Wrangell hat slated for auction block

A ceremonial hat from the Wrangell Kiks.ádi tribe was set to go before the auction gavel in New York Wednesday.

The potential auction of a priceless heirloom has galvanized tribal leaders, who say the hat never should have been sold in the first place. A rally with traditional singing and dancing was planned for Wednesday evening in Juneau. A crowdsourcing campaign to try and reclaim the hat had raised more than $21,000 in three days.

The auction, being conducted by the New York chapter of international art auctioneers Sotheby's, illustrates a clash between concepts of ownership, and harkens back to an era when Tlingit culture was under direct assault from the US military and cultural assault from Christian missionaries.

The hat was carved by master Tlingit carver William Ukas sometime in the last century (Ukas's son Thomas carved the Wrangell Post Office totem pole based on his father's design). It's style of construction appears different from other cedar hats seen in traditional ceremonies in and around Wrangell, which are typically round and low-brimmed. The hat's shape instead resembles a traditional Aleut hat, with a long, low brim used for hunting and fishing on open water, though the artwork and embossments are pure Tlingit. It contains three potlatch – or ku.éex – tiers topped by an abalone crest.

Tlingit historians, like SEALASKA Heritage Institute Director Rosita Worl, say the hat's hybridized nature stems from contacts between Aleut guides for Russian colonists and Tlingit residents during the era when Russian ships guided by Aleut conscripts plied Southeast waters.

"In the early 1800s, the Russians used Aleuts as their hunters," she said. "They actually conscripted Aleut hunters and brought them from their homelands on Kodiak and in the Aleutian chain and brought them down to Southeast to hunt sea otters for them. So Tlingits were exposed to the Aleuts, and more often, tribal relations and friendships developed, and we actually learned some of their songs, and we copied some of their regalia."

The bond between the two tribes transcended the near extirpation of Aleut culture in Westward Alaska, Worl said.

"The Aleuts had actually lost all of their songs," she said. "Oh, maybe about ten, twelve years ago, we still sang their songs, and they didn't have any of their songs, and we had a group of them that came down to Juneau, and our people gave them back their songs."

Lot 88 of the Arts of the American West auction, as the hat is referred to on the Sotheby's website, has an estimated value of between $300,000 and $500,000.

The value is priceless, Worl said, because the hat and others like it occupy a position as at.óow – cermonial regalia and objects typically viewed as the property of a clan and not an individual.

"In our culture, you just can't even put a financial value on it, because of its sacred and spiritual dimensions, its significance has a really tangible tie to our ancestors, and also, it's kind of like our tangible tie to our future generations," she said. "It's based on one of our cultural values that says that we have a responsibility to our future generations. In terms of putting a monetary value on it, we're talking about different kinds things."

Thousands of sacred objects were taken away from clan houses in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, Worl said. Many ended up in museum collections, where they became subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, which stipulates that any museum receiving federal funding must comply with repatriation claims filed by tribes. Absent the spiritual and ceremonial context of their creation, they rapidly became art objects. Lot 88 has remained in private hands for at least a decade, first in the collection of artist Paul Rabat, then in the possession of Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Economos Works of Art, meaning the Act can't be used to file a repatriation claim, according to Worl.

Tribal officials don't know how the hat ended up in private hands, whether it was sold (as sometimes happened), stolen, or looted from a grave.

In past situations, private institutions have stepped up to purchase auctioned art with the express intent of returning it to local clans. Once returned, it often ends up being stored in the collection of the Wrangell Museum, available for loan and use in traditional ceremonies.

"Our hope – I know it may sound far-fetched and unrealistic – we're hopeful that Sotheby's or the owners of the hat might do the ethical thing and return property that, under our laws, was not acquired legally," she said. "We know that the law doesn't support us, but according to our laws, it was acquired illegally."

If the owners don't voluntarily return the hat, the second-best approach is that a private institution will purchase it for repatriation.

The at.óow concept recently took center stage at a ku.éex ceremony in Wrangell, when a several prominent hats were returned to Wrangell clans, according to SEALASKA Director Richard Rinehart, Jr., who attended the double ceremony at the Wrangell High School gym in April, where he was installed as the Kiks.ádi clan leader. Rinehart wrote a letter to Sotheby's urging the return of the hat this week, and said he and his father faced a similar struggle for repatriation with an Alaska museum. They eventually won the battle, though the museum agreed to return the hat a day after Richard Rinehart, Sr., died.

Regardless of whether the hat was purchased, grave-robbed, or stolen, it should be returned, Rinehart said.

"From (the perspective of) tribal law, if you have an object of cultural at.óow, where it's owned by a clan, it's not owned by a person and nobody does have the right to sell it," he said.

A third effort, led by Mike Hoyt, a great-grandson of Ukas, has already raised $21,803 by 137 people in four days using the crowd funding and fundraising website GoFundMe.

Hoyt has been involved with other hat reclaimings, including a hat started by William Ukas and finished by Thomas Ukas which was successfully obtained in December.

"I don't know if I'd say that I do it often," he said. "It is something that I'm passionate about."

While the fundraising effort may be shy of the $100,000 goal Hoyt set, he stressed the significance of the larger goal.

"To me the ideal outcome is that the hat returns home," he said. "That's the number one thing I want to see happen."

The hat's sale was analagous to selling the Liberty Bell, Hoyt said.

"It can't be sold by the mayor of Philadelphia, it belongs to the people," he said. "The U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the crown of England, the Pope's regalia. Those things belong to groups of people, they don't belong to an individual, so they can't be sold by an individual."