![]() That’s not easy for a curator to accept.Ĭolwell uses the Ahayu:da and three other examples of repatriations from the Denver collection to explain the complex legal processes that have changed the way museums approach their collections: a Cheyenne scalp from a 19th-century massacre by the US cavalry a ceremonial robe, the symbol of clan authority for the Tlingit of the Alaskan coast and a large collection of human remains that cannot be definitively assigned to any particular tribe.īehind all these stories is a tension between the rights-based argument for repatriation and the scientific impulse that wants these objects to remain in a museum. (Even in the 2000s, a few were still turning up in dusty corners.) The Ahayu:da now reside in a secure, open-air shrine where they will eventually decay to dust. And he follows the Zuni in their years-long struggle to have them returned. ![]() Repatriations of these objects began in 1978: Colwell describes the Zuni leaders’ emotionally charged visits to the Ahayu:da imprisoned in his museum, and relates the history of the objects’ purchase – or theft – by white dealers and anthropologists. ![]()
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