. Has your tribe consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of tribal materials in their collections? If yes, which museums have you consulted with?

18. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? (Display and interpretation, repair, handling, offerings, storage, access, intellectual property rights, loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research, toxic contamination, intertribal relations, other)

19. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? (Sacred items, ceremonial items, gender specific objects, funerary items, human remains, photographic collection, audio recordings, archival documents, other)

20. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)

21. Has your tribe or museum received loans from mainstream museums? If so, how would you describe the process and experience?

22. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums?

23. Could you share one success story involving your tribe’s consultation with these museums?

24. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future

museum/tribal relations?

25. In what ways can mainstream museums support your tribe or museum?

26. Please feel free to add any other comments that can assist PAHMA in

developing and implementing culturally sensitive object handling and storage, loan

and exhibit policies.

Survey for the Karuk People’s Center

The survey of interested Karuk community members was adapted from the

PAHMA questions for tribal museums and cultural centers, and was distributed after approval from the Karuk Tribal Council. The participant answered questions from the first section in writing; a second section of questions focusing on the People’s Center were asked in person. Participants were first recruited through the tribal newsletter and staff email. I also targeted museum advisory committee members as most knowledgeable about Center operations. Response was very low and half-hearted at best, a lack of interest I interpreted as lack of time or distrust of outside research. I therefore took a more active approach by selecting a group of tribal and staff members who had connections to cultural materials and the People’s Center, and by contacting those community members directly. I also chose to provide an incentive by entering all who participated in a drawing for a Pendleton blanket (Karuk people value these blankets and also love any opportunity to gamble).

Participation remained entirely voluntary, with the option of requesting anonymity for those agreeing to complete the survey. Although the interest level

87 increased with these methods, finding the time to complete the survey remained a challenge for many. Seven surveys were completed and yielded in-depth data on tribal perspectives on several aspects of collections care. The quality of these discussions could not have been realized without the time needed to develop relationships and trust in the community. I had been working and living “on the river” for nearly a year before enjoying a measure of acceptance. This openness is not a question of “gaining” respect, rather it requires the “earning” of respect through day to day interaction and giving something back to working with Indian people who have been stereotyped, objectified, romanticized, essentialized, appropriated, and treated as anything but fully human.

The following questions yield both quantitative and qualitative data. The survey was provided in written form. Survey Monkey© was not utilized since the target population was easily contacted and the majority of those contacted resided in the local area; also a digital format was less effective in an area of limited internet service and computer access. Questions are similar to those asked in the PAHMA survey, with others added to address the relevance of the People’s Center to Karuk heritage and living culture.

 Questions for all Respondents

Informed consent (agreement to participate in this research, decision to request or decline anonymity)

1. How would you describe the mission of the Karuk People’s Center?

(Cultural revitalization and research, preservation of cultural treasures/resources,

public education and tourism, tribal archives, other)

2. Does the Center have a formal mission statement?

3. Does the Center have a written policy on traditional care practices?

4. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? (Less than 1,000, 1,000 to 10,000, more than 10,000, unknown)

5. How were these objects obtained? (Gifts, loans, purchases, archaeological excavation, repatriation from mainstream museums, other)

6. Where did the archaeological materials in your collection come from?

(Amateur collectors, professional CRM firm, museum sponsored excavation, federal, state, local agency, academic research, indigenous archaeology, data recovery/mitigation from development, data recovery/mitigation due to soil contamination, other)

7. How does the Center care for its collection? (Curated in permanent collection, curated in visible storage, returned to tribal members, stored off site, available for education and research, reburied, other)

8. Do Center staff members have training in standard collections management practices?

9. What type of training have Center staff members received? (Culturally sensitive care and handling, graduate degree in museum studies, certificate in museum studies, workshops, classes, other)

10. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? If “yes” please explain

11. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?

12. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? (Basketry, leather, pottery, bone and shell, feathers)

13. Are there specific protocols (handling, storage, display, use, etc) for the following? Please describe. (Sacred items, ceremonial items, gender specific objects, funerary items, human remains, photographic collection, audio recordings, archival documents, other)

14. Do you control access to cultural materials by (age, gender, pregnancy, moon time, spiritual training, family lineage, other)?

15. Have any items in the collection been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?

16. Have you consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of Karuk materials in their collections? If yes, which museums have you consulted with?

17. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? (Display and interpretation, repair, handling, offerings, storage, access, intellectual property rights, loans, toxic contamination, intertribal relations, other)

19. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)

20. Has the Karuk People’s Center received loans from mainstream museums? If so, how would you describe the process and experience?

21. What has been the most effective means of communicating with

mainstream museums?

22. Could you share one success story involving the Karuk Tribe’s

consultation with these museums? Was there a specific occurrence that made it a

success?

23. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future

museum/tribal relations?

24. In what ways can mainstream museums support the Karuk Tribe and

Karuk People’s Center?

 Questions added for the Karuk survey

The following questions allow for more open and direct discussion on Karuk perspectives. Our conversation will be recorded in writing or taped. As with the written survey, your participation is entirely voluntary, you may request anonymity, and any direct quotations will be subject to your approval. Do you agree to participate? Do you request anonymity?

25. What does the People’s Center mean to you?

26. How does the community view the Center? How can the Center best

serve Karuk people?

27. What should be the priorities of the Center?

28. What are the commonalities between mainstream museums and tribal

cultural centers? What are the differences?

29. How can the two approaches work together?

30. What changes would you like to see at mainstream museums?

31. What changes would you like to see at the People’s Center?

32. What is the meaning and purpose of the collection? How should it be

cared for?

33. How would you describe “traditional care practices”?

34. Are you familiar with “best museum practices”? How would you

describe them? How can they be adapted to traditional and culturally respectful

protocols?

35. What are the challenges to integrating these two approaches? How can

these issues be resolved?

36. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Quantitative and Qualitative Questions and Data

All surveys included questions worded to elicit both quantitative and qualitative data. Initial questions focused on describing the facility itself – mission statement, collections, and staff training. Most responses were either yes or no, or required selecting one or more categories. This section of the survey was composed of the first nine or ten questions. Tribal groups were asked a series of questions focusing on specific collections care approaches, asking if and how indigenous and standard museum care differed, how the two approaches could be integrated, and specifics of collections care according to variables of material, object category, and access restrictions. One question dealt with pesticide contamination. These questions provided both qualitative

(integration of approaches) and quantitative (specific collection management practices

92 and protocols) information. Because these questions discussed tribal experiences they were not included in the survey of mainstream museums.

Remaining questions explored the dynamics of consultation and relationship building between tribal groups and museums. Some responses provided quantitative data on number of consultations with museums/tribal groups and the issues discussed; other questions explored the tenor and outcome of these conversations. The Karuk survey added a number of questions related to the People’s Center itself – how it could best serve the tribal community and how its collection should be cared for.

As noted, the low number of survey responses precluded statistically significant quantitative analysis, therefore no statistical analysis was applied to the results. The more open-ended qualitative questions proved more useful and allowed a variety of perspectives to be articulated. Multivocality and negotiation occurs not only between Native and non-Native people, but also within the institutions themselves, an observation reinforced in a number of survey responses. The next chapters illustrate both the limitations and the successes of the survey design, format, and implementation in these two case studies.

CHAPTER VII

THE PHOEBE APPERSON HEARST

MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Housing some 3.8 million objects from around the globe, the Phoebe A.

Hearst Museum of Anthropology (PAHMA) at the University of California Berkeley is one of the oldest and largest anthropology museums in the West. Its encyclopaedic collection rivals its sister institutions at the Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of

Archaeology and Ethnology, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of

Archaeology and Anthropology, both sharing historical ties to the Hearst. Established by philanthropist and UC Regent Phoebe Hearst in 1901 to house University collections amassed since 1868, the museum continued to actively seek the material culture from around the world, including the systematic accumulation of materials from “vanishing”

Indian cultures. This collecting by scholars was systematic, intended for research and teaching, and gathered according to a coherent plan, and richly documented by field notes, photographs, maps, or sound recordings. The museum mission statement reflects this founding research focus:

Mission … of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (is) to collect, preserve, research, and interpret the global record of material culture, so as to promote the understanding of the history and diversity of human cultures…The Museum recognizes its fiduciary responsibility to care for and preserve its collections for the benefit of future generations of scholars, students, and the general public. It therefore actively manages and cares for its collections, including an ongoing program of restorative and preventive conservation. [PAHMA 2009a]

93 94

Berkeley’s museum was first directed by Harvard anthropologist Frederic W.

Putnam, however Alfred Kroeber, the university’s first professor and curator of anthropology, played the most active role, officially as director from 1909 until 1946

(Jacknis 2009:1). Kroeber sent his graduate students to research and collect both archaeological and ethnographic materials from California tribes; he himself undertook fieldwork with several northern California tribes, most notably the Yurok. His presence and impact is legendary among Northern California tribes – his legacy includes both valuable historical and genealogical records and collusion with local collectors for

“salvaged” materials ranging from human remains to ceremonial regalia. Local Indians apparently treated him as a “damaged soul,” and they made up stories to tell him. As

Yurok Councilwoman Dale Ann Sherman remembers from her father’s stories (personal communication, March 16, 2004), Kroeber was one of the “university men” who you needed to tell something so they would go away, but not everything or they would kill you. According to a local cultural practitioner (personal communication, September 15,

2010), Karuk people apparently had little tolerance for Kroeber or his wife Theodora; stories recount that Karuk women forced the Kroeber family to leave in anger after cultural protocols were broken.

The Hearst therefore contains significant collections of Native California material culture from the early part of the twentieth century, and holds what is probably the largest and most comprehensive collection devoted to Native California, including archaeological and ethnographic artifacts numbering over 259,000 catalogue entries.

Regionally, the museum’s holdings are strongest from the northern part of the state.

Despite the size and significance of its collection, both storage and gallery space are

95 limited and augmented by two off-site storage facilities in the neighboring communities of Oakland and Richmond. Funding is declining as well, with the national economic downturn and state budget crisis impacting museum operations.

At the same time, internal challenges have complicated the ability of the museum to proactively engage their constituent communities and embrace changing museological practices. The museum utilized interim directors for several years, only recently recruiting for the permanent museum director position and hiring Mari Lyn

Salvador, former director of the San Diego Museum of Man. Internal reorganization of the repatriation program led to sustained and highly emotional protests from a number of

California tribes and associated coalitions. Repatriation efforts became highly publicized and increasingly politicized, both from within the university itself and from the many stakeholders in academia, research, state government, indigenous groups, and the media

(NAGPRA and UCB 2010a, b). While the highly charged issues of repatriation are not the subjects of this research, it is in this area that conversations regarding indigenous care and conservation are first voiced (Scott and Luby 2007:272). NAGPRA Documentation and Consultation grants most often fund this opportunity for Native consultations at museums.

Despite the absence of consistent leadership and direction, the permanent staff at the museum tends to be well trained with long-term tenure at their positions. At the time of my study, Deputy Director Sandra Harris had been executive director of two museums, receiving her academic training at Washington University in St. Louis,

Arizona State University, and California Lutheran University. Victoria Bradshaw joined

PAHMA staff in 1993 as Director of Collections and Facilities, and received her graduate

96 degree in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. Natasha Johnson, North

American Collections Manager, joined PAHMA staff in 2005 following four years at the

National Museum of the American Indian as Museums Specialist in the Collections

Management department. She received her graduate degree in Museum Studies from

George Washington University, and undergraduate degree from University of California at Riverside. Repatriation Coordinator Anthony Garcia joined staff in 2005 as Senior

Museum Scientist. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from University of California

Berkeley, and has taught on several UC campuses. He was instrumental in the creation of the Native American Studies Department at Berkeley in 1969.

I approached museum staff during the fall of 2007 to discuss the possibility of providing assistance in a project of their choosing, and to fulfill internship requirements for graduate coursework in Museum Studies at California State University Chico,

Department of Anthropology. Collections Manager Victoria Bradshaw suggested several topics, but quickly focused on researching traditional care practices in the mainstream

(Phoebe Hearst) museum setting. This area was prioritized as a proactive response to increased pressure from Native American groups, and particularly California tribes, for partnerships in museum decision-making.

The museum staff is well aware of the changing face of museum practices, and the need for re-envisioning relationships with California tribes among other minority groups. As a public institution within a much larger university system, and founded with research and teaching mandates, the museum serves constituencies with a variety of agendas, both conflicting and some outdated. Assessing the scope and need for reworking collections management practices, particularly in the care and handling of cultural

97 materials, was both a step in developing collaborative relationships, and a research tool to develop data for informed decisions. The proposed internal reorganization was also designed to mend and smooth museum/tribal relationships, establishing a repatriation committee composed of six campus wide academic representatives. Also under consideration was recruiting a Native American Advisory Committee, but the details have yet to be communicated to tribal governments.

The survey was first developed with a goal of contacting mainstream and tribal museums for their experience in the integration of culturally respectful protocols with scientifically based best museum practices. Different formats were developed targeting these two groups. The museum subsequently decided to also solicit survey responses from federally recognized tribes represented in the Hearst collections. This required a separate revision of the survey questions to reflect that constituency. Both qualitative and quantitative questions were included, with the attempt to address a comprehensive set of features in collections care. Participation was entirely voluntary, and assurances of confidentiality and anonymity were included in the informed consent survey introduction. Internal Review Board consideration and approval was obtained prior to administering the survey.

Mailing list and contact information for each of the three survey groups was developed from an exhaustive search using a variety of research avenues. The geographic area was limited to the United States and Canada. The final mailing list represented 204 tribal museums and cultural centers and 42 mainstream museums with Native American collections. The mailing list for federally recognized tribes was developed in-house by the Hearst Museum without my involvement. In some cases, we anticipated duplication

98 of mailing addresses; for this reason the respondent was asked to self-identify as a mainstream museum, tribal museum, or federally recognized tribe.

The method of delivering the survey was discussed extensively. For cost savings and ease of sorting and summarizing responses, a digital format was chosen using

Survey Monkey©. The disadvantages to this method were a potential low response rate and the unreliability of many email addresses. Effective survey design and implementation is both an art and a science; the format and design of the survey reflected an attempt to include all staff input which might have unnecessarily complicated the final content. The museum then sent the survey during the summer 2008, and followed with a second notice that fall. I was unable to obtain the exact number of surveys sent, even after repeated queries of Hearst staff, and therefore must base my findings on the mailing lists

I developed with 42 mainstream museums and 204 tribal museums/cultural centers. I did not develop the list of federally recognized tribes sent surveys; this information was not available during my internship, and was instead compiled by museum staff (again they have not provided me with that mailing list). Using the available information, as discussed in the preceding chapter on methodology, the number of responses was relatively low, which is data in itself. The responses are summarized with a detailed summary provided in the appendices.

Response from Mainstream Museums

We consider ourselves caretakers [of] tribal history and material culture. We always try to keep in mind that this is their culture, not ours. It is important that they tell their story and that we listen to their desires and wishes and try to use the Native voice as much as possible to do that. It is also important to recognize that there is a great deal of diversity inside the Native community and that opinions can differ on a wide range of cultural and historical questions. It is important to give voice to all

those views and ideas. Help people to understand that tribal culture is every bit as complex and diverse as any other culture. [Bob Chenoweth, Curator Nez Perce National Historical Park, survey response, 2008]

Four responses were received from the 42 mainstream museums, a response rate of 9.5 percent. All four agreed to participate in the survey, two requested anonymity.

Of the four respondents, only two completed the survey. One respondent self-identified as a public institution, the other as academically affiliated. Both housed Native American objects in excess of 10,000, including sacred objects. In both museums, staff had received training in both standard collections management and in culturally sensitive care and handling.

Consultation with tribes on collections handling protocols had occurred in both museums, often during NAGPRA related visits and exhibition development meetings. Other opportunities for consultation developed during research visits and meetings with cultural resources staff and elders. These conversations centered on a variety of protocols including respectful display, appropriate repair of objects, offerings and blessings, access restrictions, and separation of funerary materials. Other issues of discussion were intellectual property rights, loans for ceremonial use, tribal display, and research. Pesticide contamination also concerned both tribal representatives and the museum staff, particularly for risks to human health and safety.

Confidentiality and intellectual property rights were of particular interest in the treatment and use of archival materials, such as audio recordings, photographic records, and private papers. One museum works closely with both Native families and tribal government to assure proper handling and limits access to certain materials. Some

100 tribes have requested that private archives be restricted from general public access (legal challenges under the Freedom of Information Act notwithstanding).

The commonalities between tribes centered on prohibitions for display of certain sensitive materials, most often regarding human remains and funerary objects.

However both museums noted that differences in requests are common. One respondent noted, “Tribes prefer to discuss only objects affiliated to themselves.” In both museums, staff also recognized the diversity within tribes, whether a matter of individual desires, understanding of cultural practices, or “Christian versus traditional” ways of cultural understanding. In most cases, both museums seek various opinions, and also try to accommodate individual requests. Within this potentially contentious climate, when even internal guidelines do not follow established policy, the key to working with tribes is flexibility and the ability to fashion alternatives.

Although both mainstream museums provide loans to tribes, and have written policies for these procedures, neither have written policies on traditional care practices. In one case regular communication with tribal communities has been established using a formal “Native Nations Advisory Board”; in the other case discussion results from

NAGPRA consultation and government to government relationships. Both museums emphasized communication and collaboration as critical for improving museum relevance and relations, a process requiring reworking established perspectives and norms, particularly in collections management. Responding to a question on opportunities for tribal/museum relations, curator Bob Chenoweth suggested that core assumptions of heritage preservation and interpretation must be readjusted, noting that:

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White people tend to view certain objects as “art,” disconnecting it from cultural context and respect for the beliefs and practices of the people that created it. It is not necessary to display certain kinds of sensitive materials in order to tell a tribe’s story. Consult with people from the tribe and listen to them when they talk about what story they would like told and how best to do that. [survey response, 2008]

Tribal Practices: Perspectives from Tribal Museums and Cultural Centers

Of the 204 tribal museums and cultural centers contacted, 14 responded (6.8 percent response rate). Of the responses, 11 agreed to continue participating, the other three declined. This rate was much lower than anticipated; absence of participation may have been due to several factors. Tribal staff are often overworked and overextended, forcing a strict prioritization of tasks, a situation exacerbated by high staff turnover. In some cases, the museum director or similar position may be vacant for an extended period of time. An electronic request for completing a survey is easily ignored or postponed indefinitely. Others may have felt that the survey was not relevant to their needs or interests, or may not have been comfortable sharing their particular museum experience or stories. One Karuk advisory committee member suggested that tribal representatives did not respond because they were angry and distrustful of the Phoebe

Hearst Museum. It is also possible that tribal groups want their voices heard through direct dialogue rather than through an impersonal survey that distances and insulates mainstream museum from Native people.

The first section of the survey requested information on the respondent’s museum and its collection. Six museums had formal mission statements; one had a written policy on traditional care practices. Collections were small (less than 1,000 objects) to mid-sized (1,000 to 10,000 objects). Objects were obtained through gifts,

102 loans, purchases, archaeological excavations, and repatriations; the archaeological materials were often from amateur collectors (and likely looting of sites), professional excavation (museum sponsored, academic, contract cultural resource management firms, and indigenous archaeology). The collections were subsequently treated in a variety of ways: visible storage, permanent collection, off-site storage, returned to tribal members, reburied, and available for education and research.

In five of the 14 museums, the staff had received training in standard collections management; two museums had not received any formal training. In three museums, the staff had either graduate training in museum studies or long term collections management experience. Other museums had attended workshops and classes in museum practices, and five museums indicated that they had received training in culturally sensitive practices.

Remaining questions provided the opportunity for more reflective and individualized discussions of museum practices in a tribal museum setting. In response to the question of whether standard museum practices differ from Native approaches to collections care, five responded in the affirmative and observed that although techniques for preservation are welcomed, Native material culture is not treated as lifeless “objects.”

Rather, objects serve a “function that has meaning, and in some cases a spirit.”

The emphasis is on use, particularly in ceremony, and traditional care may employ such methods as soap root and pepperwood for care and handling; object viewed as living spirits benefit from human touch; storage display, and handling follows gender, age, and other cultural proscriptions. Labeling can be seen as disrespectful. Although most museums see a collection of “specimens,” a holdover from the natural history focus

103 of early anthropological materials for research and classification, for Native people “these are tangible objects with a history which continues to have meaning and purpose to a living culture.”

Can the two distinct approaches be integrated? Six museums provided suggestions for a new collections management perspective and practices. In most cases there was agreement on shared goals for preservation; however the Native approach privileges the life and use of this tangible heritage for (intangible) living culture and spiritual practices. This “disconnect between cultural differences” can be addressed by trainings and workshops that “demonstrate cultural significance and meaning, and care for Native objects.”

Several questions dealt with specific tribal protocols for the care and handling of different materials (basketry, leather, pottery, bone and shell, feathers) and specific protocols for display, use, and access of categories of cultural items (sacred, ceremonial, gender specific, funerary, human remains, photographic collections, audio recordings, archival documents). As expected, there was a diversity of treatment practices among the tribal museums without consistent protocols for access restrictions; surprisingly, those responding did not restrict access by gender and pregnancy. One museum did restrict access and handling during a woman’s moon time, one by spiritual training, and two by family lineage. Finally, there was no indication or knowledge of pesticide contamination in the collections of six museums; the remaining museums did not respond to this question.

Three museums consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful care of culturally affiliated materials in their care, specifically at the Smithsonian in

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Washington D.C., the Southwest Museum in Pasadena, and the Clarke Historical

Museum in Eureka. Discussion included the repair of items, removal of sacred and funerary items from displays, access and offerings to sensitive items, loans for ceremonial use, use for education and research, and intertribal relations. Two museums were noted as having excellent relationships with tribal representatives; the Southwest

Museum and San Diego Museum of Man. Staff from one mainstream museum provided on-site trainings for tribal museum staff. The 2007 Symposium “Preserving Aboriginal

Heritage: Technical and Traditional Approaches” (Canadian Conservation Institute) was mentioned as valuable training in integrating the two approaches and provided the opportunity to consult with the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

The relationships between tribal and mainstream museums were further explored in contexts of opportunities, challenges, and support; staff training, NAGPRA issues, exhibition partnerships were all identified as areas for further collaboration.

“There needs to sustained discussion, both on the basic preservation assumptions, and on the policies and procedures. Native peoples are most interested in their use and reconnection with collections, rather than preservation or so-called “shared heritage.”

Mainstream museums are urged to support tribal centers by providing access to archives, sharing information on collections, offering regional workshops, assisting in display fabrication, and assisting with temporary loans and repatriation activities. “If museums were genuinely interested in helping cultural recovery, I suggest they work to fix the legislation (NAGPRA). Also, respondents suggested including the tribes in exhibit design and interpretation of their materials.”

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One question was specifically directed to assist PAHMA in developing and implementing culturally sensitive object handling and storage, and loan and exhibit policies. Responses ranged from the specific to the general:

I recognize the limits of storage and funding. I would suggest bringing tribal reps down to the museum to understand the compromises and set goals. Perhaps hosting a tribal consultation workshop, and developing a working group of tribal reps…who meet on a regular basis.

“One policy we have in our museum is “NO PICTURE TAKING

ALLOWED.” In our museum we have 10 murals that show and tell our . . . history.”

“Just listen to the tribes, and don’t privilege academic research over tribal traditions and concerns.”

Other Tribal Commentaries

Listen to what Native Americans tell you regardless of the opinion of Museum professionals who argue that they are the best qualified to protect museum collections. They have caused more damage to the spirit of these things than they realized. Which is exactly the point. Physical versus the Spiritual. Which is more important and to whom?

~Anonymous tribal representative

The survey targeted a third audience – that of federally recognized tribes

(source communities) with collections at PAHMA. Ten responses were received, however, because the Hearst Museum has not provided that mailing list, I was unable to determine the response rate for this category. Of the responses, nine agreed to participate in the research and of those seven requested anonymity. Many of these responses indicated that although tribes did not have a museum as such, they did manage collections. Repositories varied from an administration building, casino display, separate storage buildings, and a combination of these venues. Despite this variety, attention was

106 given to preservation utilizing archival materials and furniture, also to climate control and security measures. One tribe indicated plans to build a museum or cultural center. Two tribes indicated that they had written policies or “agreements” on traditional care practices; in one situation this was developed during NAGPRA consultations.

Questions detailing the scope, provenance, and access to the collections elicited a variety of responses. The size of collections ranged from less than 1,000 to over

10,000; items were obtained from gifts, purchases, archeological excavations, and repatriation. Materials also originated from amateur collectors, governmental agencies, indigenous archaeology, CRM firms, museum and university sponsored excavations, and data recovery/mitigation during development projects. Collections care includes visible storage and display, use for education and research, return to tribal members, off-site storage, and reburial. In one case, a federal agency

. . . dumped off a collection of artifacts on the tribe while doing NAGPRA consultations. They basically cleared out an entire shelf in a warehouse that contained 45 boxes. The tribe was not aware that these collections had never been brought up to the 36CFR79 standards, were in terrible disarray, and most of the material was not NAGPRA related at all.

Staff training was geared to culturally sensitive care and handling, workshops and classes, and culture resource management and state and federal laws. One tribe employed staff with a graduate degree and a certificate in museum studies. There was general agreement that standard museum practices differ from Native approaches to collections care (four responses). According to one respondent, tribes “may not want original displayed, prefer duplicates. Items need to be cared for according to traditions, prayer, etc. Items have power; need to respect that world view. Some things cannot be

107 replaced with a new one until old item has been sent on its journey. “Put down” as required by tradition. Each has a function, one is physical the other is spiritual.”

There was apparent disagreement on how the two approaches could be integrated: “Train … museum staff to understand Native American world view.

RESPECT what they tell you. Understand that to many Native Americans, items in museums are still alive and have power.” “This will never occur in the future. Both entities have never been cooperative with each other. NAGPRA is the cultural barrier.”

As noted by another respondent,

I think that there needs to be a lot more actual consultation with the museum and the tribal governments that have collections stored in the museum. Each tribe may have their own unique way of caring for or handling a certain object. That object may have special needs that the museum staff knows absolutely nothing about. Each tribe can then provide their own protocols and ways of handling these objects, especially if these objects are under the purview of the NAGPRA.

Native unique ways of caring for collections was further illustrated in questions on specific protocols and practices, questions dealing with care and handling of specific types of materials (basketry, leather, pottery, bone and shell, feathers), of categories of objects (sacred items, funerary items, ceremonial items, gender-specific items), and in restricting access. Few responses indicated that strict or consistent guidelines had been developed. However, pesticide contamination of cultural items was an issue that had no clear solution; one tribe decided to keep the items housed with mainstream museums, another was aware of the potential health hazards, but had not dealt with how to handle the items.

Tribes had consulted with mainstream museums on a variety of concerns, such as intellectual property rights, display and interpretation, handling and storage, loans, and

108 access. (One tribe noted that “consultation” is generally a term used in formal government-to-government meetings.) Repatriation was once again referenced as initiating dialogue. Archival materials, including written records, photographs, and audio recordings, were of particular note in these discussions, and the tribes indicated that they had received copies of these records. The question of intellectual property rights is not resolved only by providing copies; in some cases tribes may request the original documents and/or control access to that knowledge.

This process of consultation does not appear to have produced tangible results or developed an atmosphere of trust and partnership. The most effective communication was described as personal, direct, and face-to-face. The American Museum of Natural

History did receive praise from one tribe for their “excellent job of consultation” in repatriation of funerary items. However, no tribes had received loans from mainstream museums; whether requests had been denied was not addressed in the survey. The tenor of these nascent relationships is indicated by tribal assessments of museum responses to their requests on traditional care and handling, as indicated below.

What is clear is that the Hearst is down playing the issue of pesticide contamination. Where is the data showing which items are contaminated? What efforts have been made to educate tribes on how to keep from contaminating their museums or offices if these contaminated items are returned? What about cross contamination to tribal museums from traveling exhibits or loans.

“Some museums adhere to requests…and other museums are forced to cooperate through NAGPRA.”

“Several museums have contacted us by letter or personal phone call/email concerning repatriation. They have sent us photos and descriptions, but nothing has been received.”

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Tribes shared their insights on the “opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations,” commenting on the need to reach a “middle ground”:

Museums are like NAGPRA. Both have forced Native Americans to talk about dead people or dead people’s things. Both force tribes to question how to deal with issues that historically they have not dealt with because digging up the dead and displaying things for public viewing is against their most sacred traditions. But now in this modern world they have no choice – either they participate or accept others making decisions for them.

Final comments addressed needs for more outreach by museums, funding for consultation, and respect for tribal members and sacred objects during consultation.

(Requiring Native people to explain why an item is sacred is culturally insensitive, asking for proprietary information.) Museums and tribes may also benefit from shared ownership and from partnering to design temporary exhibitions.

The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology: From the Inside Out

Results of the survey were summarized and sent to PAHMA staff. The final report based on the survey has yet to be completed and provided to interested participants. Staff has not responded to specific questions, nor provided direction on a preferred format for this report. Whether PAHMA staff are using the information is unclear; from my communications it is apparent they were disappointed by the low rate of responses. The political climate also continues to challenge staff morale and resources.

However, that is another discussion for a different time and research focus.

The survey would likely have benefited from a different format and from active recruitment and follow up. However, the budget for this project was limited and cost effectiveness was prioritized. Economic justifications and cost cutting measures for

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Native consultation resonates poorly in tribal communities. Federally recognized tribes are savvy and experienced in the realities of prioritizing and funding projects. By partnering with tribal representatives, the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the

University of California Los Angeles sought and received NPS funding to bring tribal representatives to the museum for NAGPRA documentation and consultation. By failing to actively pursue similar opportunities that support dialogue, PAHMA appears to be more comfortable keeping Native peoples at arm’s length. This perception, whether accurate or imagined, continues to foster distrust and frustration with PAHMA, and has created Native coalitions with narrow foci and agendas.

The Karuk Tribe viewed PAHMA collections in Spring 2010 during

NAGPRA documentation and consultation. During that visit, it was clear that culturally sensitive protocols have been requested and implemented at the Hearst. Women are restricted from handling certain gender-specific materials; that information is kept with the collection itself. However, while viewing Jump Dance baskets, one Karuk tribal member noted that such restrictions matter little, since the tribe lacks information on how the baskets may have been previously (mis)handled in the museum; another tribal member mentioned that his mother is dismissive of such rigid “rules.”

During the same visit, the organic materials documented were in either poor condition or well-preserved suggesting pesticide treatment. As with many mainstream museums, early object records did not document these treatments. In later years, the application of DDT was more often recorded with a mark on the object itself. As a result, sacred items and ceremonial regalia present a potential human health and safety hazard for both museum staff and tribal practitioners. Testing procedures are typically costly,

111 time consuming, and require specialized equipment. Mitigation of known toxic residue is only recently being researched and procedures have been developed in a limited capacity.

The Hearst is also apparently stalled in the logistics of incorporating indigenous perspectives and protocols into its database, and protecting confidential information from public view. According to Natasha Johnson, North American

Collections Manager, the flagging of culturally sensitive database records is needed, a process that requires new methods to encode and transmit information.

According to Ms. Johnson, the Hearst has also dealt with the diversity of tribal approaches to collections care by adopting protocols to the “highest standard” whenever possible, and by addressing tribal priorities for long-term conservation and storage.

Developing these protocols will require multiple conversations over time, and accurate methods of tracking the information gathered. For example, some male items may be handled by women past fertility. Other considerations include tribal representation – does one person’s advice represent the tribe? The integration of scientific conservation with tribal protocols becomes most difficult in the area of conservation when “preservation” of an object may interrupt its natural life cycle, as discussed by Marian Kaminitz,

Conservator at the National Museum of the American Indian (Jenkins 2005), and seen by some tribes as an unnecessary intervention akin to life support or embalming.

Loans to tribes for ceremonial use are provided by the Hearst Museum. The tribe must provide insurance, and must also personally pick up and return the items. Both the Yurok and Karuk tribes have participated in this program. During relocation of the collection, spiritual leaders were invited to the new facility to advise on handling and care

112 protocols. Again, the issue of who chooses these spiritual practitioners was brought to my attention by staff, suggesting negotiation of these contesting voices.

Other issues mentioned by Ms. Johnson included allowing materials to deteriorate as part of an object’s life cycle, supporting Native restoration of objects as cultural respect, caring for items that should have been burned with the owner at burial, and tribal concerns with anoxic fumigation of living objects. The anoxic method removes oxygen from the storage chamber, effectively destroying insect life; although often tribally sanctioned, freezing can damage painted materials. Challenges to meeting tribal requests are most apparent in finding and dedicating isolated spaces in a limited facility, and keeping ceremonial and sacred objects high or above foot traffic and in a segregated area. Storage at the Phoebe Hearst Museum is in the basement, as are many collections in mainstream museum facilities, posing challenges for all involved.

The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology has suffered a number of constraints in addressing community concerns and requests. Lack of funding and resources, a cumbersome organizational structure and administrative oversight, rigid academic objectives and mandates, and several years without consistent leadership and vision are factors in the museum’s struggle to come to terms with new approaches and partnerships. Pressure stemming from repatriation claims is intense and reflects the discontent of many tribal communities, whether deserved or not. Thus, a redefinition and reimagining of the museum is vital to its continued relevance. This will require a long- term commitment to working in partnership with indigenous groups and other stakeholders. It will also require the serious self-examination that recognizes the

113 assumptions and biases that have underpinned the old paradigms. As observed in Walt

Kelly’s comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” (Kelly 1987).

In the next chapter, responses to the Karuk People’s Center survey are summarized and discussed, providing data for one tribal museum perspective and experience.

CHAPTER VIII

THE KARUK PEOPLE’S CENTER

The return of Elizabeth’s baskets to our area reunited the past with the present, her work with her family, and the Indian community with one of its greatest artists. Most important, the baskets themselves are reunited with the belief system that asserts that baskets are living entities. The realization makes one want to sing.

~Julian Lang [Cahodas1997:xvi]

The Karuk people and culture reside in the remote regions of Northwestern

California, an area distinguished by the rugged Siskiyou Mountain ranges and by the

Klamath River and its tributaries (Figure 2). Although early ethnographers describe the

Karuk as salmon and acorn people living in permanent villages along the river corridor, they also seasonally utilized the upland and high country areas for game, basketry materials, medicinal and subsistence plant resources, and spiritual practices. Over thousands of uninterrupted years of occupation, the Karuk developed sophisticated land management practices; this indigenous science was derived from close observation and dependent involvement on natural processes.

Translated by outsiders as the “upriver people,” the Karuk self-identify as “fix the world” people, a tribal identity that acknowledges the ceremonial complex known as pikyavish, esoteric practices performed to balance the interconnected social, physical, and spiritual worlds and reaching back to when the spirit beings created humans. As

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FIGURE 2. Map showing Karuk ancestral territory.

Source: Karuk Land Department. 2000. Karuk Ancestral Territory Map. Happy Camp, CA: Karuk Land Department. Image courtesy Karuk Tribe. Any alteration of image other than routine cropping must be approved in advance. Printed with permission. 116 described by John P. Harrington, the extraordinary, and prolific, and famously eccentric linguist and ethnographer of American Indian cultures in California and the Southwest:

Everything that the Karuk did was enacted because the Ikxareyava were believed to have set the example in story times. The Ikxareyava were the people who were in America before the Indians came…These Ikxareyava were old-time people, who turned into animals, plants, rocks, mountains, plots of ground, and even parts of the house, dances, and abstractions when the Karuk came to the country, remaining with the Karuk only long enough to state and start all customs, telling them in every instance, “Human will do the same.” These doings and sayings are still related and quoted in the medicine formulae of the Karuk. [Harrington 1932:8]

This ancient responsibility, indeed reciprocity, for stewardship of all life continues to be practiced today by Karuk at sacred sites, and the priests walk the same trails and make medicine in the same places as their ancestors. Stewardship extends to the contemporary Karuk world; indeed the Karuk are actively engaged in the ongoing environmental issues that impact the rivers, forests, wildlife, and natural resources in the

Klamath region.

The ruggedness of the region discouraged European settlement until the

California Gold Rush, beginning in 1848-1849. As with other Northern California tribes, the “largest human migration in history” (Sacramento Gold Rush Days 2010:1) unleashed an unprecedented explosion of fortune seekers into the remote regions and resulted in the destruction of indigenous people, lifeways, and environment. As observed by Harrington,

“Before the Whiteman turned his pigs upon the acorn patches and his firearms upon the deer and other game, and before his mines ruled the river and his canneries caught the salmon ere they could come upstream, the Karuk had an abundance of food and a great variety” (Harrington 1932:5).

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With the swarm of miners and packers that arrived in 1850 and 1851, Karuk villages, including two sacred villages near the mouth of the Salmon River, were burned, and white men appropriated others. In 1851, Redick McKee signed a treaty with the

Yurok, Karuk, and Hupa tribes, an agreement meant to provide safety from encroachment and to guarantee land rights in the form of a reservation. This treaty however, was one of the 18 California treaties signed that year but never ratified by Congress. No reservation was established for Karuk people; rather the U.S Government attempted to unsuccessfully relocate Karuk survivors to the Hoopa Valley and Scott Valley reservations.

Karuk people are used to White fortune seekers coming and going, staying only long enough to extract and misuse the region’s natural resources. The failure of permanent settlement by outsiders allowed a degree of cultural survival and memory found in few other parts of California, and helped to preserve Karuk language, ceremony, and lifeways. Anthropologist Alfred Kroeber describes this historical legacy, noting that:

There were, however, no formal wars; in a few years the small richer placers were worked out; the tide flowed away, leaving behind only some remnants; and the Karuk returned to what was left of their shattered existence. Permanent settlers never came into their land in numbers; the Governments established no reservation and left them to their own devices; and they yielded their old customs and their numbers much more slowly than the majority of Californian natives. [Kroeber 1976 [1925]:98]

Perhaps due to the ruggedness and remoteness of Karuk territory, perhaps due to Karuk stubborn refusal to give up their land and lifeways, little ethnographic or archaeological studies were completed of Karuk people and culture. Linguists John P.

Harrington and William Bright studied the Karuk language. In addition to his field notes,

Harrington published “Tobacco Among the Karuk Indians of California,” detailing native

118 use and cultivation of Nicoteana bigelovii, with added notes on Karuk people, culture, and history. Bright lived among Karuk people for years, becoming the only white man to be granted tribal membership. His texts and dictionary provide the framework for contemporary language recovery. As Bright observed (1978:181), “no systematic ethnographic sketch of the Karok has been published up to now,” however the neighboring Yurok culture was studied and described in detail by anthropologist Alfred

Kroeber from his fieldwork during 1900-1908.

Following the devastation wrought by the Gold Rush, the native population suffered government policies of assimilation and removal, forcing many Karuk off their traditional lands and disrupting cultural practices. Boarding schools removed children from their families, and the military recruited high percentages of Indian men (and women) during two world wars. The economic hardships endured by those remaining on the river were exacerbated by the lack of services, and many left for the population centers.

Some Karuk families remained, holding on to the old ways, speaking their native language, and refusing to leave the dance places. Adapting to survive, Karuk women married miners, settlers, merchants; Karuk basketweavers sold to the curio trade; and Karuk people learned how to make a living in Western trades. Southern California collector and entrepreneur Grace Nicholson actively sought out Native American artists, including Karuk basketweavers Elizabeth and Louise Hickox (see Figures 3 and 4), and aggressively pressured others to sell their possessions.

The landscape changed dramatically as well: Indigenous land management practices were supplanted by the suppression of fires, by the building of dams, by the

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FIGURE 3. Basketweavers for the curio trade Elizabeth and Louise Hickox at Orleans.

Source: Huntington Library, Grace Nicholson Collection. n.d. photCL 56, Addenda Karuk, Elizabeth and Louise Hickox at Orleans. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California,” and, if reference is made to specific manuscripts, that they should be cited by the appropriate call number. Any alteration of image other that routine cropping must be approved in advance.

extraction of natural resources from gold to timber, and by the use of chemical herbicides to promote forest monoculture. The resulting issues of environmental and economic injustice are well known in the region. During the years the U.S. Forest Service sprayed dioxin (Agent Orange) on the forests, there were no normal births on the river; the diversion of water for agriculture upriver caused conditions leading to massive salmon die-offs during both spring and fall runs; suction dredging for recreational gold mining

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FIGURE 4. Trinket basket by Elizabeth Hickox.

Source: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. n.d. Elizabeth Hickox Basket (Peabody ID# 13-9-10/83969/ Digital File # 922800007). Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Reprinted courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

operations began destroying remaining spawning beds; the U.S. Forest Service Gasquet

Orleans Road was proposed to run along Doctor Rock, a high country spiritual place for

Karuk, Yurok, and Tolowa peoples.

From the time the Karuk as a group refused to move to the Hoopa Valley

Reservation to the filing of litigation in Short v United States, 202 Ct. Cl.870 (Ct. Cl.

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1973), Karuk existence as a separate tribal entity was largely enmeshed in the Yurok –

Hoopa litigation over land rights. In 1978, the Karuk began reestablishment of government-to-government relations; the tribe achieved federal recognition in 1979. In the following years the Karuk Tribe acquired land to place in trust status, as well as fee parcels. However, the absence of a former reservation guides contemporary federal policies governing “restored lands” in such issues as Indian gaming, and hunting and fishing rights.

The Karuk Tribe is now the second largest tribe in California, next to the

Yurok both geographically and in size. Tribal enrollment is 3,500, with another 3,000 classified as Karuk “descendants” determined by a lower blood quantum. The Karuk

Tribe operates three service centers—in the communities of Orleans, Happy Camp, and

Yreka—with medical clinics, tribal housing, community development, tribal TANF,

Headstart, and other social services. The Karuk Department of Natural Resources, based in Orleans, has been at the forefront of stewardship issues and successful litigation for restoration of the Klamath River and Basin.

The success of tribal programs does not belie the socioeconomic realities of rural Humboldt and Siskiyou Counties. The area along the river corridor is isolated, underserved, and economically disadvantaged. Poverty is endemic; unemployment is officially near 20 percent (and likely much higher). Electrical and phone service is often limited or disrupted, particularly in the winter months; roads are frequently closed due to slides, flooding, or snowfall. Isolation is exacerbated by costly or unavailable internet service, print news, and radio/television reception. As in many rural communities, these

122 hardships have meant fractured families, drug and alcohol abuse, and increased violence and crime.

The revitalization of Karuk culture is one response to these sometimes overwhelming needs. Substance abuse programs integrate “sobriety sweats” as a way of relearning social and family values; the Brush Dance and pikyavish ceremonies are danced for healing the family, the village, the world. The Karuk Language Program is both product and process for reconnection of a unique worldview, and the biannual Karuk

Basketweavers Gathering brings together weavers dedicated to practicing this highly skilled Native art.

The People’s Center and the Karuk Community

The Karuk People’s Center in Happy Camp provides resources for all of these cultural activities, and also hosts weekly basketweaving and culture classes, houses the nascent tribal library and archives, and operates the tribal museum and repository for collections and exhibitions. The Center gift shop also provides a venue for contemporary

Karuk artists to display and to sell their products, from basketry to dance regalia.

Opening in 2002, the 5,000-square-foot facility was built with Indian

Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG) funding. The People’s Center

Coordinator (i.e. Director) reports directly to the Tribal Chairperson; the People’s Center

Advisory Committee, a group of interested Karuk Tribe members and descendants appointed by the Tribal Council, guides Center policies, procedures, and directives. The

Center’s Mission (approved March 2010) states: “As the museum and cultural center of

123 the Karuk Tribe, the Karuk People’s Center is devoted to the preservation, promotion and celebration of Karuk history, language, traditions and living culture.”

As described by a Karuk staff member, the establishment of the People’s

Center demonstrated the commitment of the tribal council to the Karuk culture and in particular to the preservation and use of cultural materials critical to the history, education, and ongoing practice of ceremony. Of particular note is the selection of museum professionals from the Center’s inception – the first center director was the late

Fred Nahwoosky of the Smithsonian (March 2002 through March 2005), followed by

Leo Carpenter Jr. with a graduate certificate in museum studies (April 2005 through July

2006). Archaeologist David Wrobleski, M.A., RPA, served as director from June 2007 through June 2008, but his background and focus in archaeology apparently was not the best fit for the Center’s museum focus.

The small collection is a mixture of purchased, donated, and loaned items, and is not large. Although it has not been systematically or consistently catalogued to date, the collection is estimated at less than 500 objects including baskets, lithics, ground stone, and ceremonial regalia. The collection also includes contemporary regalia—dance necklaces, at least one dance dress, otter quivers—created with grant-funded cultural programs. Fortunately, the building itself was designed to address archival storage and display. The collection room is locked and secure with powder-coated steel compact shelving, and the redwood custom display cases have incorporated barriers to protect from off gassing and acidity. However, the cases are very difficult and heavy to open, and are fixed in place. Critical issues with the physical facility are the limited storage space

124 and risk of natural disaster from fire and flood, as wildfires occur frequently during summer months, and flooding can be severe during winter storm events.

During spring 2009, I became acquainted with the People’s Center when contacted by tribal staff about a recurring pest infestation in the gallery. At the time I was working as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Wiyot Tribe, and had recently hosted a workshop on basket care and conservation for local tribal and mainstream museums. Damage was observed in the organic materials, particularly basketry and dance regalia. After some discussion, I suggested freezing the materials, and subsequent monitoring with sticky traps and regular housekeeping. At that time the Center had been without a director since December 2008, and was actively seeking candidates for the position. The remoteness of the area had proved a challenge for recruiting qualified applicants. Working with the Karuk Tribe offered an opportunity to experience a culture that had retained its lineage of ceremonial life, language, and cultural practices; the

Karuk were also actively involved in contemporary issues that impacted cultural identity and community well-being. During that summer, I began to seriously consider applying for the position and relocating to Happy Camp; I accepted the position in October 2009.

The recurring pest infestation continued to be a challenge during my first months. During the summer, the problem had reappeared and been treated with

Naphthalene and Para dichlorobenzene. The use of these pesticides had not only proved ineffective, but posed a risk to human health: both chemicals are fumigants and must be present in high concentration to be effective, concentrations that can be dangerous for anyone exposed to them. Pepperwood leaves had also been used extensively, but with little success. Thus, my first task was to implement Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

125 procedures, recognizing that there would be no easy or quick solution. This approach relies primarily on non-chemical means (such as controlling climate, food sources, and building entry points) to prevent and manage pest infestation. Chemical treatments are used only in a crisis situation threatening rapid losses or when pests fail to succumb to more conservative methods.

The combination of freezing, thorough cleaning of display cases and items, sticky traps for detection, replacement of supports with archival materials, and regular housekeeping procedures has apparently been successful. No further damage has been observed. Anoxic fumigation remains an option as needed for further pest management.

This approach is apparently acceptable to the tribe; the Karuk are inherently practical in their approaches to problem solving, and although they may prefer the “traditional” use of pepperwood leaves, the goal of preservation allows for non-traditional proven methods.

The middle of the gallery is devoted to an effective and pleasing exhibit of an old dugout canoe with a backdrop of rough-hewn boards and river rock (Figure 5). This display also posed some issues for proper and respectful care. Most apparent was the condition of the dugout, which was cracking without support and under the artificially dry conditions of the gallery.

The dugout had apparently survived several years of hard use in a school playground, but was now literally falling apart on the concrete floor. This situation is being resolved by fabricating a cradle that will secure the form and relieve the stress points. The rocks were also removed as recommended by a 2008 CAP assessment noting the risk of harboring dust and pests.

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FIGURE 5. Karuk dugout showing damage

In the Karuk world, the health of the dugout is not limited to its physical structure. A Karuk canoe is fashioned from a solid redwood log and is imbued with human spirit and form—heart, lungs, kidneys—and the spirit of the living tree from which it came. The canoes were traded from the downriver Yurok, on whose territory the giant redwoods grew (anonymous personal communication, September 13, 2010). Thus the canoe is the locus of both the Karuk sense of Center ownership and an altar for expressing this reverence for a living spirit. This community attention has taken a number of forms – an oar, a cigarette on a daily basis, offerings of kíshvuuf (“Indian celery,” sweet cicely), a root used for medicine and spiritual practice.

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Kíshvuuf root is often dug in the rocky and steep hillsides upriver in the spring, when the edible leaves sprout and the roots swell. The old root in the canoe was by this time dry with pieces broken off and taken by visitors. During this spring, new kíshvuuf was brought into the gallery—a specimen dug with great effort, with considerable size and weight, and with soil clinging to an entanglement of roots resembling mandrake—and placed in the canoe, as shown in Figure 6.

FIGURE 6. Kishvoof root in dugout

Introducing this type of organic material into the gallery challenged strict best museum practices, and challenged IPM efforts by potentially bringing in the very pests we had been working to eradicate. Yet, given the importance of both the kíshvuuf to

Karuk spiritual practice and the connection of the canoe to the community itself, a careful and nuanced approach was required. I decided to closely monitor the canoe, root, and

128 surrounding area. The root has not led to any unforeseen problems, but has resulted in increased interest and use of the Center, and not infrequently a powerful and pleasant scent, one that pervades the entire gallery. To avoid breaking off pieces of the root, the gift shop clerk keeps a supply of root available to all who ask. The root is burned as purification and blessing, much as smudging with sage or sweetgrass, but not in the gallery itself.

The Center regularly loans regalia for ceremony, a standard practice in many tribal museums, and one that supports ongoing cultural practices and respects that these living spirits should be danced for their own well being. Yet, a system and policy was not in place or consistently used for ceremonial (and other) loans. Requests were often last- minute, using a standard form for checking out equipment and vehicles, and placing the collection at some risk. Working with the Advisory Committee, new loan forms and policies were developed and then presented to Tribal Council for review in early summer

2010. Conditional approval was given, providing at least temporary guidelines for loans during the summer ceremonial season (typically from May through mid-September). This structural change presented some challenges and resistance, but has worked smoothly so far. Refinements to these policies, i.e. eliminating damage during transport as shown in

Figure 7, can be easily addressed. Cataloging the collection will streamline process, along with condition reports, and tracking of loaned items.

Loans are approved only for those materials that are: 1) not too fragile for use; and 2) without restrictions by the donor or lender. Regalia do incur damage from handling (and in past years from pest infestations). Any damage is noted on the return of the loan, and the appropriate regalia maker makes any needed repairs. As with the use

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FIGURE 7. Loaned necklace showing damage

and handling of gender-specific dance regalia, these repairs are made according to cultural protocols that restrict handling of men’s regalia by women, and all regalia during a woman’s moon time. These restrictions have been followed during the past year.

The complex of world renewal ceremonies called pikyavish, celebrates and reaffirms the Karuk responsibility to fix the world, a responsibility that requires fixing social relationships with all life. To the uninitiated and the outsider, the layers of meaning and indeed of healing are easily missed. To Karuk people, the world will not be right(ed) until these ceremonies are done together, correctly, and with a good heart. They must also be held in the sacred places chosen by the Ikxareyava, using regalia seen as symbolic to the untrained observer, but alive in the Native world as spiritual embodiment and transformation of spirit beings. Much of this regalia were alienated from Karuk people when “the stars fell” and whether by trickery, theft, or desperation removed to

130 ethnographic museum collections. One of these cultural beings is the wolfskin housed in the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

According to archival accession records housed at the Hearst Museum,

Anthropologist Alfred Kroeber purchased the Karuk wolfskin in 1902 as part of a larger purchase of cultural and sacred items from Humboldt County entrepreneur Alexander

Brizard. First finding fortune by supplying dry goods to the miners and settlers in northwestern California, Brizard also discovered the lucrative national market for baskets made by the Yurok, Karuk, and Hupa women. From museum records and archival photographs, the Brizard Store also offered sacred regalia used in ceremony and doctoring. According to Karuk elders and cultural practitioners (personal communications, September 2010), Brizard bought and traded as many as he could from

Indians in a time of little choice, and sold them at prices we can only envy today.

Both deerskin and wolfskin perform roles in the White Deerskin Dance, a ceremony perhaps more accurately named the Obsidian Dance (see Figure 8). The following belief/teaching is from the Weitchpus village, as represented by one high dance family (anonymous personal communication, September 14, 2010). Large obsidian blades are used to symbolically “cut” the dancer, releasing disease and discord. This cleansing of the individual is essential before participating in the Jump Dance to fix the larger community (village).

White Deer (spirit transformations of Ikxareyava) come to eat and remove what is released; headbands of curved sea lion teeth pull out what attempts to hide. To

“fix the world” you must first fix yourself; only then can the larger social world be

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FIGURE 8. Karuk White Deerskin Dance before 1900.

Source: Karuk People’s Center. n.d. Photo: Karuk White Deerskin Dance before 1900. Happy Camp, CA: Karuk People’s Center. Image courtesy Karuk Tribe. Any alteration of image other than routine cropping must be approved in advance. Printed with permission.

healed. It is not a closed system, but an on-going discourse and process involving the very essence of spiritual practice, as described below:

The discourse on fixing the world includes dialogues on most of the largest-order questions of the day: life and death, language, gender, politics, identity, spirituality, survival, freedom…It is a master discourse that encourages dialogues on all of the culture and all of life for those who enter into it…Their function is to foment negotiation – even in violent forms – creating and recreating, renewing a discourse that is endless and, really, timeless. It has gone on, has been done, in northwestern California ever since the First People took it up in the beforetime. [Buckley 2002:278-279]

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The importance of pikyavish cannot be overstated; neither can the training and strength needed to participate. Regalia such as the wolf skin are integral to continuing these Karuk spiritual practices and the well-being of the larger community, and have been regularly borrowed from PAHMA for the Deerskin Dance. Despite the known presence of pesticides, legend is that after the first loan, the pesticide levels were lower, following cultural care as described by Leaf Hillman:

They told us it was contaminated with something, but I told them that we would fix it ourselves, and we did. The first time we brought him home (back to Orleans) to dance at Tishawnik … I took him into the sacred sweathouse, where he stayed with the priest for the entire ceremony except when he came out to dance. These so called “objects” are our relations, they are living beings, who are spirit people just like us. We must not treat these living beings in a disrespectful way, like they are contaminated, and therefore kept apart from humans. The most common way to purify human beings when they are contaminated, either physically or spiritually, is by way of the “sweat.” Both the “wet” sweat (steam & heat ) and the “dry” sweat (heat & smoke) are utilized to good effect in this process. Additional purification methods include the use of medicinal plants along with spoken formulas. The Wolf was purified utilizing both the wet and the dry sweat over the course of a 10 day period. [Leaf Hillman, personal communication, September 13, 2010]

Native American Collections Manager Natasha Johnson notes that the wolf skin has been loaned three times to her knowledge; after the last loan in 2009, it came back infested with dermestid beetles and was treated by freezing. To my knowledge this was not communicated to the tribe.

The preservation and care of Karuk baskets is of great importance in the

Center collection policies and procedures. One example of this concern was the acceptance of IPM procedures including anoxic fumigation if needed. Ceremonial hats are regularly “danced,” but are not used if they are fragile or brittle with age (see Figure

9). These older baskets are valued for their educational information, such as technique,

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FIGURE 9. Baskets from the People’s Center collection. The basket on the right is too fragile to be loaned.

materials, and design. In these cases, the goal is preservation for contemporary and future weavers, and for community enjoyment.

Contemporary basketweavers benefit from the collection, from the Center’s weekly basketweaving classes, from Spring and Fall Basketweaver’s Gatherings hosted by the People’s Center, and by a number of grant funded-programs. The Center responds to requests for information on basket care, and provides workshops on cleaning and care of family baskets. Community members frequently ask the Center how to care for and preserve family treasures, using modern methods as appropriate.

There are times when baskets complete their own life cycle. In the pre-contact past, baskets were retired when they became worn or damaged, and new ones woven to take their place. Baskets were also intimate personal items – the weaver dreaming the design, weaving in prescribed ways and times, and always with prayer and a good heart.

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A woman’s basket hat was made to fit her own form and was a prized possession. Cradle baskets were also made for children at different stages in their growth and not reused.

These old ways may be changing and evolving, but in some situations they remain. When one of the full blood-elders passed, her basket cap that had been loaned to the Center was returned to the family to be buried with her. At the time, there were no written policies in place for either formal deaccessioning or for recording the return of loans; drafting collections management policies is one more priority for the Center.

Relationships with the Mainstream Museum World

The Karuk experience with mainstream museums has most frequently involved visits for NAGPRA consultation and documentation. The dialogue begun with these institutions provides an opportunity for cultural protocols to be brought to their attention; however the tone of these conversations has varied significantly with the participants, and over time, can change dramatically. Distrust and defensiveness in years past has derailed open communication between museum and tribal staff. During the past year, this has shifted to a more candid, proactive, and collaborative relationship with some museums. Of particular note is recent Karuk experience with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Earlier meetings ended with little progress or development of mutual respect/trust. New staff and attitudes allow for an ongoing relationship that is being explored, and assumes mutual goals for the stewardship of

Karuk collections. Similar conversations are beginning with the Southwest Museum,

Fowler Museum, San Diego Museum of Man, and Smithsonian museums.

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On a regional level, the tribe has worked with the Clarke Historical Museum in Eureka, California, on a number of projects. In March 2008, the museum hosted the

Institute of Museum and Library Services funded workshop “Basket Care and

Conservation: Honoring Native Weaving Traditions” featuring museum professionals Dr.

Georgia Fox of California State University Chico and Molly Gleeson from the San Diego

Museum of Man. Several local tribes participated, including Karuk weavers and staff.

The tribe also consulted with the Clarke Museum on its voluntary repatriation of sensitive cultural objects in its collection. During the past year, the tribe has been partnering on the development of an exhibition of Karuk People and Culture entitled Pi’êep káru Payêem

(Long Ago and Now). This provides the opportunity for determining content, interpretation, and direct Karuk voice in presentation. The process has not been easy or without delay, however both groups are learning how to work together.

One component of this project has been the incorporation of Karuk language into the displays, and has also provided the opportunity for language speakers and elders to see and reconnect with the museum’s Native American collection and to spark discussion of the objects in the native tongue. These sessions are being videotaped, and will enhance both the final exhibition and the Karuk language program. At the Spring

Basketweaver’s Gathering, the “Speaker’s Circle” used the Center collections in the same fashion—speaking only in Karuk, elders selected, handled, and discussed a variety of baskets—their Karuk names, uses, weavers and so forth in the typically lively and teasing

Karuk fashion. This event was also videotaped for the language program archives.

Another “Speaker’s Circle” is planned for this fall’s Basketweavers Gathering.

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One success story in Karuk/museum discourse was the March 2008 consultation with the National Museum of the American Indian. The format for discussion between NMAI collections staff and Karuk community members was an hour- long video conference facilitated by former Center Director and NMAI staff member

Fred Nahwoosky. The ten Karuk participants were basketweavers Paula McCarthy,

Kathy McCovey, and Jennifer Goodwin; tribal council members Sonny Davis, Alvis

Johnson, and Leaf Hillman; and Karuk staff members Erin Hillman, Holly Hensher, and

Robert Goodwin. The Karuk representatives selected objects to view and discuss, focusing on pairs and sets of sacred regalia used in ceremony and dances.

During the session, the Karuk group closely examined each set of materials, asking NMAI for close ups of the construction and design elements. Karuk participants asked NMAI staff questions regarding the history of pesticide use and testing for toxics, the materials used in storage mounts, and object provenance. The importance of naming, of identifying the objects accurately was discussed, using descriptors in Karuk and

English languages, and providing NMAI staff with valuable information for updating their catalog records. Information was also offered on respectful storage and handling protocols, and gender and access restrictions. The importance of linking “sets” of objects in museum records, respecting their ceremonial life, was reiterated by the Karuk members throughout the session – focusing on obsidian dance blades; Jump Dance baskets and head rolls; Deerskin Dance hooks, hangars, and blinders; Rock Packer quivers; men’s aprons; and Ghost Dance coat and trousers. The description of a deer fetus as a “fetish” was particularly inaccurate and to some degree offensive. Leaf requested that it be completely wrapped and access restricted on a need-to-know basis.

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“Videoconference of NMAI Karuk Collections with Community Members” is remembered as a very positive experience in tribal/museum relations, working to dispel distrust and beginning an ongoing conversation on Karuk collections care and management. This dialogue will likely transform into repatriation of sacred items, however in this initial connection the focus was on sharing information. The NMAI received valuable updates for their catalogue records and collection care protocols; the

Karuk community was able to view cultural treasures and gain valuable information on their condition, design, and construction. The conversation continues and an on-site visit is planned for early 2011, spurred by the recent large repatriation of sacred items from

NMAI to the neighboring Yurok Tribe. According to Yurok NAGPRA coordinator Buffy

McQuillen, although their claim took a long time, the NMAI staff was great to work with

(personal communication August 2010).

Although beyond the scope of this research, repatriation of cultural items remains a priority for the Karuk people. With the dispossession of Karuk people and their material culture, few ceremonial items remain in Native hands, hampering the ability to perform the ceremonies to bring the world back into balance. This agenda raises issues of caring for items returned to the tribe. The adage “the devil is in the details” is illustrated by the nearly year-long discussion of a draft repatriation policy for the People’s Center.

Following revisions by the Advisory Committee, the draft has gone to the Tribal Council for review, and discussion is ongoing.

Within the tribe there are differing opinions on how returned ceremonial items are to be handled. Some consider these items the property of dance leaders, to be returned to those dance families. Others consider repatriated materials the property of the tribe for

138 the entire community to use and study. Such decisions will be made in the context of the dance politics informing contemporary ceremonial life. Such intertribal struggles are not easily resolved, and it is doubtful that consensus will be reached. Of paramount importance is maintaining the neutrality and evenhandedness of Center collections management policies, a situation requiring clear and unequivocal direction from the

Tribal Council.

Qualitative and Quantitative Data: Community Responses

Interested Karuk staff and community members were encouraged to participate in a written and verbal survey on tribal perspectives addressing collections care and tribal/museum relations. As mentioned in Chapter VI, the survey was closely modeled on the questions and format developed for the Phoebe Hearst Museum. The timing for survey distribution was unfortunate, since summer months are the ceremonial season during which many “culture bearers” are in seclusion or training for the dances.

The process was somewhat facilitated by offering a prize – all those who answered the survey were entered into a drawing for a Pendleton blanket.

Seven surveys have been completed to date. The inclusion of direct personal interviews enhanced the process, allowing more qualitative data and accurate responses.

Through these discussions I began to realize the shortcomings of the survey itself, leading to unease for tribal participants created both by unfamiliar terminology and limited experience with both tribal and mainstream museums. Some respondents approached the survey as a “test” without realizing that there are no “wrong answers.” Survey results are summarized as follows:

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Tribal descendant Yukon Sakota has worked at the Center for one year, primarily as the gift shop clerk, but also helping with (and receiving on-the-job training) in collections management, and in exhibit design and fabrication. Her devotion to Karuk culture and heritage preservation has led to interest in learning museum practices from both tribal and mainstream museum perspectives. She sees the mission of the People’s

Center as cultural revitalization and research, preservation of cultural resources, public education, tribal archives, and community outreach. She was aware of the scope, size, and provenance of the Center collection, and its value for ongoing cultural practices and education, but was not aware of any written policy on traditional care practices.

Yukon summarized the differences between standard and Native approaches as “standard practice is very sterile and unemotional whereas native belief is that some

“objects” are living entities and should be treated accordingly.” Once again the dugout canoe is referenced – needing a “drink’ of water (it is dry and cracking), the dance necklaces “felt happier after being danced.” Mainstream care and handling procedures focus on cleanliness and secure archival storage. Although the Center and mainstream museums share a historical focus and facility design elements, mainstream museums tend to be sterile, non-interactive, and without connection to the community. Mainstream museums should support tribal communities by increased involvement, networking, seminars, and loans.

Asked to discuss the challenges and opportunities for tribal/museum relations,

Yukon felt that the challenge is to balance “the need to preserve things with the peoples’ belief and want that some items be used or not used in certain ways. There is opportunity for everyone to learn and work together better.” By balancing culturally respectful care

140 with good preservation practices, the Center is in “a kind of middle ground.” Integrating the two approaches in the mainstream world will require communication, mutual respect, more collaboration, education, and again finding that middle ground.

The final questions of this survey were tailored specifically to the mission and relevance of the Karuk People’s Center. Yukon feels that the Center supports cultural as well as historical preservation; functions as spiritual and educational center for Karuk people; and instills pride and a sense of ownership. The community comes together in sobriety sweats at the Center; the gallery offers a sacred space for prayer and offerings of tobacco and kíshvuuf. Community connection and involvement remains a central theme in detailing the Center’s mission, a goal realized with hands-on and interactive displays, educational and interpretive displays incorporating Karuk language (and featuring a

“word of the month” supplied by the language department), and by youth programs.

According to this respondent, “community” should be broadly defined, welcoming the

Native and non-Native audiences that share life on the river. However, Karuk culture must be privileged in this discussion, with the collection reconnecting the Native community to “something larger.”

Yukon recognizes that achieving these goals at the People’s Center is not without its challenges. “Living spirits” and their place in Karuk life can be compromised by power plays and museum or dance family politics. Withholding regalia for ceremony impacts the well-being of the entire community. These are ancient discourses and disputes, the stuff of “fix-the-world” responsibilities in a contemporary context, and a serious topic of discussion in the Karuk community. Ever present are the realities of the rural Karuk service areas, communities who are focused on “getting something” to

141 assuage the deep poverty of the region, a deprivation of resources and knowledge with physical, emotional, spiritual, and geographic dimensions.

Long-term staff member Erin Hillman reiterated the role of the Center as a place to display Karuk material culture, including collections that may come home, with a mission to preserve cultural resources and build tribal archives. The Center is both advocate for repatriation and cultural understanding and educator that is helping Karuk people learn and take pride in their culture. The Center is tangible expression of Tribal

Council support for cultural preservation, an affirmation of tribal commitment to safe and secure stewardship of Karuk heritage. Erin noted that “what is important to me is important to them.” Erin would like to see the community (both Native and non-Native) share this commitment by using Center services and resources to their full potential.

Although both mainstream and tribal museums have a shared mission for preservation through climate control, IPM, archival storage/display mounts, and both use exhibitions to interpret cultural heritage, there remains an underlying disconnect in the different perspectives of ownership. According to Erin, “Living things (are) not objects that can be owned.” Tribal people have the opportunity and responsibility to communicate these native values to mainstream museums. Because mainstream museums are eager to know more about their Native American collections, this discussion will benefit both parties. Obstacles remain – automatic tribal distrust of museum motives

(open discussion with NMAI was possible only after several visits), are combined with defensive postures of mainstream museum staff. Erin suggests that these attitudes are the result of museum fears of Indians.

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Again, repatriation issues heighten this interaction. NAGPRA requires museums to be more respectful of tribal perspectives and experiences, and to recognize the different conversations resulting from repatriation efforts. Indian people were often forced to give up their culture to survive, to trade their culture for food, and seeing this heritage in museum collections proves to be emotionally charged. Erin hopes that museum professionals can come to understand how “these things that were taken the wrong way, what that really means to native people … anthropologists may have turned the corner and understand how this taking of cultural items impacts the native people.”

She also reflects that the People’s Center now has the opportunity and ability to recover this heritage, “to show the richness of Karuk culture and history, contemporary and ongoing, to use things for ceremony.”

The Center’s collections management practices are able to incorporate traditional environmental stewardship using natural elements (pepperwood leaves for insect control, cedar and redwood for storage) with scientific mainstream treatments that rely on acid-free materials and barriers. Although unfamiliar with details, mainstream practices focusing on careful handling, maintaining integrity of shape and condition, and diminishing the potential for damage can be adapted to cultural care practices, particularly in the care of older materials. “The Center should use traditional care first; if that doesn’t work, then use other treatments.”

Erin responded to the question of challenges and opportunities for tribal/museum relationships with the following observations. She sees the challenges as the ability to recognize and mediate contesting knowledges. There remains a disconnect between objects as “living spirits” and a mainstream sense of ownership; between native

143 stewardship of the sacred versus scientific procedures as the best way. “Both sides have to be willing to give, to compromise, to listen to us and allow us to be part of the decision-making. Museums shouldn’t feel threatened by tribal people. They need to not be defensive, need to understand and want to understand. Keep talking, work together on projects, develop trust, and put these ideas to the test.”

Other respondents shared similar perspectives, emphasizing the role of the

Center in the perpetuation of Karuk living culture, and its importance as a tool for education and research. Basket weaver and teacher Verna Reece, also a member of the

Advisory Committee, values having the Center collection available locally for teaching and learning. Verna has also worked with mainstream museums demonstrating weaving at California State Museum in Sacramento, the Smithsonian, and the Clarke Historical

Museum. Verna observes that “the community enjoys seeing our stuff … the displays show that Karuk have been part of the bigger society from way back, like the timeline.”

The Karuk Lands Management Timeline is displayed in the People’s Center, traces environmental stewardship issues and impacts in the Klamath Basin from 1850 to the present, and incorporates contemporary art from local Native youth.

Verna stresses that issues of repatriation cannot be ignored in museum/tribal relations, noting that “they have our stuff and we don’t.” She urges museums to “share the wealth” instead of keeping collections on backroom shelves and drawers, and to be more open to loans and repatriation. These collections can be used to educate Karuk people, to make new baskets, to bring the dispossessed back to dance again.

Mainstream practices and Karuk collections care are not incompatible.

Integrated pest management procedures allow freezing and, if needed, anoxic fumigation,

144 but not chemical pesticides. Verna mentioned that pepperwood leaves did not work in controlling the basket infestation. However oils from (clean) hands keep baskets supple and soaproot brushes are useful for cleaning. Verna is comfortable soaking new (but not older) baskets in water for cleaning and restoring suppleness, a weaving process that would likely horrify most museum conservators.

Advisory Committee member André Cramblit expresses the differences in native and standard museum practices in terms of ceremonial and sacred objects, noting

“there is a culture standard that must be considered. Many items are sacred, sometimes can only be touched by men or women or medicine people. Some items must be allowed to be used in ceremonies, some items need to be sang to or prayed over.” These procedures need to be incorporated into the collection and preservation policies of both mainstream and tribal museums. André adds, “Most (museums) have been cautious but helpful (and) willing to be a cooperative partner.”

The proverbial “elephant in the room” is the risk to human health and safety of pesticide contamination. Until effective mitigation is developed, many sacred items cannot be used, and safely handled only with such personal protective equipment as nitrile gloves and HEPA filtered masks. Collections of repatriated items are suspect until tested, and the presence of contaminants only adds insult to earlier injury. For tribal elder and council member Alvis Johnson, instituting culturally sensitive protocols in mainstream museum collections is problematic, since these materials may have a history of disrespectful handling that requires purification before such protocols would have meaning.

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Susan Gehr also serves on the Advisory Committee; both Susan and André are also members of the Karuk Language Restoration Committee. Susan received her Master of Arts Degree in Linguistics and is currently enrolled in the San Jose State University

Graduate Program in Library and Information Science. She worked closely with linguist

William Bright, coauthoring the Karuk Dictionary with him. With her graduate school cohort, she has drafted a strategic plan for the Karuk People’s Center, and has been instrumental in developing and refining written Center policies.

Susan agrees with other respondents on the educational focus of the Center as a “place where people can learn about Karuk culture, (providing) classes, instruction, storage, display, gift shop with things that say Karuk.” Education keeps culture dynamic and helps discredit Native American stereotypes. Center focus should be on living culture, ceremonial life, and contemporary art and people. While both mainstream and tribal centers use exhibitions as interpretive tools and promote studies of cultural elements, Susan suggests that tribal centers employ fewer levels of bureaucracy and offer more hands-on classroom training. The lack of written policies can be problematic, particularly in her personal experience returning a loan for burial in the absence of the

Center director and without established process.

Our discussion of the collection inevitably led to the subject of repatriation, with Susan reflecting on both the limited size and scope of the Center collection, and on the impact of NAGPRA mandates for tribal/museum dialogue. It is this opportunity for

“consultation” that has opened communication on collections care practices, most effectively on a face-to-face basis. That dialogue must move beyond conflict, requiring that neither side overreact to challenging statements or “when hard things are said.”

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Karuk cultural material needs to come home when possible. “It is a rough and tumble life we have, as do those things. Now they get to do their jobs.”

Susan characterized the different museum approaches by noting that “standard museums don’t normally think of the collections as living beings that need to participate in their culture. They also may preserve thing in ways that aren’t appropriate (pesticides) or interrupt their natural life span.” Susan was not able to further comment on traditional care practices, since she grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and that knowledge is not evenly distributed throughout the tribal community. She does have baskets in her home, but is not sure how to care for them, both in a culturally respectful framework and for long-term preservation. Another purchased basket cap was suspected of pesticide contamination and subsequently sold to a local dealer.

Terry Tripp creates women’s (and with permission) men’s regalia, and teaches the weekly women’s culture class at the People’s Center. Over the summer her class made hair wraps and dance necklaces, and has completed a woman’s dance dress and apron for the permanent collection and ceremonial loan (Figure 10).

Terry uses both old and new materials, and will often dream her designs “like a color picture in my mind”; upon waking she draws them for later use. Although she sells (as well as gifts) her regalia, “I want regalia to go to those with good feelings and who will treat it well.” She also teaches how to care for the regalia, mentioning cultural protocols involving gender, moon time, and disrespectful talk. Old time Indians would put away dance regalia until used for ceremony, however Terry and the Center encourages displaying dance items for enjoyment and education, insuring that they are kept safe and clean.

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FIGURE 10. Terry’s granddaughter, Isabell Gomez, wearing the completed dance dress and a dance cap from the Center’s collection

Source: Photograph courtesy Terry Rompon. Any alteration of image other than routine cropping must be approved in advance. Reprinted with permission.

Terry values the People’s Center for bringing cultural treasures to the local area so Karuk people don’t have to travel long distances, and also for providing the classes and gatherings to bring the community in touch with their heritage and with each other. “A lot would have died away if we couldn’t see our past…what our relatives did.”

Terry was born and raised in Somes Bar near Katamin (center of the Karuk world), attended Sherman Indian Boarding School in Riverside, California, and has also lived in

Hawaii, and around Humboldt Bay, California. When far from home, Terry regularly

148 sought out museums, expressing that “going to museums is calming, a sense of home, a sense of place, and place where I belong.” Yet in those museums, one isn’t allowed to use the collection; by comparison the People’s Center provides the community with regalia needed to perform the ceremonies essential to Karuk worldview and community well being.

Frank Kanawha Lake, a Karuk descendant, works as a research ecologist for the USDA Forest Service, Southwest Research Station, Orleans/Redding, California.

Frank’s academic career includes a Bachelor of Science degree in Integrated Ecology and

Culture from University of California Davis, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences with an ecology emphasis from Oregon State University. His research focus includes: fire history/ecology, ethnobotany, fire effects on aquatic systems and fisheries, and traditional ecological knowledge of tribal cultures in northwestern California and the southern

Pacific Northwest. Frank’s graduate research focused on conducting oral history interviews with tribal elders, studying riparian sandbar willow prescribed fire experiments for enhancement of basketry material for tribal weavers, and documenting changes in historical vegetation associated with fire suppression/exclusion that impacted tribal cultural use quality in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. Throughout his academic and professional career, Frank has continued to participate in Karuk ceremonial and cultural life, with a focus on cultural subsistence activities.

With his background in Western sciences as well as Karuk ethno-ecology,

Frank acknowledges both preservation based collections management and the role of

“living artifacts” in ongoing cultural life (Figure 11). Within the context of the mainstream museum, he has advocated for culturally sensitive protocols, including

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FIGURE 11. Cooking acorn soup at the Fall 2010 Basketweavers Gathering.

culturally appropriate handling restrictions and storage/display of sacred materials. Frank suggests that museum/tribal relations can be improved with proactive community engagement, and he offered several suggestions for building effective partnerships.

Museums should facilitate visits by tribal artists and practitioners for physical handling and examination of collections, bring items out of storage for research, and the return of culturally important materials to their home territories and communities. Museums might also develop positive relationships with tribal communities by providing opportunities for

“living exhibitions” with demonstrations of various cultural practices and traditions,

150 employing tribal members and specialists to share their knowledge, and encouraging museum staff to take part in cultural activities.

Those who did participate in the survey represent a group closely connected to

Karuk culture practices and also familiar with Center operations. The ability to follow up the written survey with personal interviews provided an in-depth discussion of tribal perspectives on collections care and on tribal/museum relations. Chapter IX will evaluate the case studies of the Phoebe Hearst Museum and the Karuk People’s Center within the theoretical framework of “contested arenas” of the borderlands, where the two knowledges meet.

CHAPTER IX

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Returning to my original thesis statement and theoretical framework, and documenting the experiences of the Phoebe Hearst Museum and People’s Center, I find markedly different approaches to the somewhat mythical “borderlands” of competing and contested knowledges. In the following discussion, I preface my observations with acknowledged personal biases: 1) a long relationship with University of California

Berkeley, in particular the Department of Anthropology; and 2) a year-long tenure with the Karuk Tribe as the People’s Center Coordinator, where I am currently employed.

Although attempting neutrality, personal experience invariably colors those interactions.

Phoebe Hearst Native American Collections Manager Natasha Johnson has expressed both personal responsibility for the collection, a willingness to listen to Native concerns, a commitment to incorporate culturally sensitive practices, and the recognition that the PAHMA may be “stalled” in implementing cultural protocols and partnering with indigenous communities to rework collections management practices. There has been some progress – gender and other access restrictions are noted in the storage area, and sacred items are stored and handled according to tribal protocols. However, there appear to be difficulties in updating the catalog to reflect object records revised to incorporate tribal protocols. Also, although tribal groups are able to visit and research the collection, scheduling requires considerable advance notice and coordination.

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As with many other museums, the opportunities for collaboration are often limited to NAGPRA visits. While these visits may offer valuable information on specific objects and their handling, they do little to build an ongoing conversation and the trust needed to sustain those relationships. The recent staff reorganization does not seem to have resulted in significant changes in tribal/museum relations, despite the addition of a

Native American liaison. From a tribal perspective, indications of renewed commitment to Native American outreach and partnerships have not materialized. In fact, there is little positive communication between staff and tribal communities, and local tribes continue to express their frustration with the museum. There has been some contact and consultation with tribes for loaning objects used in temporary exhibitions and in ceremony, but these programs are not well publicized or extensive. For the Karuk, the goal is to repatriate rather than request loans of items that are sacred or ceremonial.

Whether deserved or not, the museum continues to suffer a reputation as “butt heads,” a term more dismissive than rancorous.

Although PAHMA has a legacy of mistrust to overcome, long-term staff members recognize and support a mandate for change in museum practices from interpretation to collections management. What is holding this progress hostage is not easily unwrapped. Various institutional forces have been suggested: from the research focus of the collection itself, to the administrative oversight structure, to the budget constraints, to the need for visionary leadership, to politicized decision-making. What informs the process is a “corporate culture” that is, to some extent, unconscious; bureaucracies that discourage flexibility and creativity; a penchant for paperwork and detail that discourages native participation.

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The situation is unfortunate since many good beginnings and ideas have come through and from PAHMA. The survey used for this research is one such attempt whose goal was to better inform museum staff on culturally sensitive collections care. The lack of response was disheartening, and suggested further investigation. Native groups have also suggested partnering to redesign the museum’s outdated Native California exhibitions. Although the idea was well received, there has been no follow up. Staff member Natasha Johnson suggested providing loans to tribal museums with the requisite display cases and mounts; again this has not been pursued by the museum. More regional meetings and visits have been proposed, allowing native communities in remote areas greater access to museum staff. This idea has been implemented only in response to tribal concerns with repatriation restructuring. Although a new museum director was hired this year, the Karuk Tribe has not received any notice or invitation for non-NAGPRA consultation. From the Karuk and other tribal perspectives, there have been some promises but little action or apparent change.

The theoretical framework used in my research sought to evaluate these two museums as “contested arenas reflecting and engaging the larger sociopolitical landscape.

Within this forum, the stakeholder communities collide, negotiate, and reinvent themselves in an ongoing process of cultural transformation.” My findings, however, indicate that this dialogue has yet to yield the results predicted. The conversations appear more contained within museum walls, rather than engaging voices from the outside in figurative borderlands and contested arenas. The “meeting area” defined by bell hooks is not yet on the mainstream museum map. That discourse requires both resources and time, and an institutional commitment to prioritize partnerships with Native Americans in all

154 aspects of the museum. In fact, a review of museum exhibitions and programs showed a calendar of Egyptian and Roman exhibitions, and also featured brewing in a cross- cultural context. Grant funding could provide resources to bring non-local and non- gaming tribes to the table, and to the museum itself. Alternately, funding could also bring museum staff to Indian country, breaking down barriers of privilege and perceived elitism. Working and networking with other mainstream university museums could be another option for positive movement.

Effective change is process not product, and depends not only on the commitment of the people involved, but also on structural change for ongoing and sustained dialogue. In their landmark survey of 150 accredited U.S. museums, Elizabeth

Scott and Edward Luby (2007) found that most museum/tribal relationships were short- lived and based on discrete projects (typically NAGPRA related). Developing relationships with Native American communities that are long-lived, healthy, and sustainable requires organizational adjustments secured in written policy and procedure, and cooperative efforts from all parties.

One potential avenue for new institutional relationships is the establishment of a Native American Advisory Committee selected not by the museum but by the tribes themselves. This formalized relationship would respect tribal sovereignty and government-to-government consultation. Such codified partnerships are nothing new – they function in a myriad of political and economic spheres and increasingly in public museums, and serve to democratize entrenched hierarchies and perspectives.

Imagine a tribal group meeting officially with museum governing body, without the filter of the yet another museum staff member, discussing and determining

155 issues of education, exhibitions, programs, interpretation, and collections care. As sovereign nations and as source communities, tribes deserve and are coming to expect real and equal partnerships, and will not long remain only on the periphery of knowledge- producing institutions.

Including Native American voices is not meant to replace the museum’s fiduciary responsibility or undermine their final authority in operational questions.

Rather, the creation of spaces for relationship building can benefit all stakeholders, and provide resources as museum relevance strengthens. Instead, the comfort zone appears to be one where Indians are kept at arm’s length, with little outreach to engage tribal communities, particularly in more remote areas of California. While admonished to “keep in touch,” staff rarely responds to communications from the tribe. In a recent inquiry regarding pesticide testing, staff tended to react negatively, seeing a potential opportunity as a threat to internal procedures.

The Phoebe Hearst Museum is one of the oldest and largest university museums in the country. With a world-class anthropological collection, particularly in

Native California, it also appears trapped in old perspectives and mandates. Elsewhere, it has been observed that the most significant change in museological practice is coming from those museums on the “fringe,” those which are community-based, more recently established, and therefore more flexible. In some ways, they already reside in the borderlands of changing paradigms and community intercourse. They also depend on community support for their very existence. By comparison, the Phoebe Hearst answers to an academic audience largely removed from the communities whose material culture they control and study.

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From the responses received to the PAHMA survey, there remains palpable frustration and feelings of dispossession from the Native American communities contacted. A significant number of responses (10 percent) were flippant or dismissive. As one Karuk advisory committee member remarked, “PAHMA has pissed off the tribes to a point where they are reluctant to talk.”

Damage control needs to go beyond the defensive and unresponsive stance devised during recent controversies; only proactive measures can bring transparency and candid conversation into the museum itself. Mending tribal relationships will take time; there must be a willingness to make and admit mistakes. There will be no quick or easy solution. Otherwise, the contested arena remains an insurmountable wall rather than a borderland. The Hearst would do well to help create those spaces where different voices are heard and respected.

In contrast, at the Karuk People’s Center contested discourse is much more apparent in the development of its policies and procedures. This is partially due to my more intimate knowledge of its operations on a day-to-day basis. Competing agendas and negotiations also result from its recent beginnings, having been in existence less than a decade. As a result, the policies and procedures are in a state of development and flux, where determining what works and what doesn’t is ongoing. The climate of change and discussion also stems from high staff turnover – three directors in ten years, the position left unfilled for periods of time.

On closer inspection, other factors are determining the development of museum policies, including collections management protocols. Most apparent is the role of the community in Center decision-making. The Center is first and foremost for Karuk

157 people and their culture; however they themselves define that heritage and contemporary practice. If the Center didn’t “matter” to Karuk people, if it became irrelevant to Karuk community interests, the Center would fall into disuse. Language, basketmaking, and culture classes are held at the Center; the gallery is regularly visited by community members who take time to tell their stories, to leave offerings on the dugout, and to offer suggestions for new displays. The community reacted strongly when I removed the Karuk Vets exhibit for refurbishing. What I had assumed was a temporary Memorial

Day commemorative display was more accurately an ongoing source of pride and remembrance for the community. Tribal members regularly visit the exhibit to honor their sons, daughters, sisters and brothers, fathers, and mothers. The experience brought home the fact that I needed to rid myself of assumptions, and to ask questions and actively listen to the community before making substantive changes at the People’s

Center. Although the community reaction was a wakeup call, I came away with a respect and appreciation of this level of civic engagement, and the humility to admit my ignorance of tribal priorities and needs. Karuk people do not suffer fools gladly, even less the arrogant academics who come with preconceived notions and self-serving agendas.

Perhaps the Center reflects most accurately the Karuk culture itself, a people that embrace change for what it offers while keeping what is valued in the Indian world.

Historical antecedents of this cultural dynamism are rooted in millennia of cultural contact. Northwestern California is defined by diversity; five of the six linguistic families in California are represented in this rugged and resource rich region. Linguistic and archaeological evidence posits waves of indigenous occupation in the area; initially by

Hokan speakers (including the Karuk), subsequently by Algic migrations represented by

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Wiyot then Yurok people into the coastal regions down to Humboldt Bay, and finally by the Athapaskan Tolowa and Hupa. Ancestral lands were redefined as successive waves of new populations entered Northern California. Despite mutually unintelligible languages and separate histories, these neighboring cultures cooperated, intermarried, and developed shared material and ceremonial cultures (Jones and Klar 2007).

As boundaries were renegotiated, Native peoples became used to occupying and making livable “borderlands” where cultures met, collided, and ultimately co-existed both before and after European contact. As described by historian Marvin Cahodas,

“Dramatic changes, innovations, migrations, contacts, and so forth have occurred many times before and after first Euro-American contact; there was no single transformative event of conquest” (Cahodas 1997:76). Post-contact and contemporary borderlands are familiar spaces in this Native world of culture contact, negotiation, and reinvention.

Understanding Indian culture as adaptive and Western museums as “static” both explains the dynamic construction of tribal collections management, and effectively turns notions of “tradition” and “progress” on their heads. Although such notions risk further stereotypes and essentialized descriptions of Western and tribal cultures, it should be noted that the innovations in best museum practices have been most often technologically driven; only recently have museum mandates and core assumptions of heritage preservation been questioned.

Karuk versions of collections care thus synthesize different perspectives and approaches by maintaining culturally respectful protocols for handling while incorporating climate control, archival materials, and IPM for preservation. Although objects are “living spirits” that need to be used and danced, fragile and older baskets are

159 protected from damage. Development of a disaster preparedness plan is a staff and advisory committee priority, providing timely response in a region subject to flooding and wildfires. Funding is being sought to catalog the collection utilizing standard

PastPerfect© museum software. The Advisory Committee and Tribal Council voice strong support for implementing collections management policies including industry accessioning procedures. Paramount is the continuation of the culture itself; the collection remains part of that world with a role to perform. The Center is the steward of that sacred trust.

Voices and opinions differ in these discussions. Although consensus may not always be reached, the conversation continues and decisions are fluid. The loan policy developed by the Advisory Committee and approved by the Tribal Council is subject to review after this summer’s ceremonies. Requiring gloves for handling baskets makes little sense to contemporary basketweavers familiar with weaving materials and construction. Yet there remains recognition of special handling requirements for very old and fragile materials. In the “old days” regalia were put away after ceremony; this same regalia now remain in the permanent displays at the Center.

Conversation is now focusing on object labeling, particularly how to effectively identify the tightly woven baskets that serve both utilitarian (acorn cooking and eating bowls) and ceremonial functions (women’s basket hats). Standard museum practice has been to write the number directly (sometimes applying a base coat) on the interior of the basket, or to affix a label with little regard for the integrity of the weave.

Karuk weavers and cultural practitioners consider both methods disrespectful and unacceptable. Photographic images have limited usefulness, particularly as the collection

160 grows and is increasingly loaned for ceremony. As a result, we will be exploring other methods to identify these baskets, including Tyvek© labels attached with very thin Glide© unwaxed dental floss or Japanese paper labels attached with wheat starch paste.

The People’s Center actively engages mainstream museums in ongoing dialogue. Collaboration with the Clarke Historical Museum has built on initial repatriation consultation and documentation and on the 2008 workshop for basket care and conservation. The People’s Center and Clarke Museum are partnering for an exhibition on Karuk people and culture entitled “Pi’êep káru Payêem: Long Ago and

Now,” expressing the Karuk connection to ongoing beliefs. The project involves the tribe in all aspects of the design process from deciding the storyline to selecting objects for display. Some frustrations have emerged, specifically an initial museum reluctance to open discussion of “ownership” issues (the museum is not subject to NAGPRA), and to logistical issues of travel distances and deadlines (in the Klamath Basin, we speak of

“river time” instead of “Indian time”). The Clarke has also provided loans to the Center, most recently a basket loan for display during the 2010 Fall Karuk Basketweavers

Gathering. California State Parks has loaned baskets from its collection to the Center, and the personal contacts developed between staff will facilitate future loans.

The primacy of intangible heritage in the People’s Center cannot be overstated. What are valued, what is preserved are the “living spirits” and their role in continuing culture. The “Karuk Faces” exhibition features historical photographs

(including ceremony) that connect contemporary people to their family histories and stories. This display continues to generate excitement, pride, and identity within the

Karuk community; tribal members regularly visit the photo collection and new memories

161 and connections result. The 2010 oral history project entitled “Karuk Voices” trained and teamed Karuk student videographers with elders to produce a film of five documentaries.

The project has generated cultural appreciation and excitement both within and outside the local community. Karuk art and material culture figures prominently in the selected stories – Karuk artist Brian Tripp and basketweaver Lavene Glaze situate their work solidly in the Indian world of ceremony and everyday life.

Karuk language is interwoven with this intangible heritage. With living speakers, the Karuk language is being actively documented and taught through master apprentice programs and in public school language programs. Considerable status is attached to Karuk speakers, and this recognition promotes language learning.

Interpretative labels and object descriptions use Karuk names whenever possible. I expect to further incorporate Karuk language into object records and classificatory systems when accessioning the collection.

“Objects” also embody many histories, the “palimpsests” of successively rewritten life experiences. During this journey a treasured object may have been removed from its community, may have been mistreated, mishandled, treated with disrespect, and either figuratively or physically contaminated. Collections care must recognize these histories, and restore well-being and health. Respectful collections care may restore physical condition through cleaning and stabilization, and spiritual health through prayer and purification. In the Center, this is a collaborative effort of Native and non-Native alike, with Western and indigenous treatment working together toward shared goals.

Loaned Brush Dance otter skin quivers were visited by the borrower after being returned to archival storage. This interconnectedness (indeed the community interrelatedness) of

162 past and present, of human and other spirits, of the tangible and intangible is made anew in the Center.

Tribal museums enjoy the advantage of starting from the ground up, of looking with fresh eyes at systems that may or may not serve their needs. The misconception that indigenous communities do not change, fostered by notions of

“authenticity” and “primitivism,” serves neither mainstream nor tribal museum. Culture is process, not product, and Indian survival continues by adapting to environmental, political, and economic realities. Being Indian, living in the Indian world, is not defined by outsiders seeking to document the “traditional” Indian, but by those who live the culture. In the museum setting, those voices argue, push and pull, rethink positions. They try out ideas, try on different procedures, see how new ways work out. Policies come and go, being reviewed and reworked until they make sense.

The People’s Center is but one example of the tribal museum experience.

Other museums have their own unique collections management practices. There is no singular “traditional care” standard for tribal museums; rather stewardship is defined uniquely by the community it serves. In the contemporary Karuk experience, preservation of material heritage is one goal (with some exceptions); in other museum settings the community may allow objects to complete their life cycle without intervention. The incorporation of different approaches, of Western science with native values, is part of a larger discourse within tribal communities, one that seeks to negotiate the larger questions of what it means to be Indian today, to be Karuk, to be Makah, to be Zuni.

It is not the “things” that are at issue in this discourse. Kwakwaka’wakw linguist, filmmaker, and author Gloria Cranmer Webster points to this disconnect: “Your

163 job is to preserve those “things.” It’s our job to preserve the culture that those “things” have meaning in” (Clavir 2002:212). The contested arena of museum/tribal relations must acknowledge perspectives that prioritize ongoing cultural life over heritage preservation, and that care for objects as living spirits within this cultural life. This intimate connection with collections can only be appreciated by entering into that place in the margin, that space of resistance and recovery, and meeting together to experience and share that reality.

Ironically, in this context of redefining collections care, tribal museums have the advantage. In the process of encountering Western “scientific” museum practices, and in adopting new methods of collections management, Native people are appropriating

“tools” rather than replacing Native perspectives and worldviews. Collections management and practices at the People’s Center serve Karuk values and mission, and are renegotiated on a case-by-case basis. Preserving what is valued in this cultural landscape can take many forms—a basket cap may be preserved for future generations, may be used in ceremony, may be buried with its maker. Decisions are fluid and policies must serve the community itself.

Such flexibility is made more difficult in a mainstream museum setting where entrenched perspectives value preservation over other cultural life. Western museums embrace “heritage preservation” defined by keeping objects from damage, use, and change. Adopting Native stewardship is not only unfamiliar, privileging culture over objects challenges professional training and ethical mandates to care for tangible heritage in its own right. It is these mainstream museum professionals who will be asked to adopt

164 new perspectives and moral imperatives, changing attitudes far beyond easily implemented protocols for handling, display, and access.

The discussion has barely begun. The Phoebe Hearst Museum has yet to create the space for tribal communities to freely enter, to develop the partnerships that both bridge and erase cultural divides. There is a figurative wall that needs to be torn down, doors unlocked, communities welcomed. This forum cannot be defined solely on the dominant culture’s terms and turf. The People’s Center has embraced opportunities to engage Western museology, yet there is little understanding of what that actually means, of what defines standard museum practices. Few could describe even basics collections management practices. Principles of conservation, accessioning, and reporting that safeguard the collection need to be clearly communicated. The community needs to understand both benefits and disadvantages before making informed decisions. The questions raised in an arena of contested knowledges can only be resolved when both sides have been provided the educational tools for informed discussion.

Much work remains to promote positive discussion of changing collections care practices. Both museum and native communities must come to an understanding of differing approaches to collections care, from underlying assumptions and goals to actual implementation and methodology. Spaces must be created for different stakeholders to come together in open and candid dialogue. Commitments must be secured to an open ended and ongoing conversation, to real rather than token partnerships in museum reinvention. Finally, both human and financial resources must be dedicated to this undertaking. Museums must “walk the walk” if they are to remain relevant in the sociopolitical landscape that is challenging entrenched museological paradigms.

CHAPTER X

CONCLUDING REMARKS AND

FURTHER RESEARCH

This research focused on two case studies within a theoretical framework that situates museums as “contested arenas” in which museological practices collide, negotiate, and are reinvented. As discussed in previous chapters, the conceptual and symbolic “borderlands” of these discussions, while a useful tool for describing contemporary discourse, are impacted by the commitment and experience of the museums themselves. The sociopolitical reality of the two case studies reflect very different trajectories of museum development—one in which a largely Western institution has been (re)shaped by indigenous agendas, and the other in which an established and entrenched mainstream museum must recognize and reevaluate its most closely held assumptions and attitudes.

There is ample museological discussion of these topics, and legally mandated changes are redirecting standard practices. Anthropologists and other social scientists increasingly recognize both their own inherent biases, and the human rights issues that standard “fieldwork” methods must address. The conversation has begun to address problems with notions of “heritage preservation,” “authenticity,” “tradition,” and even

“indigeneity.” Added to these issues are the voices of communities who increasingly

165 166 demand recognition of their sovereignty, intellectual property rights, and living and dynamic cultural practices.

As discussed by Conaty (2003:227), “Museums are the product of the society that supports them.” The Phoebe Hearst Museum was shaped by the research agendas of a largely academic audience, and collections were acquired with this focus in mind. The museum continues to serve this constituency by providing the material for scholarly studies. Its unsurpassed collections form the bedrock of anthropological inquiry, within the university itself and internationally, and this scholarship supports collections management practices based on Western science and object preservation.

The People’s Center is community grown, reflecting Karuk needs for cultural revitalization and continuation. In this context, objects perform a number of roles—they provide the tangible heritage for education and study; they are participants in the intangible heritage valued by language speakers, dance leaders, and cultural practitioners; and they provide a reconnection to family stories and lineage, and to cultural memory of earlier lifeways and worldviews.

The “borderlands” of these sometimes competing knowledges remain elusive.

In the two case studies described, it is the People’s Center that most effectively and openly engages both mainstream “best museum practices” and native stewardship of its cultural heritage, both contemporary and historic, both tangible and intangible. The

Center is incorporating collections management practices that further Karuk goals of education, use, and preservation. The Phoebe Hearst Museum still occupies a “center” that is only beginning to engage the “periphery” of indigenous voices. The musuem has made some attempts to reinvent itself in a climate of Native distrust and increasing

167 pressure from stakeholder communities on both sides. Despite some token collaboration and reorganization, the museum remains stalled in meaningful partnerships or proactive procedural change. Whether the result of external pressures or internal dysfunction, this status quo appears entrenched, particularly as viewed from tribal perspectives.

What this research contributes to the literature is insight into real-life museological experiences. The workings of both tribal and mainstream museums and their responses to shifting paradigms in museology bear less resemblance to academic musings than to the sociopolitical forces that encourage or discourage change. Somewhat ironically, the ethnographically defined “static” Karuk culture demonstrated a higher degree of flexibility than a mainstream organization in which change appears defined in technological terms.

Additional research in actual museum settings, allowing adequate time to fully appreciate the nuances of unique organizational settings, will provide for informed theory and decision-making. This requires time and resources, and more thoughtful engagement than simple survey techniques. My experience in both museums reinforced my awareness that collecting data was more about museum staff than about the collections itself. Face to face interaction proved more valuable and provided more insights than communicating via phone or email. A theoretical framework privileging “borderlands” was best approached by immersing myself in those assumed arenas of contesting points of view, an area that was less open to an outside researcher than a participant.

My experience with the Phoebe Hearst was somewhat disappointing in this regard. Staff was often unavailable for candid and open discussion, and seemed distracted and overworked. Victoria Bradshaw, Director of Collections and Facilities and my direct

168 supervisor, observed that her job had become more difficult with the years; she also yearned for a strong and visionary museum director. Staff also expressed frustration at a perceived lack of support from the University itself, accompanied by little autonomy or involvement in decisions affecting the museum. The resulting climate of defensiveness and secrecy discouraged developing positive working relationships; political turmoil involving repatriation issues infected the entire organizational structure.

As a result, the survey was developed somewhat in a vacuum, and would have benefited from more discussion and collaboration. Whether the low response rate was due to inherent design flaws or to other factors, the data were insufficient for comprehensive and accurate analysis.

In the proverbial hindsight of evaluating research methodologies, more time should have been devoted to refining and testing survey questions and more follow-up should have been done after distributing the online survey. Finally, although the address list developed was as comprehensive as possible, museum and tribal staff turnover and reorganization may affect response rates; appropriate contacts should have been checked and confirmed.

Fortunately, I was provided a year-long opportunity working with the Karuk

Tribe; during this time I was able to gather the data needed for research into collections management at the People’s Center. Particularly in the Native American context, time is critical to developing trust and mutual respect. Ongoing communication and working relationships promoted increasingly honest and open discussion. The longer tenure with the Tribe also contributed to my personal comfort in asking the hard questions. As a non-

Native employee and researcher, I have attempted to avoid legacies of academic

169 arrogance that study and “explain” native culture, recognizing that any understanding and appreciation of native perspectives comes from living with the culture, and taking the time to talk and walk with Indian people. Acceptance also required transparency – I discussed my research “agenda” openly with the Tribal Council and People’s Center

Advisory Committee, and have provided drafts for tribal review and comment.

I did misjudge the impact of summer ceremonies. During the months of May through September contacting and interviewing key cultural practitioners was nearly impossible. I also utilized the Hearst survey format for consistency of data – the design and content flaws were only magnified in the Karuk tribal context, and discouraged participation. Personal contact with some participants helped to improve response rate as did the inclusion of direct interviews. Finally, I duplicated a survey technique used by the

California Indian Museum and Cultural Center, and entered all those who participated in a drawing for a Pendleton blanket.

The conversation is only beginning. My research suggests the hard questions have yet to be asked, much less resolved. Mainstream museums must create the spaces for this dialogue, and invite their constituents and indigenous communities into those fora. This organizational commitment will involve resources – both human and financial

– and a revisioning of museum priorities. Talk is cheap – museums must walk the walk to earn the respect and participation of Indian people. My research suggests an area of further study, one that requires an in-depth evaluation of the steps museums are taking to actively involve Native American communities in the stewardship of their cultural heritage. In that regard, I am hopeful that museums and tribes will gain the knowledge

170 and tools to support the ongoing partnerships that will engage communities and make museums matter for future generations.

A number of initiatives may promote the dialogue needed to move past misunderstanding and distrust:

 Structural change that establish mechanisms for Native American involvement.

 Simplification of museum procedures and paperwork.

 Flexibility in decision making, ability to think and act outside the box.

 Community engagement on exhibition development and interpretation.

 Staff participation in cultural activities held in Indian country

 Programming including contemporary culture and practices.

 Support from financial and human resources.

 Creating space for discussion, however difficult.

My research suggests that museums need to move into the borderlands, to enter that space of discomfort, and to take the risks associated with asking the hard questions of themselves and others. Without the ability to adapt and evolve, they risk becoming irrelevant and unnecessary. Museums have too much to offer to choose that path.

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APPENDIX A

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APPENDIX B

Survey for Phoebe A. Hearst Museum Informed consent to participate in survey

Dear Museum or Tribal Representative,

Greetings. My name is Helene Rouvier and I am a M.A. candidate in the museum studies program at California State University Chico. My research focus is the integration of traditional care practices into standard “best museum practices.” In pursuit of this research and my graduate degree requirements, I have designed the following survey for the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (PAHMA) at University of California Berkeley. The questions I will ask of you will create a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges for inclusion of culturally sensitive protocols and procedures into the care and handling of Native American objects. I would like to invite you to participate in this research. Specifically, I would like to ask you about your organization’s experiences in accommodating traditional care practices into collections management. This research will contribute to the contemporary dialogue involving changing museums practices, developing policies that respect both tangible and intangible cultural property. The resulting report will also assist PAHMA in this process of positive tribal-museum collaboration. Three survey choices are provided – for mainstream museums, for tribal museums and cultural centers, and for federally recognized tribes with collections at PAHMA. Please select the most applicable survey type for your organization. Filling out the survey should take approximately one half to one hour. You may also solicit information from other members of your staff as needed to answer the questions. Your participation in this research is greatly appreciated. There may be some risks associated with participating in this research. The most notable risk may be in the professional realm. Therefore, I will take care to ensure your individual privacy and confidentiality. Your name and personal information will not be published or presented in any public forum without your written approval. Pseudonyms will be used for all individual participants. You may also request that your organization not be identified in the report based on this survey. This research may involve follow up communication with you personally. Again, your personal information will be kept private unless permission is given in writing. If you feel uncomfortable at any stage in this process, you may withdraw from participation without any repercussions, and are free to request that your survey not be made public or that it may not be used in the research. The survey information will be accessed and used solely by the researcher (Helene Rouvier) and by the sponsoring museum (PAHMA). Research materials will be kept in a safe and locked location. If at any time you do not wish to continue your participation in this research, please let the researcher know and your survey and any accompanying information will either be destroyed or given back to you. If you have any questions about the research or your role in this study, please feel free to discuss these

187 188 with the researcher, Helene Rouvier (650) 255-8413; my Graduate Committee Chair, Georgia Fox (530) 898-5583; my PAHMA supervisor, Victoria Bradshaw (510)643- 2240; or you may contact the Human Subjects Review Committee: Human Subjects Review Committee: Graduate, International and Interdisciplinary Studies, SSC 440, CSU Chico, Chico, CA 95929-0875. I would like to again emphasize that your participation is entirely voluntary, and you can decline participation at any time.

1. If you have read this document and have considered all the information, please indicate your agreement to participate in the research by selecting the appropriate box. □ Informed consent form to participate in survey □ I have read and understand the Informed Consent Form and agree to participate in the research. □ I have read and understand the Informed Consent Form and DO NOT agree to participate in the research.

There may be some risks associated with participating in this research. The most notable risk may be in the professional realm. Therefore, I will take care to ensure your individual privacy and confidentiality. Your name and personal information will not be published or presented in any public forum without your written approval. Pseudonyms will be used for all individual participants. You may also request that your organization not be identified in the report based on this survey. This research may involve follow up communication with you personally. Again, your personal information will be kept private unless permission is given in writing. If you feel uncomfortable at any stage in this process, you may withdraw from participation without any repercussions, and are free to request that your survey not be made public or that it may not be used in the research. The survey information will be accessed and used solely by the researcher (Helene Rouvier) and by the sponsoring museum (PAHMA). Research materials will be kept in a safe and locked location. If at any time you do not wish to continue your participation in this research, please let the researcher know and your survey and any accompanying information will either be destroyed or given back to you. If you have any questions about the research or your role in this study, please feel free to discuss these with the researcher, Helene Rouvier (650) 255-8413; my Graduate Committee Chair, Georgia Fox (530) 898-5583; my PAHMA supervisor, Victoria Bradshaw (510)643- 2240; or you may contact the Human Subjects Review Committee: Human Subjects Review Committee: Graduate, International and Interdisciplinary Studies, SSC 440, CSU Chico, Chico, CA 95929-0875. I would like to again emphasize that your participation is entirely voluntary, and you can decline participation at any time.

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2. If you have read this document and have considered all the information , please indicate your decision regarding anonymity in research and in future research publications by checking the appropriate box.

□ I decline anonymity in research and in future research publications □ I request anonymity in research and in future research publications.

3. Please tell us about your museum or tribe Informed consent document to have name and affiliation used in this Your name (optional): Job title (optional): Organization: Address: City/Town: State/Province: ZIP/Postal Code: Country: Email Address: Phone Number:

Mailing list for this survey was developed from lists of mainstream museums with Native American/First Nations collections, tribal museums and cultural centers, and federally recognized tribes with their cultures represented in the collections at PAHMA. Please note that because some of the tribes contacted may also have museums or cultural centers, your organization may receive two surveys. In that case, please ask museum and administrative staff to complete separate surveys. The geographic area for museums was the United States and Canada. If you are aware of any museums or tribes that should have been included in this mailing and meet these criteria, you are welcome to forward that information to Victoria Bradshaw at PAHMA . For maximum cost effectiveness and efficiency we have chosen an electronic format for this research.

4. How does your organization identify itself? □ Mainstream Museum □ Tribal Museum or Cultural Center □ Federally Recognized Tribal Government

Questions for Mainstream Museums

5. How would you define your museum? □ Public □ Academic affiliated □ Non profit 501(c)(3) □ Other (please specify)

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6. How would you describe the mission of your museum? (check all that apply) □ Research □ Public Education □ Archives □ Other (please specify) 7. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices? □ Yes □ No

8. What type of training has your staff received? □ Culturally sensitive care and handling □ Graduate degree in museum studies □ Certificate in museum studies □ Workshops □ Classes □ Other (please specify)

9. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? □ Less than 1000 □ 1000 – 10,000 □ More than 10,000

10. Does your collection contain □ Human remains □ Funerary items □ Sacred objects □ Objects of cultural patrimony □ Culturally unidentifiable items

11. How many tribes have you consulted with about collections handling protocols: □ 0 □ 1-5 □ 6-20 □ 21-50 □ More then 50

12. Which tribes have you consulted on collections handling protocols?

13. Did the discussion on object handling protocols occur during one or more of the following situations: □ Meeting specifially planned to discuss object handling □ NAGPRA visit □ Exhibit development meeting □ Loan proposal meeting □ Research visit

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□ Phone conversation □ Email □ Other (please specify

14. Which issues and suggested protocols have these tribes brought to your attention? □ Display and interpretation □ Repair □ Handling □ Offerings □ Storage □ Access □ Intellectual Property □ Rights □ Loans – ceremonial use, □ tribal display, research □ Contamination from □ pesticides □ Intertribal relations □ Other

15. What types of collections have tribes addressed (please describe requested protocols) □ Sacred items □ Ceremonial items □ Gender specific objects □ Funerary items □ Human remains □ Photographic collection □ Audio recordings □ Archival documents □ Other

16. What commonalities have you found in requests from tribes?

17. What differences have you found in requests from tribes?

18. How has your museum accommodated these requests?

19. What are the biggest challenges to implementing these changes?

20. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? □ Yes □ No □ If yes, would you be willing to share this policy for purposes of this survey?

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21. Do you have written policies and procedures for loans to tribes? □ Yes □ No □ If yes, would you be willing to share this information for purposes of this survey?

22. What has been the most effective means of communicating with tribal representatives?

23. Could you share one success story involving Native American consultation?

24. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?

25. Please feel free to add any other comments that can help PAHMA in this process

26. May we contact you * about this survey? □ Yes □ No

Questions for Tribal Museums and/or Cultural Centers

27. How would you describe the mission of your museum? (please check all that apply) □ Cultural Revitalization and Research □ Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources □ Public Education and Tourism □ Tribal Archives

28. Does your museum have a formal mission statement? □ Yes □ No

29. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? □ Yes □ No □ If yes, would you be willing to share this policy for purposes of this survey?

30. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? □ Less than 1000 □ 1000 – 10,000 □ More than 10,000

31. How have you obtained items in your collection? □ Gifts □ Loans

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□ Purchases □ Archaeological excavation □ Other (please specify)

32. Where did archaeological materials in your possession originate? □ Amateur collectors □ Professional CRM firm □ Museum sponsored excavation □ Federal, state, or local agency □ Academic research □ Indigenous archaeology □ Data recovery/mitigation from development □ Data recovery/mitigation due to soil contamination □ Other (please specify)

33. How has your organization cared for these materials? □ Curated in permanent collection □ Curated in visible storage □ Returned to tribal members □ Stored off site □ Available for education and research □ Reburied □ Other (please specify)

34. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices? □ Yes □ No

35. What type of training has your staff received? □ Culturally sensitive care and handling □ Graduate degree in museum studies □ Certificate in museum studies □ Workshops □ Classes □ Other (please specify)

36. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? □ Yes □ No □ If "yes" please explain

37. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?

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38. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? □ Basketry □ Leather □ Pottery □ Bone and shell □ Feathers

39. Do you have specific protocols for the following (handling, storage, display, use, etc)? Please describe. □ Sacred items □ Ceremonial items □ Gender specific objects □ Funerary items □ Human remains □ Photographic collection □ Audio recordings □ Archival documents □ Other (specify)

40. Does your tribe control access to cultural materials by □ Age □ Gender □ Pregnancy □ Moon time □ Spiritual training □ Family lineage □ Other (please specify)

41. Have any items been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? □ Yes □ No □ Don't know □ If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?

Questions about your experience with Mainstream Museums

42. Has your tribe consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of tribal materials in their collections? □ Yes □ No □ If so, which museums have you consulted with?

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43. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? □ Display and interpretation □ Repair □ Handling □ Offerings □ Storage □ Access □ Intellectual Property □ Rights □ Loans – ceremonial use, □ tribal display, research □ Toxic contamination □ Intertribal relations □ Other

44. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? □ Sacred items □ Ceremonial items □ Gender specific objects □ Funerary items □ Human remains □ Photographic collection □ Audio recordings □ Archival documents □ Other

45. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)

46. Has your tribe or museum received loans from mainstream museums? □ Yes □ No If so, how would you describe the process and experience?

47. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums?

48. Could you share one success story involving your tribe’s consultation with these museums? Was there a specific occurrence that made it a success?

49. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?

50. In what ways can mainstream museums support your tribe or museum?

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51. Please feel free to add any other comments that can assist PAHMA in developing and implementing culturally-sensitive object handling and storage, loan and exhibit policies.

52. May we contact you * about this survey? □ Yes □ No

Questions for Tribes:

53. Does your tribe hold and care for cultural materials? □ Yes □ No

54. If so, who is directly responsible for this care?

55. How would you describe the repository for this collection? □ Building built exclusively for collections □ Existing building subsequently dedicated to collections □ Administration building with dedicated area for collections □ Casino display area □ Display and storage in separate buildings □ Climate and security controls in place □ Archival storage and display furniture utilized □ Other (please specify)

56. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? □ Yes □ No □ If yes, would you be willing to share this policy for purposes of this survey?

57. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? □ Less than 1000 □ 1000 – 10,000 □ More than 10,000

58. How have you obtained items in your collection? □ Gifts □ Loans □ Purchases □ Archaeological excavation □ Repatriation from mainstream museums □ Other (please specify)

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59. Where did archaeological materials in your possession originate? □ Amateur collectors □ Professional CRM firm □ Museum sponsored excavation □ Federal, state, or local agency □ Academic research □ Indigenous archaeology □ Data recovery/mitigation from development □ Data recovery/mitigation due to soil contamination □ Other (please specify)

60. How has your organization cared for these materials? □ Curated in permanent collection □ Curated in visible storage □ Returned to tribal members □ Stored off site □ Available for education and research □ Reburied □ Other (please specify)

61. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices? □ Yes □ No

62. What type of training has your staff received? □ Culturally sensitive care and handling □ Graduate degree in museum studies □ Certificate in museum studies □ Workshops □ Classes □ Other (please specify)

63. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? □ Yes □ No □ If "yes" please explain

64. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?

65. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? □ Basketry □ Leather □ Pottery

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□ Bone and shell □ Feathers

66. Do you have specific protocols for the following (handling, storage, display, use, etc)? Please describe. □ Sacred items □ Ceremonial items □ Gender specific objects □ Funerary items □ Human remains □ Photographic collection □ Audio recordings □ Archival documents □ Other (specify)

67. Does your tribe control access to cultural materials by □ Age □ Gender □ Pregnancy □ Moon time □ Spiritual training □ Family lineage □ Other (please specify)

68. Have any items been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? □ Yes □ No □ Don't know □ If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?

Questions about your experience with Mainstream Museums 69. Has your tribe consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of tribal materials in their collections? □ Yes □ No □ If so, which museums have you consulted with?

70. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? □ Display and interpretation □ Repair □ Handling □ Offerings □ Storage □ Access □ Intellectual Property

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□ Rights □ Loans – ceremonial use, □ tribal display, research □ Toxic contamination □ Intertribal relations □ Other

71. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? □ Sacred items □ Ceremonial items □ Gender specific objects □ Funerary items □ Human remains □ Photographic collection □ Audio recordings □ Archival documents □ Other

72. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)

73. Has your tribe or museum received loans from mainstream museums? □ Yes □ No □ If so, how would you describe the process and experience?

74. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums?

75. Could you share one success story involving your tribe’s consultation with these museums?

76. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?

77. In what ways can mainstream museums support your tribe or museum?

78. Please feel free to add any other comments that can assist PAHMA in developing and implementing culturally-sensitive object handling and storage, loan and exhibit policies.

79. May we contact you about this survey? □ Yes □ No

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Thank you for your interest in this survey. Whether or not you have chosen to participate by responding to the questions, PAHMA would like to provide you with a copy of the results of "Integrating Traditional Care Practices into Collections Management Policies"

80. If you would like a copy of the final report based on this survey, please write the address in the box below.

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Survey for Karuk People’s Center Informed consent to participate in survey

Ayukii –

My name is Helene Rouvier and I work for the Karuk Tribe as the People’s Center Coordinator. I am also a M.A. candidate in the museum studies program at California State University Chico. My research focus is the integration of traditional care practices with standard “best museum practices.” In designing my thesis I have proposed to study two examples of this hybrid model of museums – the Phoebe Hearst Museum at UC Berkeley is a case study of a mainstream museum struggling with incorporating indigenous partnerships in its operations, the Karuk People’s Center is a case study of a tribal museum/cultural center adapting both indigenous and Western museum practices into its collections management policies. I have presented this proposal to the Karuk Tribal Council and they have approved this thesis research design. Karuk tribal representatives will review my drafts to insure accuracy and cultural respect; the Tribe will also receive two copies of the final published thesis.

I would like to invite you to participate in this research. Specifically, I would like to ask you about your perspectives, experiences, and goals for the Karuk People’s Center, and how you imagine traditional and mainstream museum practices working together, particularly in the area of collections care and handling. My hope is that this research will contribute to the contemporary dialogue involving changing museum practices, and will assist in developing policies that respect both tangible and intangible cultural property.

If at any time you do not wish to continue your participation in this research, please let the researcher know and your survey and accompanying information will either be destroyed or given back to you. There may be some risks associated with participating in this research. The most notable risk may be in the professional realm. Therefore, I will take care to ensure your individual privacy and confidentiality. You name and personal information will not be published or presented in any public forum without your written approval.

I would like to again emphasize that your participation is entirely voluntary, and you can decline participation at any time. The survey information will be accessed and used solely by the researcher (Helene Rouvier). If you have any questions about the research or your role in this study, please feel free to discuss these with the researcher, Helene Rouvier (530)-598- 9687; my Graduate Committee Chair, Georgia Fox (530) 898-5583; or you may contact the Human Subjects Review Committee: Graduate, International and Interdisciplinary Studies, SSC 440, CSU Chico, Chico, CA 95929-0875.

If you have read this document and have considered all the information, please indicate your agreement to participate in the research by selecting the appropriate box:  I have read and understand the Informed Consent Form and agree to participate in the research  I have read and understand the Informed Consent Form and DO NOT agree to participate in the research.

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If you have read this document and have considered all the information, please indicate your decision regarding anonymity in research and in future research publications by checking the appropriate box.  I decline anonymity in research and in future research publications.  I request anonymity in research and in future research publications.

1. How would you describe the mission of the Karuk People’s Center? (please check all that apply)  Cultural Revitalization and Research  Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources  Public Education and Tourism  Tribal Archives  Other (please describe)

2. Does the Center have a formal mission statement?  Yes  No  Don’t know

3. Does the Center have a written policy on traditional care practices?  Yes  No  Don’t know

4. Approximately how many Native American objects are in the Center’s collection?  Less than 1,000  1,000 – 10,000  More than 10,000  Unknown

5. How were these objects obtained?  Gifts  Loans  Purchases  Archaeological excavation  Repatriation from mainstream museums  Other (please specify)

6. Where did the archaeological materials in the collection come from?  Amateur collectors  Professional CRM firm  Museum sponsored excavation  Federal, state, or local agency  Academic research  Indigenous archaeology

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 Data recovery / mitigation from development  Data recovery / mitigation due to soil contamination  Other (please specify)

7. How does the Center care for its collection?  Curated in permanent collection  Curated in visible storage  Returned to tribal members  Stored off site  Available for education and research  Reburied  Other (please specify)

8. Do Center staff members have training in standard collections management practices?  Yes  No

9. What type of training have Center staff members received?  Culturally sensitive care and handling  Graduate degree in museum studies  Certificate in museum studies  Workshops  Classes  Other (please specify)

10. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? Yes  No If “yes” please explain

11. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?

12. How would you describe Center procedures for care and handling of the following types of material?

Basketry ______Leather ______Pottery ______Bone and shell ______Feathers ______

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13. Are there specific protocols (handling, storage, display, use, etc) for the following? Please describe.

Sacred items ______Ceremonial items ______Gender specific objects ______Funerary items ______Human remains ______Photographic collection ______Audio recordings ______Archival documents ______Other (specify) ______14. Does the Center control access to cultural materials by Age ______Gender ______Pregnancy ______Moon time ______Spiritual training ______Family lineage ______Other (please specify) ______

15. Have any items in the collection been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides?  Yes  No  Don’t know If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?

Please answer the following questions about your experience with Mainstream Museums

16. Have you consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of Karuk materials in their collections?  Yes  No  Don’t know If yes, which museums have you consulted with?

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17. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? Display and interpretation ______Repair ______Handling ______Offerings ______Storage ______Access ______Intellectual Property Rights ______Loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research ______Toxic contamination ______Intertribal relations ______Other ______

18. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? Sacred items ______Ceremonial items ______Gender specific objects ______Funerary items ______Human remains ______Photographic collections ______Audio recordings ______Archival documents ______Other ______

19. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)

20. Has the Karuk People’s Center received loans from mainstream museums?  Yes  No If so, how would you describe the process and experience?

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21. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums?

22. Could you share one success story involving the Karuk Tribe’s consultation with these museums? Was there a specific occurrence that made it a success?

23. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?

24. In what ways can mainstream museums support the Karuk Tribe and Karuk People’s Center?

Do you agree to participate?

Do you request anonymity?

a. What does the People’s Center mean to you? b. How does the community view the Center? How can the Center best serve Karuk people? c. What should be the priorities of the Center? d. What are the commonalities between mainstream museums and tribal cultural centers? What are the differences? e. How can the two approaches work together? f. What changes would you like to see at mainstream museums? g. What changes would you like to see at the People’s Center? h. What is the meaning and purpose of the collection? How should it be cared for? i. How would you describe “traditional care practices”? j. Are you familiar with “best museum practices”? How would you describe them? How can they be adapted to traditional and culturally respectful protocols? k. What are the challenges to integrating these two approaches? How can these issues be resolved? l. Is there anything else you would like to add?

APPENDIX C

The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology Survey of Traditional Care Practices Summary by Museum Type

Mainstream Museums (4 responses)

Question #1. If you have read this document and have considered all the information, please indicate your agreement to participate in the research by selecting the appropriate box. . Agree – 4 . Do not agree – 0

Questions #2. If you have read this document and have considered all the information , please indicate your decision regarding anonymity in research and in future research publications by checking the appropriate box. . Request anonymity – 2 . Decline anonymity – 1 . No response – 1

Question #3. Please tell us about your museum or tribe . Completed – 3 . No response – 1

Question #4. How does your organization identify itself? . Mainstream – 3 . No response – 1

Question #5. How would you define your museum? . Academic affiliated . Public . No response – 2

Question #6. How would you describe the mission of your museum? . Research . Research, Public Education, Archives, Other (please specify) - Preservation of tribal material culture, history, etc. . No response – 2

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Question #7. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices? . Yes - 2 . No response – 2

Question #8. What type of training has your staff received? . Culturally sensitive care and handling, Graduate degree in museum studies, Certificate in museum studies, Workshops, Classes . Culturally sensitive care and handling. Workshops. Classes. We adhere to Dept. of the Interior and National Park Service Museum Standards outlined in NPS-19 and Museum Handbooks. . No response – 2

Question #9. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? . >10,000 - 2 . No response – 2

Question #10. Does your collection contain . Human remains, Funerary items, Sacred objects, Objects of cultural patrimony, Culturally unidentifiable items . Sacred objects, Culturally unidentifiable items . no response – 2

Question #11. How many tribes have you consulted with about collections handling protocols? . More then 50 . 1 to 5 . No response – 2

Question #12. Which tribes have you consulted on collections handling protocols? . All Southwest tribes and several from other regions . Nez Perce Tribe, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation. . No response – 2

Question #13. Did the discussion on object handling protocols occur during one or more of the following situations: . Meeting specifically planned to discuss object handling, NAGPRA visit, Exhibit development meeting, Research visit . Meeting specifically planned to discuss object handling, NAGPRA visit, Exhibit development meeting, Other - Regular visits with tribal cultural resources staff and visits with elders. . No response – 2

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Question #14. Which issues and suggested protocols have these tribes brought to your attention? . Display and interpretation - yes, placement and use in display, Repair - yes, old repairs and repair removal and new repairs, Handling - yes, in storage and research and conservation, Offerings - yes, in storage, Storage - yes, organization and separation of funerary materials, Access - yes, in storage or for research, Intellectual Property Rights - yes, for access to archival or photographic collections, Loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research, Contamination from pesticides - yes, pesticide contamination . Display and interpretation - Yes, care in display of certain objects, personal objects. Repair - Yes, a little, Handling - Yes, Offerings - Yes, Storage - Yes, relation to each other, blessing of objects and storage area, .Access - Yes, Intellectual Property Rights - Yes, Loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research Contamination from pesticides - Yes, Intertribal relations - Yes . No response – 2

Question #15. What types of collections have tribes addressed (please describe requested protocols) . Sacred items - variety of items, Ceremonial items - variety of items, Gender specific objects - no, Funerary items - variety of archaeological items, Human remains - yes, Photographic collection - yes, particular images, Audio recordings - yes, particular interviews, Archival documents - yes, particular notes . Sacred items - not to display certain personal items, Ceremonial items - care and proper handling, Gender specific objects - care in handling, esp. men's by women etc., Funerary items - we do not display, Human remains - we do not display, Photographic collection - work closely with families to ID and care in use etc, .Audio recordings - same as photos, certain things not recorded, .Archival documents - work closely with families and tribal gov. to assure proper handling and limit access to certain materials. Some requests that private papers stored are not available to the public. . No response – 2

Question #16. What commonalities have you found in requests from tribes? . we held consultations for our pottery collection and found numerous common concerns . Concern for not exhibiting human remains, funerary objects and certain personal objects. . No response – 2

Question #17. What differences have you found in requests from tribes? . Tribes prefer to discuss only objects affiliated to themselves . This is primarily a matter of individual desires or understanding of cultural practices rather than "government". Because of diversity within community, i.e., Christian vs. Traditional. . No response – 2

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Question #18. How has your museum accommodated these requests? . we developed guidelines for the pottery collection . We try to get various opinions but generally if a person desires a certain thing we try to accommodate that request. . No response – 2

Question #19. What are the biggest challenges to implementing these changes? . guidelines are different from policy . In exhibit planning we try to find alternative objects to make a point, or revise exhibit plans to not discuss certain kinds of cultural things. . no response – 2

Question #20. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? . No - 2 . No response – 2

Question #21. Do you have written policies and procedures for loans to tribes? . Yes, Policy and Procedure for loans are standard, but we do loan to tribes frequently . Yes, We have it in general for all outgoing loans. Best practices. . No response – 2

Question #22. What has been the most effective means of communicating with tribal representatives? . frequent communication with our Native Nations Advisory Board and including all members when information is of widespread value. . Face to face with Cultural Resources folks, NAGPRA reps. etc. both formal and informal. We are required by law to have Gov. to Gov. relations. . No response – 2

Question #23. Could you share one success story involving Native American consultation? . our consultation project in 2000 about pesticide residues was a first on this topic and resulted in a book with guidelines. The experience also resulted in testimony to the NAGPA review committee and support for testing from the NAGPRA grant program. . We have an exhibit that features spirituality and objects associated with personal and tribal beliefs. During a visit by tribal elders (informal), we discussed the sensitive nature of a couple objects that had been exhibited. Because one was known to belong to a certain family and was associated with a person's personal power they asked that we not display the items. We removed them from exhibition. One was loaned to us by the state museum. We returned that object and explained to them why it was not appropriate to display that item either in our museum or in theirs. The said they would not display it either. . no response – 2

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Question #24. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations? . a better world for everyone, communication and collaboration is critical . White people tend to view certain objects as "art", disconnecting it from cultural context and respect for the beliefs and practices of the people that created it. It is not necessary to display certain kinds of sensitive material in order to tell a tribe's story. Consult with people from the tribe and listen to them when they talk about what story they would like told and how best to do that. . no response – 2

Question #25. Please feel free to add any other comments that can help PAHMA in this process . At our park we consider ourselves caretakers from tribal history and material culture. We always try to keep in mind that this is their culture, not ours. It is important that they tell their story and that we listen to their desires and wishes and try to use the native voice as much as possible to do that. It is also important to recognize that there is a great deal of diversity inside the native community and that opinions can differ on a wide range of cultural and historical questions. It is important to give voice to all those views and ideas. Help people to understand that tribal culture is every bit as complex and diverse as any other culture. . no response – 3

Question #26. May we contact you about this survey? . yes - 2 . no response - 2

Question #80. If you would like a copy of the final report based on this survey, please write the address in the box below. . Redacted . Redacted . no response - 2

Tribal Museums and Cultural Centers (14 Responses)

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Question #2. If you have read this document and have considered all the information , please indicate your decision regarding anonymity in research and in future research publications by checking the appropriate box. . request anonymity - 5 . decline anonymity - 4 . no response - 5

Question #3. Please tell us about your museum or tribe . Completed - 9 . no response – 5

Question #4. How does your organization identify itself? . Tribal CC - 9 . Unknown - 2 . no response – 3

Question #27. How would you describe the mission of your museum? (please check all that apply) . Cultural Revitalization and Research . Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources . Public Education and Tourism . Tribal Archives . Public Education and Tourism . Cultural Revitalization and Research . Cultural Revitalization and Research, Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources, Public Education and Tourism, Tribal Archives . Cultural Revitalization and Research, Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources, Public Education and Tourism, Tribal Archives . Cultural Revitalization and Research, Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources, Tribal Archives . Cultural Revitalization and Research, Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources, Public Education and Tourism, Tribal Archives . Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources . no response

Question #28. Does your museum have a formal mission statement? . Yes - 6 . no response - 8

Question #29. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? . yes, please contact the Kiowa Tribal Museum . no - 6 . no response - 7

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Question #30. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? . less than 1,000 - 5 . 1,000 - 10,000 - 3 . no response - 6

Question #31. How have you obtained items in your collection? . Gifts, Loans, Purchases, Other (please specify) - Many of the tribal members have donated their collections . Gifts, Loans, Purchases, Archaeological excavation . Purchases . Gifts, Archaeological excavation . Gifts, Purchases, Archaeological excavation, Repatriation from mainstream museums, Other (please specify) - THP post harvest discoveries . Gifts, Loans, Purchases, Archaeological excavation, Other (please specify) - family collections . Gifts, Repatriation from mainstream museums . Gifts, Archaeological excavation, Other (please specify) - Bequest/family collection . no response – 6

Question #32. Where did archaeological materials in your possession originate? . Amateur collectors . Amateur collectors . Amateur collectors, Indigenous archaeology . Amateur collectors, Professional CRM firm, Museum sponsored excavation, Data recovery/mitigation from development, Data recovery/mitigation due to soil contamination . Amateur collectors, Indigenous archaeology . Amateur collectors, Professional CRM firm, Museum sponsored excavation, Indigenous archaeology . Museum sponsored excavation, Data recovery/mitigation from development, Mitigation through restoration . no response

Question #33. How has your organization cared for these materials? . Curated in visible storage, Returned to tribal members, Stored off site . Available for education and research . Curated in permanent collection, Available for education and research, Reburied . Curated in permanent collection, Available for education and research . Curated in permanent collection. Curated in visible storage, Available for education and research . Curated in permanent collection. Curated in visible storage, Available for education and research . Stored off site . no response – 7

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Question #34. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices? . Yes - 5 . no - 2 . no response – 7

Question #35. What type of training has your staff received? . Culturally sensitive care and handling, Workshops, Classes . Culturally sensitive care and handling. One employee has over 12 years of experience in museum collections management. . Certificate in museum studies, Workshops . Culturally sensitive care and handling, Graduate degree in museum studies, Workshops . No formal training - all learning is done on the job. . Culturally sensitive care and handling, Workshops, Classes . Culturally sensitive care and handling, Certificate in museum studies, Workshops, Classes . no response - 7

Question #36. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? . Yes, In most instances, the techniques learned for the preservation of artifacts is welcomed. In some instances where artifacts are treated as "objects" this is where the difference is. In some cases, the object have a life and should be feasted and cared for as something that has a life not just left in a drawer for all eternity. . Yes, more emphasis on use, particularly in ceremonial activities; use of traditional methods such as soap root and pepperwood for care and handling; seeing items as living spirits rather than objects leads to need for human touch; storage, display, and handling follows gender, age, and other cultural proscriptions. Sometimes labeling is seen as disrespectful. . Yes, Museums do not always consider native traditions in caring for the objects in their care; they may be unaware of special handling requirements. . Yes, when not in use our objects are kept carefully wrapped as required by traditional ceremony . Yes, Natives view objects as serving a function, that has meaning, and some cases a spirit. Most museum collections are seen as "specimens", but for natives these are tangible objects with a history which continues to have meaning and purpose to a living culture. . No - 2 . no response – 7

Question #37. How can both approaches be successfully integrated? . Having classes with both standard and native approaches in mind. . n/a

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. The techniques to ensure preservation and the respect to ensure that this life receives the traditional ceremonies that it should. As well some of the "Artifact" should be allowed to be used by the native people in their ceremonies if they chose to do so. This is part of what the life of that "artifact" is intended for . Except in rare situations, the goal is preservation in both approaches. The approaches are not incompatible, except in the adherence to strict protocols for wearing gloves, and isolation of artifacts from and wear or use. . Museums should make their best effort to contact the most likely descendant for objects and inquire about special handling procedures. . with respect . Currently, a disconnect between cultural differences. Training/workshops that demonstrate cultural significance and meaning, and care for native objects. . no response – 7

Question #38. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? . Basketry - proactive lighting and handle carefully if aged. . Leather - keep it looking original . Pottery - handle with care . Bone and shell - do not handle if at all possible . Feathers - Feathers should not be handle by women." . Basketry - n/a As a cultural center, we do not necessarily have a controlled work area in which to adequately care for objects in our possession. Leather - see above, Pottery - see above, Bone and shell - see above, Feathers - see above . Basketry - Clean with HEPA filtered vacuum, soft brushes, climate and light control, pepperwood leaves, archival labels. Leather - Climate control, clean hands, no lotion. Pottery - Stored and displayed in archival materials. Bone and shell - Often on leather, wrapped in archival tissue for storage. Feathers - Monitoring for insect infestation, will use freezing or nitrogen environment to control infestation. . Basketry - Kept from strong light; handled with gloves, Leather - Stored in cardboard boxes; handled with gloves, Pottery - Stored in boxes to protect from breakage, Bone and shell - none in collection, Feathers - Stored away from light . Leather - not applicable, Pottery - not applicable . Basketry - Upright, buffered, not picked up by handles, gloves, Leather - acid free paper, buffered, gloves worn when handling, Pottery - buffered, Gloves when handling, .Bone and shell - buffered, in drawer or box with like objects. Gloves, Feathers - dependant on sacred/sensitive object. Gloves. . no response – 8

Question #39. Do you have specific protocols for the following (handling, storage, display, use, etc)? Please describe. . Sacred items - They're are no sacred items in this museum, Ceremonial items - in a glass case, Gender specific objects - glass cases, Funerary items – none, Human

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remains – none, Photographic collection – storage, Audio recordings – storage, Archival documents - in file cabinets" . Sacred items - NA-we do not have, Ceremonial items - No specific protocols, Gender specific objects - NA-we do not have, Funerary items - NA-we do not have, Human remains - NA-we do not have, Photographic collection - No specific protocols, Audio recordings - No specific protocols, Archival documents - No specific protocols. . Sacred items – don’t take, Ceremonial items – don’t take, Funerary items - reburial, Human remains - reburial - returned and reburied immediately, Photographic collection - scanned to CD and stored in fireproof safe, Audio recordings - stored in fireproof safe, Archival documents - kept in a binder in office. At present more needs to be done in this area. . Sacred items - Treat with respect, talk to items, Ceremonial items - Loan to religious leaders for ceremonial use, Gender specific objects - none - other tribes may separate for storage and display, Funerary items - L.L. Loud’s materials are still stored under black cloth in my closet - no tribal decision yet on reburial. May ask that the artifacts be at least recorded and photographed if reburied, Human remains - As stated - still waiting for disposition. Kept out of public view, .Photographic collection - Kept in archival sleeves, or scanned, Audio recordings - Kept in tribal archives, Archival documents - same . Sacred items - None in collection, Ceremonial items - None in collection, Gender specific objects - No specific protocols, Funerary items - None in collection, Human remains - None in collection, Photographic collection - Stored in files; available for use on a case by case basis, Audio recordings - No, Archival documents - Stored in files; some kept locked for privacy reasons . Sacred items - n/a, Ceremonial items - n/a - never on display, Gender specific objects - preventative conservation. Handled based on type .Funerary items - preventative conservation. Human remains - n/a. Photographic collection - buffered. low lux. min light. Gloves. acid-free matt, Audio recordings - n/a, Archival documents - low lux. min light. Latex gloves. Flat. Other (specify) - Furniture: two hands, not on weakest point, rh stable. . no response – 8

Question #40. Does your tribe control access to cultural materials by . Age – no, Gender – no, Pregnancy – no, Moon time – no, Spiritual training – no, Family lineage - no" . Age - No, Gender - No, Pregnancy - No, Moon time - No, Spiritual training - No, Family lineage - No, Other (please specify) – No . Other (please specify) - no cultural materials at this time. . Age - no protocols as yet, Gender - not at this time - we are limited in staffing and don't have that luxury, Pregnancy - not at this time, Moon time - not at this time, Spiritual training - for loans of ceremonial items, Family lineage - there are always tribal politics, but once in the collection there are no restrictions. I'm not sure what I will do if the issue comes up - probably not take the items.

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. Age - No, Gender - No, Pregnancy - No, Moon time - Yes, Spiritual training - No, Family lineage - Yes, Other (please specify) - Privacy of personal records is protected . Other (please specify) - we have a historic house collection . no response – 8

Question #41. Have any items been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? . Don't know - 2 . no - 4 . no response – 8

Question #42. Has your tribe consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of tribal materials in their collections? . Yes, Smithsonian visit and training in 2002? Talked with the curator when asked we provided our view on care of items . Yes, Clarke Historical Museum . Yes, Southwest Museum, Pasadena . No - 2 . no response – 9

Question #43. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? . Display and interpretation - rearranged items, Repair - repaired many of the items, Storage - made more room in storage . Display and interpretation - Those items that should never be displayed i.e., sacred bundle should be placed out of view. i.e., top shelving unit, Offerings - discussed items which need offerings and they can discuss more with the respective tribes in their area, Access - access limited to those items that should not be used. Same as per above . Display and interpretation - Known associated funerary items should not be displayed. Repair - They should not "mist" baskets that are brittle. Access - Access for educational use and research OK. Loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research - They have a very positive loan policy with tribes. Intertribal relations - The tribe is not comfortable with loans to other tribes for educational (not ceremonial) purposes. . Access - Increased access to materials for study . no response – 10

Question #44. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? . Audio recordings - The recordings have been in storage and they are being transferred to CDS . Human remains - As we do not have a museum. We do not request items that would possibly deteriorate in our possession. We have only requested repatriation in instances where the remains are reburied as soon as they are received. Photographic collection - At Smithsonian, we looked at the techniques that they

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have used to preserve the photographs. As well we requested copies of Odawa and Ojibway items for access by our community . Sacred items - repatriation to tribe. Ceremonial items - loans. Funerary items - repatriation to tribe. Human remains - n/a - the museum has no remains. Photographic collection - use for educational purposes. Audio recordings - use for educational purposes. Archival documents - copies for research and tribal archives . Photographic collection - More access to copies, and originals if possible, Archival documents - Access for photocopying documents for our collection . no response - 10

Question #45. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums) . Staff members from OU have come down and given workshop trainings for the museum . Have had no requests, but attended a symposium in Ottawa and the Canadian Museum of Civilization dealing with the handling of sacred items. This might have been in response to inquires from other native run museums and cultural centers. . Clarke Museum has little professional training, and I'm trying hard to promote both culturally sensitive and best museum practices. For example, they keep using Windex which is potentially damaging to organic materials. They have little funding, and little training, so it is difficult to promote change in the good old boy way of doing things. . We have an excellent relationship with the Southwest Museum. Similar with the San Diego Museum of Man, but we have not worked with them for several years at this point. . n/a . no response - 9

Question #46. Has your tribe or museum received loans from mainstream museums? . Yes. It works very well, partly because I have established a positive trusting relationship with the museums involved. We have received loans both for ceremonial purposes and for temporary exhibitions. . no - 4 . no response – 9

Question #47. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums? . advertising . Personally and promptly in writing. One must establish a relationship that is both professional and personable. I usually try to communicate in person or by phone. . Telephone calls and meetings. . no response – 11

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Question #48. Could you share one success story involving your tribe’s consultation with these museums? Was there a specific occurrence that made it a success? . In 2003 the Kiowa Tribal Museum was named the most visited museum in the state. . The tribe received loans of headdresses for the Coming of Age Ceremony. We were helped by using an established tribal practitioner from Karuk for the initial negotiations. . Our relationship with the Southwest Museum has allowed us to add several photographs to our collection. They have been very helpful. . no response – 11

Question #49. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations? . I believe if we had more help we would be able to transfer all video and audio to CD's and then we would be able to have a research area in the museum . Opportunity for the education of ALL staff within a museum. The bigger museums need to ensure education of all staff including administrative. . There needs to be sustained discussion, both on the basic preservation assumptions, and on the policies and procedures. Native peoples are most interested in their use and reconnection with collections, rather than preservation or so called "shared heritage," At the same time, there are unrealistic expectations of repatriation that all items are the property of the tribes. There needs to be a balance struck, where both use and preservation are maintained. I fully support the establishment of co curation, or loans, and also more regional museums for secure archival repositories of cultural materials. But the polarization needs to stop. . NAGPRA issues are still difficult; we would like to see that process completed, but expect it to still take several years. . Opportunity to partner in exhibitions. Requirement to consult if exhibit is about native people for primary source information/accuracy/perspective. . no response – 9

Question #50. In what ways can mainstream museums support your tribe or museum? . With their knowledge and support for our tribal history . Much in the same way as the U.S. and NAGPRA, the Canadian Museums need to make the tribes in Canada aware of what is in their collections. This is not done. There is so much knowledge in the museum that the average Joe is not aware of. . workshops regionally on best museum practices. Help with temporary loans - provide mounts and display cases when possible. Also, the NAGPRA process continues to be cumbersome and confusing, partly this is the result of the legislation itself. If museums were genuinely interested in helping cultural recovery, I suggest they work to fix the legislation. Also, include the tribes in exhibit design and interpretation of their materials. . Trust us enough to repatriate items to our care. . Co-marketing/advertising. Promotional packages. . no response – 9

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Question #51. Please feel free to add any other comments that can assist PAHMA in developing and implementing culturally-sensitive object handling and storage, loan and exhibit policies. . One policy we have in our museum is "NO PICTURE TAKING ALLOWED" in our museum, we have 10 murals that shows and tells our Kiowa history . I recognize the limits of storage and funding. I would suggest bringing tribal reps down to the museum to understand the compromises and set goals. Perhaps, hosting a tribal consultation workshop, and developing a working group of tribal reps (NOT the NAGPRA coalition please) who meet on a regular basis. . Just listen to the tribes, and don't privilege academic research over tribal traditions and concerns. . no response – 11

Question #52. May we contact you about this survey? . No - 3 . yes - 2 . no response – 9

Question #80. If you would like a copy of the final report based on this survey, please write the address in the box below. . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . no response – 10

Federally Recognized Tribes (with collections at PAHMA) (10 responses)

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Question #3. Please tell us about your museum or tribe . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . no response – 2

Question #4. How does your organization identify itself? . FRTG - 8 . no response – 2

Question #53. Does your tribe hold and care for cultural materials? . Yes - 5 . No - 2 . no response – 3

Question #54. If so, who is directly responsible for this care? . redacted . Tribal Environmental Office & various office staff . As the Cultural Preservation Manager, I oversee a Museum Director, a NAGPRA Coordinator, and a THPO assistant. Depending on the collection and if it is ready to be "accessioned" into the museum, the Museum Director would be responsible for all collections housed in the museum. However, we have other NAGPRA collections within our office waiting to be reburied or waiting to be accessioned into the museum. Because of the lack of space, we have shared the responsibility basically of storing these collections. . no response – 7

Question #55. How would you describe the repository for this collection? . Administration building with dedicated area for collections. Casino display area. Display and storage in separate buildings. Archival storage and display furniture utilized . Casino display area. Tribe is planning to build museum or cultural center . Administration building with dedicated area for collections . Storage unit located far from public . Display and storage in separate buildings, Climate and security controls in place, Archival storage and display furniture utilized, Some of the archeological objects are on display, but because of limited space, our other offices outside the museum has collections in storage as well. . Display and storage in separate buildings . no response – 4

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Question #56. Do you have a written policy on traditional care practices? . Yes, NO . Yes, This is more of an "agreement" on the care and handling of objects of religious and cultural significance to the tribe. We developed these agreements based on the fact that we did have limited storage and that several repositories had been housing NAGPRA collections for years. However, they did not take into account the traditional ways that the Caddo would take care of objects such as feathers, fans, gourds, or certain things that needed to be considered if there were human remains and funerary items in storage. . No - 4 . no response – 4

Question #57. Approximately how many Native American objects are in your collection? . <1,000 - 3 . 1000 – 10,000 . >10,000 . no response – 5

Question #58. How have you obtained items in your collection? . Gifts, Purchases, Archaeological excavation, Repatriation from mainstream museums . Other (please specify) - Planning for all of the above . Archaeological excavation . Repatriation from mainstream museums, Other (please specify) - Donations . Gifts, Repatriation from mainstream museums, Other (please specify) - The Tulsa Corps of Engineers dumped off a collection of artifacts on the tribe while doing NAGPRA consultations. They basically cleared out an entire shelf in a warehouse that contained 45 boxes. The tribe was not aware that these collections had never been brought up to the 36CFR79 standards, were in terrible disarray, and most of the material was not NAGPRA related at all. . no response – 5

Question #59. Where did archaeological materials in your possession originate? . Amateur collectors, Federal, state, or local agency, Indigenous archaeology . planning for all of the above . Federal, state, or local agency . Federal, state, or local agency . Amateur collectors, Professional CRM firm, Museum sponsored excavation, Federal, state, or local agency, Academic research, Indigenous archaeology, Data recovery/mitigation from development . no response – 5

Question #60. How has your organization cared for these materials? . Curated in visible storage, Available for education and research . Available for education and research

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. Returned to tribal members, Stored off site . Curated in permanent collection, Curated in visible storage, Available for education and research, Reburied . no response – 6

Question #61. Does your staff have training in standard collections management practices? . Yes - 3 . No - 3 . no response - 4

Question #62. What type of training has your staff received? . Culturally sensitive care and handling. Workshops . none . Workshops. In general cultural resource management & laws . Culturally sensitive care and handling . Culturally sensitive care and handling, Graduate degree in museum studies, Certificate in museum studies, Workshops, Classes . Workshops . no response – 4

Question #63. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? . yes . Yes, may not want original displayed, prefer duplicates. Items need to be cared for according to traditions, prayer, etc. Items have power, need to respect that world view. Some things can not be replaced with a new one until old item has been sent on its journey. "Put down" as required by tradition. Each has a function, one is physical the other is spiritual . Yes, Not culturally sensitive to Native American religion and culture. . Yes, In some ways they differ greatly. A tribal museum may not think twice about doing a "smudging" ceremony or cedaring off collections contained in the museum. And I do know that some museum staff at other tribal museums have been at odds with traditional elders based on just this (cedaring ceremony). . No - 2 . no response – 4

Question #64. How can both approaches be successfully integrated? . unknown . Train non-white museum staff to understand Native American world view. RESPECT what they tell you. Understand that to many Native Americans item in museums are still alive and have power. . This will never occur in the future. Both entities have never been cooperative with each other. NAGPRA is the cultural barrier.

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. I think that there needs to be a lot more actual consultation with the museum and the tribal governments that have collections stored in the museum. Each tribe may have their own unique way of caring for or handling a certain object. That object may have special needs that the museum staff knows absolutely nothing about. Each tribe can then provide their own protocols and ways of handling these objects, especially if these objects are under the purview of the NAGPRA. . no response – 6 Question #65. How would you describe your procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? . Basketry – unknown. Leather – unknown. Pottery – unknown. Bone and shell – unknown. Feathers - unknown . Basketry – None. Leather – None. Pottery – None. Bone and shell - Stored in boxes in cabinets (rock - chert & obsidian) . Basketry - NA, Leather - NA, Pottery - NA, Bone and shell - NA, Feathers - NA . no response – 7

Question #66. Do you have specific protocols for the following (handling, storage, display, use, etc)? Please describe. . Human remains - Wooden boxes available for reburial in Tribal cemetery. Audio recordings - Stored in Tribal office, Archival documents - Stored in Tribal office . Sacred items - NA, Ceremonial items - NA, Gender specific objects - NA, Funerary items - NA, Human remains - NA, Photographic collection - NA, Audio recordings - NA, Archival documents - NA . Sacred items - Yes, varies according to object, Ceremonial items - Yes, same as above, Gender specific objects - Yes, Funerary items - Yes, Human remains - Yes, Photographic collection - Yes, Audio recordings - Yes, Archival documents - Yes . no response -7

Question #67. Does your tribe control access to cultural materials by . Other (please specify) - Tribe hasn't decided yet . Other (please specify) - None at this time . Other (please specify) - NA . Other (please specify) - The Caddo do not believe that human remains should be handled by women, especially if they are pregnant, certain objects are treated the same way. . no response – 6

Question #68. Have any items been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? . Don't know - 2 . no . Yes, Items treated with such pesticides are permanently housed with the museums. Navajo Nation cannot re-use objects treated with pesticides. . Yes, We basically have not dealt with it yet. We recently repatriated a collection from the American Museum of Natural History and signed a waiver stating that

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we realized that these objects may have been treated in the past with pesticides, etc. . no response – 5

Question #69. Has your tribe consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of tribal materials in their collections? . Yes. Tribe is just starting. Have met with Berkley, CA Parks and Rec. and CA Indian Museum . No, Note: consultation is a term generally used for government-to-government, formal meetings. You probably mean 'worked with' or 'contacted' museums. . Yes, We cannot reveal the name(s) of such institutions. . Yes, Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory, American Museum of Natural History, Northwestern State University (Louisiana), Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Stephen F. Austin State University, Peabody Museum at Harvard, Arkansas Archaeological Survey, Louisiana State University, Louisiana State Exhibit Museum . No - 2 . no response - 4

Question #70. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? . Other - All of the above . Intellectual Property Rights - Ownership of articles has been discussed with a couple of museums . Display and interpretation - remove all NAGPRA objects . Display and interpretation - Worked on traveling panels and exhibits, Handling - How human remains should be treated in accordance with tribal wishes, Storage - Storage of certain items have a certain way in which they need to be handled, Access - Who has access and who they need to contact if the collection is NAGPRA related, Intellectual Property Rights - Big issue right now with the tribe but has not been addressed at the museum level, Loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research - discussed but at a disadvantage because of limited space, Toxic contamination - Not addressed, Intertribal relations - Not addressed . no response – 6

Question #71. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? . Other - All of the above . Photographic collection - We have obtained copies of photos. Audio recordings - We have obtained copies of recordings. Archival documents - We have obtained copies of documents . Sacred items - We request sacred objects NOT displayed, Ceremonial items - We request to repatriate such objects . Sacred items - These requests are private and specific to the Caddo, Ceremonial items - same as above, Funerary items - Same as above, Human remains - Same as above . no response – 6

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Question #72. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums) . Since we are just starting no major issues have come up. But what is clear is that the Hearst is down playing the issue of pesticide contamination. Were is the data showing which items are contaminated. What efforts have been made to educate tribes on how to keep from contaminating their museums or offices if these contaminated items are returned? What about cross contamination to tribal museums from traveling exhibits or loans. . We have not had a lot of time to do this. Several museums have contacted us by letter or personal phone call/email concerning repatriation. They have sent us photos & descriptions, but nothing has been received. It is difficult to assign ownership of CR items in this area; there are 10 Pomo Tribes in this county. . Some museums adhere to requests made by the Navajo Nation and other museums are forced to cooperate through NAGPRA. . I would say overall, several have accepted our agreements but others such as Peabody & LSU have not signed the agreement with the tribe. . no response – 6

Question #73. Has your tribe or museum received loans from mainstream museums? . No - 6 . no response – 4

Question #74. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums? . Talking to people directly . Personal meetings . Email and face-to-face consultation meetings. . Face to face meetings, with them sharing their databases with us to see what all they actually have whether it is on exhibit or in storage. . no response - 6

Question #75. Could you share one success story involving your tribe’s consultation with these museums? . not yet . We attended a meeting hosted by P. Hearst Museum; not a formal consultation. Museum personnel presented their new protocols, which were not well received by Tribes present. . no . The American Museum of Natural History did an excellent job of consultation with the Caddo Nation. In the process we found a collection that had been purchased by the museum in 1900 that no one knew they had. This collection came from 17 graves of Caddo individuals dug up around 1899 in Cass County, Texas.

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. I was invited to UC Berkeley for 1 week, given inventory lists and was shown items from my tribe . no response – 5

Question #76. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations? . That a middle ground is reached. Museums are like NAGPRA. Both have forced Native Americans to talk about dead people or dead peoples things. Both force tribes to question how to deal with issues that historically they have not dealt with because digging up the dead and displaying things for public viewing is against their most sacred traditions. But now in this modern world they have no choice either they participate or accept others making decision for them. Museums are not a Native American idea of showing respect for the dead. . A real need for more outreach by museums. The laws were written to protect CRs from destruction and to protect ownership & scientific integrity, but do not consider that the local Tribe might want CR items discovered during development. . Museums need to be more respectful of sacred objects and tribal members during consultation meetings. . There is a need for more funding simply for consultation purposes. The Caddo has limited funds and can't just up and go to NYC at our own expense, the AMNH paid for all of our consultation visits. . no response – 6

Question #77. In what ways can mainstream museums support your tribe or museum? . If a tribe asks for their sacred items back, regardless of NAGPRA, give it back. You have no idea what those items mean to the people. It is not right to force people who have lost so much to explain why an item is sacred. There are items in museums right now that have not been identified as sacred by Native American because they don't want to reveal the information for reasons best known to them. . Perhaps arrangements for shared ownership of collections held in museums . I don't know if they can do anything to help tribes. . I think a good way of doing this would be to partnership with tribes to perhaps form some rotating exhibits but like they would with other museums of repositories. . no response – 6

Question #78. Please feel free to add any other comments that can assist PAHMA in developing and implementing culturally-sensitive object handling and storage, loan and exhibit policies. . Listen to what Native American tell you regardless of the opinion of Museum professionals who argue that they are the best qualified to protect museum collections. They have caused more damage to the spirit of these things then they realized. Which is exactly the point. Physical vs. the Spiritual. Which is more important and to whom?

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. no comments . no response – 8

Question #79. May we contact you about this survey? . Yes - 6 . no response – 4

Question #80. If you would like a copy of the final report based on this survey, please write the address in the box below. . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . redacted . no response - 5

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The Karuk People’s Center Survey of Traditional Care Practices Summary

(7 responses)

If you have read this document and have considered all the information, please indicate your agreement to participate in the research by selecting the appropriate box: . Agree – 7 . Do not agree – 0 . If you have read this document and have considered all the information, please indicate your decision regarding anonymity in research and in future research publications by checking the appropriate box. . Decline anonymity – 5 . Request anonymity – 1 . No response - 1

1. How would you describe the mission of the Karuk People’s Center? (please check all that apply) Cultural Revitalization and Research - 5 Preservation of Cultural Treasures/Resources - 7 Public Education and Tourism - 6 Tribal Archives - 6 Other (please describe)  community outreach  fostering a living culture, a teaching tool

2. Does the Center have a formal mission statement? Yes - 4 No Don’t know - 3

3. Does the Center have a written policy on traditional care practices? Yes No - 2 Don’t know - 5

4. Approximately how many Native American objects are in the Center’s collection? Less than 1,000 – 5 1,000 – 10,000 More than 10,000 Unknown - 2

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5. How were these objects obtained? Gifts - 5 Loans - 5 Purchases - 6 Archaeological excavation - 5 Repatriation from mainstream museums - 3 Other (please specify) – 1  Local artist demonstration and making of cultural items.

6. Where did the archaeological materials in the Center’s collection come from? Amateur collectors - 2 Professional CRM firm - 2 Museum sponsored excavation - 1 Federal, state, or local agency – 3 (Chartkoff – 1) Academic research - 2 Indigenous archaeology - 2 Data recovery / mitigation from development - 2 Data recovery / mitigation due to soil contamination - 1 Other (please specify) – 2  Tribe excavated during construction projects  Center collection: local tribal family member’s donations. Repatriation from private collections, university, county, or other museums. Personal collection: made by myself, family, or inherited. Gifts from other tribal weavers and artists, family. Purchase and trade

7. How does the Center care for its collection? Curated in permanent collection - 5 Curated in visible storage - 6 Returned to tribal members - 2 Stored off site Available for education and research - 4 Reburied - 2 Other (please specify)  Stored away from view (some objects)  Release items to be used in ceremonies, actively working to increase collection  Contemporary cultural functions/ceremonies, e.g. Brush Dance

8. Do Center staff members have training in standard collections management practices? Yes – 6  receiving on the job training  management does No – 1  not the workers at the register selling tobacco, books, jewelry, etc.

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9. What type of training have Center staff members received? Culturally sensitive care and handling - 3 Graduate degree in museum studies - 2 Certificate in museum studies - 2 Workshops - 3 Classes - 3 Other (please specify)  Don’t know

10. Do standard museum practices differ from native approaches to collections care? Yes - 5 No If “yes” please explain  Standard practice is very sterile and unemotional whereas Native belief is that some “objects” are living entities and should be treated accordingly.  Standard museum practices do not incorporate the “living” into the items. What I mean is that our cultural, ceremonial view of these items is that they are living. They want to be involved in the ceremonies, not stored away.  Standard museums don’t normally think of the collections as living beings that need to participate in their culture. They also may preserve things in ways that aren’t appropriate (pesticides) or interrupt their natural life span.  There is a culture standard that must be considered. Many items are sacred, sometimes can only be touched by men or women or medicine people. Sometimes must be allowed to be used in ceremonies. Sometimes need to be sang or prayed over.  Don’t know – just visited one in Eureka. Native people want to touch without gloves, but I feel that older baskets shouldn’t be handled by a lot of people.  Tribal people view the items/artifacts as living, and as items that should still “dance,” and be a part of contemporary ceremonies.

11. How can both approaches be successfully integrated?  Through communication and mutual respect. More collaboration, finding a middle ground. Education.  Education! Experience! Respect!  Standard museums listening to tribal cultural practitioners. Respecting best practices guidelines such as the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials.  Allowing Native practices and traditions to be incorporated into the collection and preservation policies.  Has led to confrontations between tribes and museums. I feel that some baskets should b in museums for everyone to be able to see and research, I would like to have a place to see the baskets.

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 More education, such as bringing those stored items…out or back to their home territories/tribal communities. Facilitate tribal artists/practitioners visits to see collections for physical handling and examination.

12. How would you describe procedures for care and handling of the following types of material? Basketry –  clean environment, hands, proper storage  using clean hands, handle them gently  Call Colleen Kelley Marks  Very good  Washed and used, packed with peppernut leaves  “Very old” – washed hands, support center/button and outer lip/edge. Newer, same as above, but depends on type of basket, trap vs. cap Leather –  clean dry environment, stored as not to damage  using clean hands, handle gently  Must be worn to absorb oil from skin  Clean hands Pottery –  not sure  we don’t use it  Same as baskets, provide support Bone and shell –  gentle handling  wrap and protect  Clean hands, don’t be afraid to grab it, unless then or very old Feathers –  using clean hands, handle gently  keep in storage box  Same as bone and shell. OK to flex test or touch quill and edges.

13. Are there specific protocols (handling, storage, display, use, etc) for the following? Please describe. Not sure – would love to learn Sacred items –  should be stored away from view  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Must be prayed over and used. Smudge with angelica root.  Men clean (not drunk/high or had sex without bathing). Women – same as men but also not menstruating/on moon time for women’s stuff. Ceremonial items –  should be stored to maintain integrity

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 Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Must be prayed over and used. Smudge with angelica root.  Men clean (not drunk/high or had sex without bathing). Women – same as men but also not menstruating/on moon time for women’s stuff. Gender specific objects –  should not be handled by wrong gender  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Yes, men shouldn’t handle some women’s things, same with men for women’s stuff. Funerary items –  should never be displayed  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Broken and placed in grave  Only professional trained staff or tribal medicine people Human remains –  should never be displayed  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  There is a ritual for this process  Only professional trained staff or tribal medicine people. Photographic collection –  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Digitize please  Over 100 year old photos – clean cotton gloves, humidity regulated storage, fire proof Audio recordings -  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Humidity regulated/fire proof storage Archival documents –  Talk to relevant ceremonial leaders  Scan  Humidity regulated/fire proof storage Other (specify) -

14. Does the Center control access to cultural materials by Age –  I don’t if we do but we should  No  Yes  Yes based on item, and experience of the person Gender –  I don’t if we do but we should  Yes – 2  Yes based on local cultural tribal beliefs and practices

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Pregnancy –  I don’t if we do but we should  No?  Yes  Yes – handling of funerary and human remains Moon time –  I don’t if we do but we should  Yes?  Yes  Yes – most ceremonial, human remains, men’s ceremonial/weapons Spiritual training –  I don’t if we do but we should  Yes – 3  Hard to do – who decides? Cultural committee, majority of ceremonial leaders? Family lineage –  I don’t if we do but we should  Yes – 3  To items from that family, or if families request that for non-descendants Other (please specify)  Race: some items I don’t let non-family/non-Native touch/handle

15. Have any items in the collection been treated with toxic pesticides or fungicides? Yes - 3 No - 1 Don’t know - 3 If yes, how have you dealt with this situation?  I’m guessing that yes, some have  A cap that my husband bought for me had been treated with pesticides. Obviously, I couldn’t wear it. Fortunately he was able to sell it to a local collector who could store the cap.  Gloves must be worn when handling items.  I hope not  Yes – I am sure. Careful cleanup, proper training in restoration and handling/disposal of toxic substances.

16. Have you or the Center consulted with mainstream museums on culturally respectful treatment of Karuk materials in their collections? Yes – 2 No - 4 Don’t know

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If yes, which museums have you consulted with?  Smithsonian NMAI  Berkeley  Oregon State University

17. Which issues and suggested protocols have you brought to their attention? Display and interpretation - 2 Repair Handling – 2  Men’s items by women, funerary and human remains/ grave items Offerings - 1  Smoked and prayed over Storage - 3  Baskets to have peppernut leaves  How baskets were stacked – inside each other, bigger to smaller Access – 2  Tribal members can access Intellectual Property Rights – 2  Remain with Tribe Loans – ceremonial use, tribal display, research – 3  Create policy to allow for use  To do this more often Toxic contamination – 3  Decontaminate  Restoration, detox and disposal of waster products Intertribal relations – 2  How or why Karuk baskets were “Hupa” labeled Other –  Return if possible, items must be used and sung to and smoked  Proper identification of wildlife (or parts of) and fish used for regalia, tools, weapons, nets.

18. What types of collections have you addressed? What requests have you made? Sacred items – 3  Storage  be used and photographed  Separated from some other things Ceremonial items – 3  Storage  be used and photographed  Separated from some other things Gender specific objects – 3  Storage and handling

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 be used and photographed  Separated from some other things, men’s weapons from women’s Funerary items - 2  Returned and reburied  Separated from World Renewal objects Human remains – 2  Returned and reburied  Separated from World Renewal objects Photographic collections – 3  Copied and shared  Appropriate representation of tribal culture in the photos Audio recordings – 1  Copied and shared Archival documents – 1  Copied and shared Other

19. How have museums responded to your requests for consultation on traditional care and handling protocols? (Please describe any significant differences among museums)  Smithsonian was good  Most have been cautious but helpful and willing to be a cooperative partner

20. Has the Karuk People’s Center received loans from mainstream museums? Yes – 4 Does the Black Wolfskin from Berkeley going to Tishawnik Pikiawish apply? No – 0 Don’t’ know - 1 If so, how would you describe the process and experience?  The problem is that they tend to want things back  I don’t know much about the process

21. What has been the most effective means of communicating with mainstream museums?  Phone, written  In person, face-to-face  Having a good museum Director  Visits  Visiting their exhibits, talking face-to-face or phone/email with curation specialists and/or tribal people who have served as consultants

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22. Could you share one success story involving the Karuk Tribe’s consultation with these museums? Was there a specific occurrence that made it a success?  Smithsonian NMAI Videoconferencing project  The virtual repatriation process with the Smithsonian. I wasn’t very involved, but my impression was that the relationship between Fred Nahwooksy and the Karuk Tribe really helped make it a success.  Working on the Clarke Museum display  Holly Hensher and Leaf Hillman visiting the UC Berkeley (Hearst?) museum to repatriate/return regalia. The South Oregon University invited tribal people to view collections before repatriation.

23. What do you see as the opportunities and challenges for future museum/tribal relations?  I think a challenge is balancing the need to preserve things with the people’s belief and want that some items be used or not used in certain ways. There is a lot of opportunity for everyone to learn and work together better.  Smithsonian NMAI Videoconferencing project  I see the development of the First Archivists Circle’s Protocols on Native American Archival Materials as an opportunity and the financial crunch everyone is experiencing as a challenge.  Having adequate and appropriate space to safety hold items.  Opportunities: Living museums, sponsoring more “Demos” of various cultural practices/traditions. Employment for tribal members/specialists to share/work with what they know. Challenges: Foundation/Funding support to sponsor cultural center/museum activities. Good administrators who take part in cultural activities.

24. In what ways can mainstream museums support the Karuk Tribe and Karuk People’s Center?  Getting more involved. Supporting each other in whatever way possible. Networking. Seminars. Maybe more loans so we have a more rotating display.  Give our stuff back (yeah – right!)  Experience sharing. Lending and repatriating collections.  Returning Karuk objects  Return as many items as possible or allow them to be used in ceremonies. Loan items for display.  Provide opportunities for tribal practitioners/specialists to view collections to see how and what artifacts (they have). Access to collections.

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25. The following questions allow for more open and direct discussion on Karuk perspectives. Our conversation will be recorded in writing or taped. As with the written survey, your participation is entirely voluntary, you may request anonymity, and any direct quotations will be subject to your approval. Do you agree to participate? . Yes – 3 . No – 0 . No response – 3 Do you request anonymity? . Yes – 0 . No – 3 . No response – 3 a. What does the People’s Center mean to you?  Cultural, historical, and spiritual center for Karuk people. Everyone feels that this is their place, they are proud of the Center. An educational center.  Having a place to have things to display, what we bring back. It means the council respected culture enough to put resources into providing that place. The things that are important to me are important to them  A place where people can learn about Karuk culture, classes, instruction, storage, display. The gift shop to get things that say Karuk. Classroom for basketmaking and regalia making.  A place to look at things and see how people made them before – educational and teaching  Glad we have it, it brings things to our area so we don’t have to go so far. Also classes bring us closer, are a learning tool for us. It puts us in touch with things, brings people together for the basketweavers gathering.  A place to continue Karuk culture. Local tourism. b. How does the community view the Center? How can the Center best serve Karuk people?  Historical, gift shop. Need more community outreach, more educational opportunities, more sweats, etc. Place for shrine, altar. Place to light the root. We give out root to kids and elders at no cost. But will need to disable the fire alarm.  May not be on their radar. Artists view it for tribal art. School system doesn’t use it to its potential. The rest of the community doesn’t use it as much as they should.  Cigarettes and place to learn about Karuk culture  Community likes it, enjoys seeing our stuff. The displays show that the Karuk were part of bigger society from way back – like the timeline shows.  I’m not sure. They are learning cultural ways.  Positively. A good place to show things. Host workshops, exhibits, and promote cultural demonstrations. Collecting and gathering trips.

240 c. What should be the priorities of the Center?  Gift shop – gifts at reasonable price. Center – more education, something for kids, particularly during summer. We need more community support.  Repatriation and education of tribal members on their culture. A place to come back and be exposed, to have pride in being Karuk and our own unique culture. Identification and documentation of outside Karuk collections.  Living culture, ceremony, contemporary art and people.  To get more sacred items back. We would like to be able to see these items to make more, we need more traditional stuff to see.  Keeping in touch with culture, a lot would have died away if we couldn’t wee our past.  Presentation of historical artifacts, continued living arts and tribal customs. Language and elder/youth programs. d. What are the commonalities between mainstream museums and tribal cultural centers? What are the differences?  Commonalities – historical focus, way facility is set up; differences – sterile, non-interactive, not as much of a personal connection  Commonalities – displays, preservation and care, climate control, IPM, archival mounts; differences – idea of ownership, living things are not objects that can be owned.  Commonalities – displays and exhibits, studies of cultural elements; differences – classes, more layers of bureaucracy in mainstream museums (both good and bad). Example is basket of elder deaccesssioned without process and buried with the elder.  They have our stuff and we don’t. Both are into ancestral stuff.  Don’t know the similarities. In mainstream museums you are not allowed to use things, at the People’s Center we have loans of regalia, but folks need to learn more about how to take care of and treat these items. We should monitor our loans, and solicit more loans from outside.  Commonalities: exhibits. Differences: more family/personal based exhibits. e. How can the two approaches work together?  More communication, mutual respect of perspectives and goals  Tribal people have to communicate their values to mainstream museums. Mainstream museums want to know all about items, this will benefit both. NMAI didn’t use gloves during first visit, second time required them. Automatic distrust of mainstream museums, it took several visits with NMAI to open discussion.  If people will communicate (sometimes this is legally mandated) about principles, and are willing to change their practices, and take time before change is needed.  Support both types of cultural exhibits.

241 f. What changes would you like to see at mainstream museums?  More hands-on displays for example using fire stick and bow  Repatriation. More respectful of tribes, that those things that were taken the wrong way, what that really means to Native people. They are turning the corner and coming to understand how this taking of cultural items impacts Native people who gave up stuff for food, how Native people really feel.  Repatriation and openness to giving things back.  Sharing their wealth, instead of keeping it on shelves and in drawers. Also more openness to loans and repatriation.  More loans, but distance is a problem  More “living” culture/contemporary lifeways. Link past/historical to today’s issues. g. What changes would you like to see at the People’s Center?  More interactiveness, such as the word of the month, more acceptance of non-Natives, more welcoming to outsiders who are tribal supporters but not members.  More resources for more staff, archives, able to handle repatriating itmes. Off site storage that is climate controlled and secure.  More resources, more process. Living and contemporary art. Archives and library.  To be enlarged, more storage room.  The Center is doing a good job, should be a repository that is safe and secure.  More space/special topic exhibits every few months. h. What is the meaning and purpose of the collection? How should it be cared for?  The collection is the cultural heritage for education, making people feel part of something. It should be cared for respectfully and also using good preservation. The boat needs a drink of water! Needs balance between preservation and use. For example, the necklaces felt happier after being danced.  The meaning is to show the richness of Karuk culture and history, contemporary and ongoing, to use things that can be used in ceremony, to be respected for their value to people.  Studying culture is one component of keeping it going, undoing Native American stereotypes. Education, revitalization, respect the status of things, living things. Use them in ceremony, have them come back as appropriate. It is a rough and tumble life we have, as do those things, now they get to do their job.  To educate people – that’s my job and all of our jobs. We should care for the collection with standard practices. Anoxic fumigation is OK, since the items are living when being used.  For education close to home, part of our past, to see what our relatives did.  Preserve/protect and education. Proper storage.

242 i. How would you describe “traditional care practices”?  Not sure except to treat certain things as if alive, and to avoid using regalia as power plays by withholding from use.  Using natural elements – the sun to bleach bear grass, fire to burn, water to soak, pepperwood, cedar, and redwood for storage.  I don’t know much about them, they are mysterious since I grew up in the Bay Area. More traditional care information and workshops are needed. That knowledge has not been evenly distributed.  Pepperwood didn’t work to control the insect infestation  Following gender or moontime rules. j. Are you familiar with “best museum practices”? How would you describe them?  Gloves, security. We are king of in a middle place – certain items are cared for by preserving, We break off root for people. For example, how much would it hurt the boat to put it in the creek?  Not familiar, focus on being careful, on integrity of shape and condition, to do no harm.  Not that much.  No, not sure How can they be adapted to traditional and culturally respectful protocols?  These can be adapted, particularly to old materials, we should use traditional methods first, then if that doesn’t work use others.  Don’t use pesticides. I think that the oils from hands keep baskets supple, OK to handle as long as hands are clean. Whether OK to handle during a woman’s moon time depends on the person. Would like to use soaproot brush for cleaning. It is OK to soak new baskets in water, but not the old ones.  Not sure k. What are the challenges to integrating these two approaches? How can these issues be resolved?  The view from Indians of living objects versus mainstream ownership, and “our way is the best way” versus Indian’s experience of thousands of years. Both have to be willing to give, and will need compromise, listen to us (Indians), allow us to be part of decision-making. Museums shouldn’t feel threatened by tribal people, and should not be defensive. They need to understand and want to understand. Keep talking, work together on projects, develop trust, and put it to the test.  For both sides, to not overreact to challenging statements. When hard things are said, getting past the conflicts.  Going to museums is calming, gives a sense of home, of place where I belong. How can we protect our heritage.  Not sure.

243 l. Is there anything else you would like to add?  Native American Day is an opportunity for community outreach. Most of the community is focused on getting something, they are deprived physically, emotionally, spiritually, and geographically.  It’s important to not talk nasty around regalia; don’t hide it away, but keep it clean; I do soak baskets in warm water to clean them and keep them supple. A lot of stuff comes to me in dreams…like a color picture in my mind. I wake up and draw it. I want regalia to go to those with good feeling and who will treat it well. I will tell them how to care for it – who is not able to dance with it. Women are not supposed to stand behind drummers, during their moon time they are too strong and will throw men off balance, they also shouldn’t be working on regalia during their moon time.  Living exhibits. Focus on management of resources, harvest/collection, preparation, and construction/manufacturing techniques. Research and development. Identify the “most at risk” of being lost cultural practices, skills or knowledges.

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