According to news reports, a Tlingit hat sold for $365,000 on the auction block at Sotheby’s of New York May 21.
The hat’s sale had been opposed by local Alaskan Natives and board members of the SEALAKSA corporation on the grounds that as a sacred at.óow object, it never should have left possession of the Wrangell Kiks.áadi clan in the first place. The hat was in the style of an Aleut hunting cap with Tlingit embossments and accents and was carved by master carver Wiliam Ukas, who carved the basis for the post office totem pole.
An online drive aiming to fund a return of the hat to the clan closed Friday with $26,872 contributed by almost 200 people in 11 days, according to the online crowdsourcing site gofundme.com.
Mike Hoyt, who helped organize the fundraiser, in addition to an event designed to advocate for the hat’s return, said those who donated funds for the drive would not be charged, since the drive didn’t meet it’s $100,000 goal.
“The fundraising effort, which ended Friday, fell short of the target goal,” he wrote. “However, I do not consider this to be a defeat. The fact that so many people came together and made such a great effort makes it a victory in my mind. The effort to return the hat is not over, as we’ll be exploring how to continue.”
Hoyt had compared the sale of the hat by a private owner to the sale of Liberty Bell by a private owner.
The sale of the hat underscores the difficulty Southeast clans face in getting thousands of sacred objects that were removed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries returned to clan ownership or venues more open to occasional ceremonial use, like the Wrangell Museum.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act stipulates that any museums receiving federal funds honor requests for repatriation. The Tlingit Aleut hat, like potentially thousands of other at.óow objects, remains in private ownership after the auction, and is thus not subject to the act, though occasionally other private ownership objects have been returned.
A classic example in this regard is a Raven Rattle, now held by the Wrangell Museum. National Park Service special agent Erny Kuncl helped return the hat in 2002 after it was seized along with a pound of marijuana, according to the Wrangell and Sitka newspapers.
The Sealaska Heritage Institute no longer tracks at.óow in museum possession, according to director Rosita Worl. The Institute stopped tracking these pieces after discovering that at least 50,000 sacred objects remained in museum possession, Worl said.
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