In this photo provided by Tlingit Haida Central Council, the Frog Hat of Wrangell's Khaach.ádi clan was returned earlier this month by Oakland Museum of California staff after an absence of nearly a century. The hat had been wrongly acquired and long thought lost until its eventual donation to the museum in 1959.
The Oakland Museum of California recently returned a lost artifact to Tlingit Haida Central Council, a ceremonial clan hat belonging to the Khaach.ádi clan of Wrangell. The Xhixhch'i S'aaxhw, or Frog Hat, is nearly 200 years old, verlaid with copper and abalone shell, and decorated with ermine skins and woven rings.
In a Council news release the hat is said to be a sacred object used in clan ceremonies and is the joint property of the Khaach.ádi. It is uncertain when it will return to Wrangell from Juneau, but it may be formally reintroduced to the public next year.
Tlingit Haida Central Council submitted a repatriation claim on behalf of the Khaach.ádi clan in 2008, receiving approval for return last year. Though officially turned over to the Council, the hat remained on loan to the museum for display until its repatriation.
Photographs and the clan's oral history were used as evidence of Xhixhchi' S'aaxhw's background. Documentation indicated the hat had been acquired by Wrangell shopkeeper Fred Carlyon and his sister, Anna Vaughn. The hat was later donated to the Oakland Museum by Vaughn's daughter in 1959.
A number of ceremonial items and cultural artifacts belonging to Alaskan tribes were acquired or taken by collectors during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and recently there has been a push to return them. Earlier this spring, a memorial ceremony was held at the Wrangell Community Center to celebrate, among other things, the return of a hat repurchased by the Kiks.ádi clan from an auction house and another repatriated to the Teeyhíttaan by the Alaska State Museum.
Tlingit Haida Central Council Vice President Will Micklin accepted the item on behalf of the tribe at the San Francisco Tlingit and Haida Community Council's Biannual Culture Fair on Nov. 9. Wrapping the hat in a Chilkit blanket belonging to Chief Shakes, it accompanied other repatriated items on its trip to Juneau, where it is now being kept.
At the repatriation ceremony, Tlingit Haida Central Council cultural research specialist Harold Jacobs said in Tlingit, "Yeedát sá yéi át yatee, oo awdudlixhaaji xhooni kháa, heinaxh kháa géidei yaxh ghaagoot," or "Life should be this way, that a relative you've given up hope of ever seeing again and suddenly they come around the corner."
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