Making connections through Burke collections

In honor of this year's International Museum Day, I sat down with one of our curators, Dr. Holly Barker, also a University of Washington (UW) anthropology professor, to talk about some of the connections she’s seen UW students make when she’s invited them into the Burke’s ethnology collections.


Tangible connections. Students in one of Holly’s independent
study groups making pump drills, an ancient tool that’s
being revitalized in today’s carving practices.

Connecting Philippine and Puget Sound Communities

A week before Typhoon Haiyan battered the central Philippines, seven heritage enthusiasts from Palawan Island came to Seattle to learn about archaeology, community-based museums and heritage tourism, and to visit firsthand with people of another culture, the Suquamish Tribe.

Suquamish Tribal Elder Betty Pasco and Robert Arevalo share
a laugh at the end of their hike on the Cape Flattery Trail.
Photo by Wade Trenbeath.

Parrington artifacts: A collector's story



Vernon L. Parrington in his office at the University of
Oklahoma, ca. 1905. Photograph courtesy of Sarah Parrington.

Objects in museums hold many stories—often of their makers and users, and also, sometimes, of their collectors.

That's the case with several beautiful Native American artifacts recently donated to the Burke Museum from the family of Vernon Louis Parrington, a longtime English professor at the University of Washington (UW) in the early 1900s.

Parrington was born in Illinois in 1871. He graduated from Harvard College in 1893 and taught English for four years at Emporia College in Kansas before moving on to teach at the University of Oklahoma.

Day of the Dead: A celebration of life

Day of the Dead Figure
David Linares-Vargas

At the Burke, we bring together people, objects and the stories that make them meaningful. As Mexico and other cultures around the world celebrate Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) on November 1 and 2, we want to share some of the Day of the Dead objects in our Ethnology collection and a special new sculpture on display for our visitors to enjoy.

Day of the Dead is a time for families and communities to welcome home the visiting spirits of the deceased and celebrate the love they shared. Rather than a time for sadness and mourning, this holiday, is a celebration of life and is filled with all kinds of individual and culturally meaningful objects that remind us of the past.

Preparations for Day of the Dead often begin weeks in advance. The celebration traditionally includes dances, festivals, family gatherings and religious services. Families also place photographs of their deceased relatives on candlelit ofrendas (altars) with elaborate wreaths and crosses, prepare special foods – such as chocolate skulls and pan de muerto (bread of the dead) and lay trails of brightly-colored marigolds to help guide the spirits home.

The Waterlines Project Exhibit at Milepost 31

Last week, the Washington State Department of Transportation opened Milepost 31 (MP31), a new public information center in the heart of Pioneer Square. This center was championed by a group of neighborhood and historic preservation organizations brought together as part of the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires that states work to offset potential construction effects in historic places like Pioneer Square.

MP31 highlights the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement process and the history of Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood. Several organizations, including the Burke Museum, History Link, the Tulalip Tribes, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe contributed to the exhibit.

MP31 provides a unique opportunity for visitors to see how geology, archaeology, current events, and cultural heritage inform the history of Puget Sound and the future of our city.

While WSDOT conducts environmental and cultural research to comply with federal and state laws for every major construction project, MP31 represents an unprecedented effort to share this invaluable information and engage local Native communities and the general public in our shared heritage.

The Burke Museum’s Waterlines Project team curated the “Moving Land” section of MP31. Our Waterlines team has been working together for almost 8 years and is led by Burke Curator of Archaeology Dr. Peter Lape, Puget Sound River History Project staff member Amir Sheikh and research artist Donald Fels. The team explores Seattle’s history by examining the natural and human impacts on the city’s shorelines, and works to apply this knowledge to urban development decisions today.

As you walk through “Moving Land,” large columns containing soil layers from test drillings envelop you in the space. These columns literally share the history beneath your feet from a layer of peat of a long buried tidal lagoon under present-day Occidental Park to the sawdust from Yesler’s Mill that filled it. Also under your feet is an eye-catching floor map allows you to trace the history of Seattle’s changing shoreline.

 

Moving Land highlights monumental moments in Seattle’s development, from the Denny Regrade to a severe earthquake that occurred 1,100 years ago and still lives on in local Native American stories.

A video follows the histories of people and communities on Seattle’s transforming shores from the Native village site of Djidjila'letch to the heart of the metropolis we know today.

 

Over the past week, there has been a lot of public discussion about MP31. The center brings up concerns about tax dollars and the issue of the Viaduct replacement. But it also provides an opportunity for the Burke Museum and our collaborators to share our work with the community outside the museum’s walls and foster public discussion that helps us learn from the past and plan for the future.

Collection Spotlight: A Yup'ik Mourning Dancer

Object #: 1999-144/1

In this Collection Spotlight, we write less and hopefully you write more…

As I was happily clicking through the Ethnology Collections database, I came across this image of a doll titled Mourning Dancer by Yup’ik artist Suzanne Wardlow.

Here are some of my musings about this piece: I find this image entirely arresting. It makes me wonder about the sound the dancer would make as he moved. Having recently attended the Seattle Art Museum’s exuberant Nick Cave exhibit, I am interested in the contrast between the celebratory movement of Cave’s pieces and the mourning dance of Wardlow’s doll.

Now, what about you?   When you first encounter an artifact in a museum, like this Mourning Doll, what musings do you have? Do you want to know how something moved, felt, tasted? When have you had to resist the urge to jump into an exhibit?

At this point, I have yet to master the art of mind reading (not for lack of trying, mind you)…so please WRITE me your musings and pondering in the comments…I'm curious to know what you think!

Posted by: Emily Sparling 

Q. Is the tradition of carving totem poles native to Western Washington?

The Burke Museum partners with the Seattle PI's Big Blog to answer commonly asked questions about the natural and cultural history of our region. Read past entries from the Ask the Burke column here.

Q. Is the tradition of carving totem poles native to Western Washington?

A. Although totem poles have become a symbol of all Northwest Coast Native people and their use has spread to neighboring tribes through the years, they weren't always in the Seattle area. Tall multiple-figure poles known as totem poles were first made only by the northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian peoples in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia and are not native to the people of Western Washington. Closer to home, the Coast Salish people in Southern British Columbia and Western Washington carved large human figures representing ancestors and spirit helpers on interior house posts and as grave monuments.

Even though totem poles were not originally carved by people living around the Puget Sound, references to totem poles can be found in many places around Seattle, such as a totem pole in West Seattle that was recently stolen (and returned), the Pike Place Market totem pole, those here at the Burke Museum, and of course, the long-standing totem pole in Pioneer Square.

Tlingit totem pole is unveiled at Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington, October 18, 1899. Photo courtesy University of Washington, Special Collections Division.

The Pioneer Square pole was originally aquired in 1899 by a group of Seattle businessmen who took a trip to Southeast Alaska and stopped in the Tlingit village of Tongass. They assumed that the village had been abandoned and proceeded to remove a large pole that was taken back to Seattle and erected in Pioneer Square. In fact, the Tongass people were just away at their fishing camps, and when they returned, they were unhappy to find the pole stolen. The thieves had been observed and their actions were reported to Governor Brady in Alaska. The Tongass people asked for the return of the pole or payment for it. After lengthy negotiations, a payment was made, but the pole remained in Seattle. This pole was damaged by fire in Pioneer Square in 1938, and a replica was carved by a group of Tlingit carvers from Ketchikan as part of a Civilian Conservation Corps project. This replica pole still stands in Pioneer Square in Seattle today.

To learn more about the history of totem poles and other carvings, visit the Burke's award-winning website The Enduring Power of Totem Poles.

Burke Voice Recordings Join "National Recording Registry"

The Leon Metcalf Collection of recordings at the Burke Museum is one of the new additions to the National Recording Registry. Each year 25 recordings (or collections of recordings) are selected by the Library of Congress to be added to a list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" recordings. This significant collection was made by Leon Metcalf between 1950-1954 and includes recordings of the First People of western Washington State and many other Native American and foreign languages.

In the early 1900s, Leon Metcalf dropped out of his Marysville, WA high school and began working in a logging camp. He had trouble in school due to a hearing disability and was assisted by a few Snohomish Indian loggers, who took him under their wing, advised him, and taught him some of their language and something about their culture. Thanks to the support he received, Leon returned to school and became a professor and a musician. Years later, Leon returned to Tulalip with a tape recorder to document what he believed was the dying Lushootseed language. (read more about Leon’s story here)


Lushootseed Alphabet. Courtesy of Juliet Shen.

Some of the recordings in the collection were made when he worked for Wycliffe Bible Translators while the Puget Sound recordings were made when he was a student of Mel Jacobs studying western Washington languages. Metcalf's goal in making the recordings was to aid tribal language programs. Among the many individuals he recorded were Ruth Shelton, Susie Sampson Peter, Annie Daniels, Martha Lamont, Willy Gus, Martin Sampson, Silas Heck, Harry Moses, Hal George, Amy Allen, and Joseph Hillaire.

The Metcalf recordings include unique content such as personal messages, conversations, and lengthy myth narratives that filled several reels of tape. The revival of interest in Lushootseed language through the work of Upper Skagit elder Vi Hilbert, owes much to this collection, which has been the source of material for language instruction projects and numerous publications since the 1970s.

The Leon Metcalf audio collection was donated to the Burke in 1970 and is housed in the Ethnology Archives. Thanks to their inclusion in the National Recording Registry, the Leon Metcalf collection of recordings will be even more available to interested individuals across the United States.

If you would like copies of these tapes, please contact Ethnology staff. A nominal cost is charged to make copies. 

A Day in the Life of a Museum Collections Manager

Many of the people on our staff do not hold jobs that are primarily focused on exhibits or public programs, which are the two ways most members of the general public tend to interact with the museum. For all of the exciting things happening in the public spaces of the Burke, there are just as many exciting things going on behind the scenes in the museum collections spaces. Our collections managers and curators across 11 divisions are devoted to caring for over 12 million objects and specimens at the museum that represent the natural and cultural heritage of this region and for making those objects and specimens accessible to researchers and others.

A few weeks ago, Rebecca Andrews, collections manager in ethnology here at the Burke, approached me about making a video that showcases some of the many things she must consider each day in order to best store and protect the Burke ethnology collection of 45,000 objects.

I followed her around for an hour and put together this short video, "A Day in the Life of a Museum Collections Manager." It shows a side of the museum that many people never get to see!



NOTE: If you are having trouble viewing the full video, watch it here.

Watch more behind-the-scenes videos about the Burke Museum collections here.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

"What is that?" A series on the outdoor artwork at the Burke, Part 2

This post is the second in a series about the artwork surrounding the outside of the Burke Museum (read the first post, about Mark Calderon’s Pluma sculpture here). In this post, we explore the answer to the commonly asked question: What is that tall female figure just outside the front doors of the Burke?

This Dzunuk'wa figure stands in front of the Burke Museum. Photo by Steve Whiston.

This is a carving of a Dzunuk'wa figure, a supernatural creature with importance to the Kwakwaka’wakw people. This replica was carved for the Burke Museum in 1970 by Curator Emeritus, Bill Holm.

Some people equate Dzunuk'wa, (pronounced D’ZOO-no-kwa) with Sasquatch, sometimes called Bigfoot, the shy hairy giant of the forest. Others view her as a fearsome creature that can be the source of great wealth. The privilege of representing Dzunuk'wa in carving and performance is a prized heritage of some Kwakwaka'wakw chiefs (the Kwakwaka'wakw people live on northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland of British Columbia).

The pole outside the museum is a replica of the original (pictured at right in a 1914 photo by Edward Curtis), which was erected in Gwa'yasdam's village on Gilford Island, B.C in the early 19th century. This kind of pole is sometimes called a "ridicule pole" and these poles were raised to shame someone who owed a debt to a chief. For three years, this original Dzunuk'wa figure faced down the beach toward the owner's in-laws, who had not paid a marriage debt. When the in-laws honored the debt, the pole was pivoted to face the water. To acknowledge the payment of the debt, the owner had carvings of shield-shaped coppers added to her head and hands, to represent wealth.

Bill Holm initially painted the Dzunuk'wa figure’s entire body black, based on the black and white historical photos that he was using for reference. But based on later analysis of Emily Carr's colored image, Holm has come to believe the body of the original sculpture was painted red. The replica was changed from black to red in 2002, when it was placed outside the Burke. The head of the original sculpture is also in the Burke Museum's ethnology collections.

Posted by: MaryAnn Barron Wagner, Communications

A Trip to Japan…

A few months ago, we posted about a first-ever cultural exchange in Seattle with the indigenous people of Japan, known as the Ainu. Just last year, the Ainu were formally recognized by Japan’s government as Japan’s “first peoples,” and in December 2009, a group of Ainu delegates visited Washington State for the first part of their cultural exchange with several Native communities in this region.

This Friday, Burke Museum curators Deana Dartt-Newton and Robin Wright, will hop on a plane to Hokkaido, Japan with a special delegation of Puget Sound area Native Americans and the UW’s Native Voices film crew to visit the Ainu on their own turf for the second part of this exchange.

The group of 11 will tour Hokkaido’s outlying cultural museums, exchange information about traditional salmon, cedar, and whaling life ways of the Ainu, and explore Ainu cultural revival. The US delegation returns home on March 20, 2010.

On her way out the door, project director, Deana Dartt-Newton commented that, “We are anticipating the rich dialogue that started in December to deepen as we see firsthand the ways Ainu culture has survived and now experiences a resurgence, so similar to the experiences of Northwest Tribal cultures. My work, which looks at ways that museums define Native identity, will be enhanced by a look at historic Ainu representations and how those have changed over time. We are all very excited!”

This exchange has been funded by Museums & Communities Collaboration Abroad (MCCA), which is a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State in partnership with the American Association of Museums.

Check back for photos from Japan on our Facebook page.

Posted by: MaryAnn Barron Wagner, Communications

The Case of the Double-Edged Swords

In this behind-the-scenes video, Burke Museum exhibit specialist Arn Slettebak discusses some of his favorite objects in the ethnology collection: a set of pattern-welded steel swords. Arn describes the features of the swords that make them high-quality pieces and talks briefly about each of their histories. Take a look:

Twilight series thrusts Quileute Tribe into spotlight

Most people out there, whether they want to be or not, are probably vaguely aware that the second movie installment of the Twilight saga, New Moon, opens soon. Those who live in Washington State may also know that the books and movies of the Twilight series take place in Forks, Washington, which is a real town on the Olympic Peninsula. And those who are familiar with the story know that in addition to sparkly, romantically-inclined vampires, the Twilight books also feature a band of werewolves as primary characters (as seen in the promotional poster to the right). And in the story, those werewolves are all members of the Quileute Tribe, a real culture whose reservation is located in the small coastal town of La Push, which isn’t far from Forks.

Having now been made famous by the on-going, pop-culture phenomenon that is the Twilight series, the Quileute have found themselves thrust in the global spotlight as their reservation has become a tourist destination for thousands of middle-school age girls and their families who may or may not be on the lookout for actual werewolves. In response to their instant popularity, the Quileute seek to inform potential visitors to Forks and La Push about their culture and about the misrepresentation of them as werewolves.

So what does the Burke Museum have to do with any of this? As a museum of cultural heritage, we encourage respect for and understanding of all living cultures in the Pacific Northwest, such as the Quileute. Our curator of Native American ethnology, Deana Dartt-Newton, has therefore partnered with the Quileute Tribe and the Seattle Art Museum to develop several educational tools to inform Twilight fans about the real Quileute culture – a culture that indeed has a wolf origin story, a historic relationship with the wolf as demonstrated in songs, stories, and various art forms, but whose people most certainly do not transform into werewolves even on an occasional basis.

Stay tuned for more details about these projects, but in the meantime, Deana has excitedly reported that Summit Entertainment is flying the Quileute Tribal Council out to Los Angeles for tonight’s New Moon premiere. Let’s hope they enjoy the show!

New storage compactors arrive!

This week, the back rooms of the Burke Museum are filled with the sounds of drilling, hammering, and other cacophonous noises associated with a construction project. But it's with great excitement that we allow these sounds to flood our offices because it means the museum is finally moving forward with the installation of brand new storage compactors that will help keep ethnology collections at the Burke safe from potential earthquake damage and long-term degradation due to light and dust. The new storage compactors, which are being installed over the next two weeks, will also make much more efficient use of our very limited space than the open shelving units that were previously being used.

The ethnology collections staff has been hard at work preparing for this and has been documentating the process:

Photos: (top) The space where Native American art curator Robin Wright stands is typically filled with objects, but room has been cleared for the new compactors. (middle) Working on the installation of the compactors. (bottom) The new storage compacters are installed on tracks so they can roll open and closed as need.

Once the work is done in ethnology, the same process will happen in the geology collection space. Read more about the entire project here.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Story of a pole raising

On the afternoon of September 23, a crowd of at least 100 people crammed into the lobby of the UW Tower for a very special celebration. The festivities were surrounding the Burke Museum’s recently acquired totem pole, carved by well-known Tsimshian artist David Boxley, and we were proud and excited to raise the pole in the University of Washington Tower for those who pass through that building to enjoy.

There is a nice story behind how the Burke acquired this pole: in the late 1990s, Warren and Ellie Guntheroth (Warren is a physician at the UW) commissioned David Boxley to carve a pole for their home, partially in memorial to their Siberian Husky, Sasha. The pole was dedicated at the Guntheroth home in 1999. When Ellie passed away a few years ago, Warren decided the pole needed to be moved to a place where future generations could enjoy it, as he and his wife had, and generously donated the pole to the Burke Museum.

The pole, as it stood outside the Guntheroth's home:

As the pole had been standing outdoors for ten years, it required some touchup work by David before it could be reinstalled at the university:

Then, a rededication ceremony helped introduce the pole to its new home: the UW Tower lobby. The unveiling of the pole itself was very exciting and dramatic!

Following the unveiling, David and his friends in the Git-hoan (People of the Salmon) Dance Group treated the crowd to several dance numbers, many written by David himself.

Their performance was a great reminder of the living culture that thrives in Native communities, like the Tsimshian, today. In the words of David, “The traditions are ours, but there needs to be a witness.” Now, for as long as the pole remains in the UW Tower, all people who pass by it will be the witnesses to a beautiful work of art, and to one piece of the Tsimshian tradition.

The artist, David Boxley, speaks about his culture and his craft.

The Enduring Power of Totem Poles

About a year ago, we launched a special Web site called The Enduring Power of Totem Poles. It has since won the 2009 CASE award for best Web site. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the history of totem poles ought to explore the site a bit. You might learn something about totem poles that you did not know, such as:

• Totem poles, which are defined as free-standing columns with many figures, are not actually indigenous to Washington State. Even though totem pole imagery can be found all over the place in Seattle, it was the northern Northwest Coast groups (Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw, Tlingit, etc.) that carved totem poles, not the Coast Salish people surrounding the Puget Sound. It’s a common misconception that totem pole carving was practiced near present-day Seattle, but it is not historically or culturally accurate. The totem poles standing outside the Burke Museum are all replicas of poles from Canadian or Alaskan-based tribes.



• Totem poles are not only historical objects; up and down the Northwest Coast, poles are being raised again in a spirit of cultural survival and revival.



• The Burke Museum has been very active in the repatriation of poles and other clan treasures that were taken from communities along the Northwest Coast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Enduring Power of Totem Poles tells the story of two of the Teikweidi clan’s houseposts, taken from the Tlingit village of Gaash (Cape Fox, AK) by an American railroad magnate in 1899 and donated to a young Burke Museum. In July 2001, along with four other North American museums, the Burke returned the posts and other clan treasures to the Tlingit people of Cape Fox and acknowledged the wrong that had been done. Two new houseposts were created for the Burke Museum by father and son, Nathan and Stephen Jackson, to replace the two posts that were repatriated and are now on display in the Pacific Voices exhibit.

For more fascinating stories about totem poles and the people who make them, visit the Enduring Power of Totem Poles site:

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Photo: Replica of Tsimshian Memorial Pole, carved by Bill Holm in 1969, now standing in front of the Burke Museum

Q: How does one go about moving 650 pieces of ceramic pottery from the Burke Museum to a new storage facility?

A: Very, very carefully!

As the Ethnology Department staff prepare to move the pottery collection to a new storage facility, one student looks back on the project with fond memories.

Posted by: Sarah Bishop, Ethnology

The packing project took our staff 4 months to complete, over 40 HUGE bags of biodegradable packing peanuts and resulted in a nearly 10-foot-high "box mountain" in the Ethnology storage area.

So, out of all the artifacts we have here in Ethnology, why move the pottery collection to this new storage space? The ceramic and pottery collections are not prone to insect damage and are relatively stable to small environmental changes (temperature and relative humidity). But it is also easier to care for similar types of objects when they are all stored in the same area, so a decision was made to put all of the pottery together. This will make it easier for researchers, students, artists and scholars to access and study the collections, and make comparative analysis between pottery styles.

Improper handling is the number one cause of damage to ceramics and pottery, so proper packaging for transport is extremely important. We tightly packed each ceramic object in biodegradable packing peanuts and sheets of Ethafoam (polyethylene foam). Each pot was wrapped in tissue paper to keep all of its pieces together in case of physical damage during transport. Extremely fragile ceramic objects needed to be stabilized before moving to prevent further damage. After each pot was packed, we wrote down the box number on inventory sheets so we could track which pots are in each of the boxes. This inventory is very important to ensure no artifacts are lost during the big move.

More...
After sealing each box with packing tape, we stacked them in the Ethnology Collection to await transport to the storage facility. After several games of Tetris at the video arcade the previous weekend, I was inspired to create "box mountain." The tower is secured (and protected from damage from earthquakes) with copious amounts of packing tape and is raised above the floor by two-by-fours to protect the ceramics in case of flooding. This stack of boxes saves invaluable collections space for us in the Ethnology Division. Now that the pottery collection is all packed up, it is currently awaiting transport to its new home!

Meanwhile, the collections manager and curator had to secure some necessary funding to purchase storage equipment for the pottery collections to be housed in. It is important to have strong equipment for the heavy pots to sit on, and large storage cabinets with closed doors to reduce dust. And of course, having been through minor earthquakes in the Seattle area, we need to make individual storage mounts for each piece of pottery so it doesn't roll or shake around too much.


Photos: Burke Museum collections staff and student assistants take great care in moving the museum's pottery collection to another storage facility. Sarah Bishop (bottom right) thinks creatively about how to store all of the boxed pottery pieces while they await transport.

Pacific Voices -- Valued Objects: Northwest Coast Wolf Headdress

Posted by: Nicole Robert

George David is an internationally known Northwest Coast Native artist who participated in the development of the Burke Museum exhibit Pacific Voices, as well as the content of the accompanying book. The book, Pacific Voices: Keeping our Cultures Alive, is a collection of cultural objects with personal significance to members of the communities of the Pacific.

George David chose the wolf headdress. Pictured above is one example, from the Burke’s Ethnology Collection.

“The wolf headdress represents who we are. Our winter ceremony is a wolf ceremony called Tlookwana. That identifies my people, meaning not just the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe, but my family. You might hear other people say, ‘We are Raven, we are Eagle, we are Killer Whale clan.’ Me, I’m Tlookwana, that’s the house I come from. It’s not just a family crest, it’s who we are. It’s our power, our identity with nature and everything that’s around us. The wolf is our closest brother. We have songs that call the wolves down from the hills—not just physically, but their spiritual presence. When we sing those songs, the wolves come. They are with us, whether we’re here in Seattle or in our homeland on the west coast of Vancouver Island.”
-- George David

This text is excerpted from Chapter 16 of Pacific Voices: Keeping our Cultures Alive.

A safer home for our collections

Posted by: Nicole Robert, Communications

Storage facilities here at the Burke are receiving a major upgrade thanks to a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant. Both the ethnology and geology collections will be moving objects from open shelves to brand-new storage compactors! These compactors will not only prevent potential earthquake damage, they will also protect the artifacts from long-term degradation due to light and dust.

Because the compactors roll on tracks, we don’t have to leave space for pathways between shelving. This efficient use of space will allow the Burke to maximize our facilities. More than half of the geology collections, ranging from dinosaur bones to fossil flowers, will be moved into the new compactors.

Ethnology will be re-locating full-size teepees, large textiles, model houses and the Arthur Steinman Collection. The Steinman Collection encompasses over 400 pieces of Native American art, including masks, argillite sculptures, prints, rattles, drums, boxes, garments and panels. This major project will take place over the next two years, during which time the collections will be closed to visitors.

When telling me about the impact of this FEMA grant, geology collections manager Ron Eng was very excited: “This funding supports our goal of working to make the collections safer, both for people and for the objects.”

Photos: (left) Image of similar compactors at the Bishop Museum; (top right) A close up of quartz amethyst from the Geology Collection; (bottom left) A Steve Smith Kwakwaka'wakw Plate from the Steinman Collection in Ethnology.

Pacific Voices Valued Objects: Maori Korowai

Posted by: Nicole Robert

Aotaumarewa Lorraine Elkington Morehouse is a woman of Maori ancestry who collaborated in the creation of the Pacific Voices exhibit, as well as the accompanying book that features personally significant cultural objects from communities of the Pacific.

When asked to select one object that represents both the richness of Maori culture and creates a sense of cultural identity, Morehouse chose the Korowai.

“The korowai, or cloak, is made from the materials of the land from which we come. These strands are woven together to keep us warm and to show our status. A cloak touches the most important celebrations in a Maori person’s life: weddings and funerals. How it is worn depends on the occasion and the status of the person. Usually, it’s the eldest of the tribe or the family who wears the korowai. When you go onto the manrae, the gathering area in a Maori village, chieftain’s families have a representative on the paepae, or dignitaries’ platform. That’ s where the eldest male wears his korowai.” --Aotaumarewa Lorraine Elkington Morehouse

This information is excerpted from Chapter 4 of Pacific Voices: Keeping our Cultures Alive.

Photo (top) Feather cloak, like the one Morehouse describes, from the Burke’s Ethnology Collection. Photo (bottom) Close-up of the border done in a traditional twining technique, called taniko.