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Go-Between Man” Whose Dogged Pursuit of Their Quest Proved His Devotion, His Attentions Sharpened by Gordon’S Demands and Bankroll

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Go-Between Man” Whose Dogged Pursuit of Their Quest Proved His Devotion, His Attentions Sharpened by Gordon’S Demands and Bankroll 1 New Indians Daniel L. Henry [email protected] In spring of 1923, Tlingit men and women of the Chilkat Valley conducted a referendum on the deeds of their most controversial tribal member. For seven troubled years, the man pressured Chilkat kinsmen to sell their “best and oldest” clan possessions to the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Some widows and heirs parted with their treasures for a few hundred dollars; others refused any offer. Especially resistant was Yeil.xaax, hitsaati of the Whale House, protector of the finest indigenous artwork on the West Coast. The Ganax.teidi houseposts, rainscreen, and feasting trough comprised the heart of old Klukwan, and the Museum’s primary objective. Their man would not be deterred from his mission, despite relatives who threatened that he remove aat.oow “over their dead bodies.” Seeking to thaw icy clan tensions, northern Tlingits turned to tools borrowed from American settlers: They voted. Ballot boxes were provided in the Alaska Native Sisterhood/Brotherhood halls of Klukwan and Haines, built only six and seven years earlier. A letter dated April 22, 1923 told the outcome: The native population of Haines has voted against us, but the Kluckwan majority appeared in our favor, but we have decided to ignor all community interest and proseed with our plan. For nine more years the collector pursued the Whale House masterworks, a campaign associated with such pain that some still refuse to utter his name. I first heard about him thirty years ago from a white man who said that lightning struck a Tlingit Judas on a roof in Haines as cosmic retribution for betraying his people. Over the years, I heard other versions of the same story, but direct questions to Tlingit elders usually crumpled into shrugs and silence. A glare might be followed by a terse warning against opening old wounds. “Just because you’re curious,” a Lukak.adi man told me, “doesn’t mean you need to know.” 2 Now I wonder how much anyone really knew. Born Stoowukaa in 1882, the grandson of the great chief Koh’klux was among the first of his people to embrace and emulate the upper ranks of white society by becoming a renowned Native American anthropologist. Curator, linguist, author, opera singer, hunting guide to Teddy Roosevelt, advisor to Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Alfred Kroeber—in the opening decades of the twentieth century Louis Shotridge was perceived as one of America’s most civilized Indians. For the remainder of the century, Shotridge was often recast as a traitor to his people. Two dozen treatments by academics, journalists, and playwrights offer commentary on the bold ironies of his meteoric life and mysterious death, some veering into speculation and magical thinking. Notable exceptions include Nora and Richard Dauenhauers’ articles and Maureen Milburn’s 1997 dissertation, The Politics of Possession: Louis Shotridge and the Tlingit Collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Through her work, each strand of a complex and remarkable life is exposed for its contribution to the whole tapestry. Rather than judge Shotridge’s acts by modern standards, she acknowledges his front-man role in” a persuasive, well-intentioned effort” funded by East Coast progressives to “offset damaging Euro- American views of aboriginal race.” The high-caste Tlingit man was drawn to do what he believed would save the best of a vanishing tradition, even if he became a pariah among his contemporaries. In a letter to his supervisor written January 27, 1923 Shotridge cast their mission as a matter of cultural life and death: It is clear now, that unless someone go to work, record our history in the English language, and place these old things as evidence, the noble idea of our forefathers shall be entirely lost. Alaska Natives were consumed with the ways of white people, Shotridge observed, leaving only a few to “affectionately hold on to the teachings of their forefathers.” Mission schooling prohibited Tlingit language; churches required starch and piety; and old totems were tossed in scrap heaps behind village houses. By any means necessary Louis Shotridge intended to save the finest works of a passing age. Years of recording Tlingit life stories for broadcast and archive in Haines and Klukwan, Alaska created for me a web of personal and historical interconnections with a 3 few conspicuous gaps, Shotridge foremost. A few historians and elders in Juneau and Sitka were willing to talk about him, but in his hometown—stern silence. I assembled details from scattered articles by and about the man whose ambition and intelligence vaulted him onto a precarious perch between two worlds, notoriety for which he paid dearly. The rhetorician in me traced strategies Shotridge used to convince kinsmen to sell their aat.oow. On the page opposite his arguments—the elders’ responses. The historian sifted through midden heaps to discern the events that define a man’s life. Eventually I needed to hear more from Shotridge himself. A subsequent pilgrimage to University of Pennsylvania breathed life into lore. Three decades of correspondence between Penn curators and their agent in Alaska disclosed the passions that consumed Shotridge through his adult years. In the elegant handwriting of a mission education, Louis Shotridge’s earliest letters to George Byron Gordon convey the enthusiasm of a young man courting a powerful business prospect. Later reports composed by his employer on a typewriter reflect the tone of a trusted envoy on a mission for the greater good: preservation of a glorious past. Founded in 1897 to “assemble collections that will illustrate the achievements of Mankind in the field of Art,” the University Museum sent emissaries to collect great works of antiquity in Greece, Egypt, China, Palestine, Africa, Guatemala, and the Amazon. Gordon’s hand guided the campaign to “save all that is possible before it becomes too late.” The rapid industrialization of North America convinced Gordon that only a few years remained before its finest indigenous artwork was lost. Success in his 1905 collecting trip among Inupiaq Eskimos whetted the curator’s appetite for the best of southeast Alaska Indians. He chose Shotridge to head Alaska expeditions conducted in 1915-1918 and 1922-1925 to acquire the last best Northwest Coast relics. In letters both reassuring and bureaucratic, Gordon conveyed faith that Shotridge would use diplomacy and experience to the best advantage possible to acquire specimens for the lowest price at which they can be obtained. Letters between the Eastern museum administrator and his Native cohort provide an intimate account of rhetorical strategies employed to wheedle cherished artwork from 4 the Whale House of Klukwan. Just as important, the written exchange offers insights into the persuasive dynamics of a long-term business relationship sustained by men of two worlds. Prospects of immortalizing a proud culture in the great halls of an even more prominent people generated heat in the letters Shotridge sent to Philadelphia until his death. Prodded by Gordon’s memos, the Tlingit man’s intentions and struggles offer a view beyond the ballot-box judgment that still lingers since the Haines-Klukwan vote of 1923. Louis and Florence Shotridge had yet to venture beyond southeast Alaska until September 1905 when they traveled to the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland Oregon. Young, attractive, and English-speaking, they drew curious crowds to examine her Chilkat weaving technique or fire questions to him about Tlingit ways. Howd’ja meet? Our parents pledged us at birth. Howd’ja learn to talk English? At Haines Mission. My wife attended school four years; I went off and on. About seventeen months. A tutor comes to our house once a week so we can learn to read and write as good as white people. Everybody speaks English in Haines. We’re Americans, too! Louis’ strong, brown face softens into a boyish grin. The crowd laughs its encouragement. Are you a chief? Yes, ma’am. In Tlingit I am Stoo-wukaa born in Klukwan into the Kaagwaantaan/Eagle clan from my mother Kudeit.saakw. On my father’s side I am Ganax.teidi yadi from Gooch Hit/Wolf House, son of George Shotridge, Yeilgooxu, grandson of Koh’klux, the great sha'dehuni who met William Seward, George Davidson, and John Muir. My wife will speak for herself. I am Florence Dennis Shotridge called Kaatkwaaxsnei in Tlingit, born in Chilkoot, Lukak.adi on my mother’s side; Kaagwaantaan yadi, daughter of Scundoo’o, a famous medicine man from the Mountain House in Yandeistakye. 5 The smiles that emanate from the young couple catch the eyes of passersby. For white people shamed by the sullen glances of reservation Indians, the Shotridges offer redemption. These are Indians you can talk to. Gawkers edge closer toward the young couple adorned in a swirl of woven and beaded design. Questions leak, then gush. Photographs are orchestrated, weavings caressed. Anticipation builds as the weaver’s husband escorts a knot of dawdlers to his table in one of many “art galleries” set up around the exposition. He extracts from a crate a carved mask, an apron woven with mountain goat wool, a dancing rattle. Who wishes to take these fine items home? A hearty man bearing waxed mustache points pushes forward, hand extended. He is George Gordon, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, just returned from collecting in Arctic Alaska. Many Alaskans spoke to him of the Whale House collection and other art pieces hidden in closets and clan houses of the “Mother Village.” Gordon’s desire to fill an empty wing of his museum energizes his pitch: Klukwan, where you’re from, has the oldest and best things. They must be preserved immediately or rot away like so many other ancient treasures.
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