Plastics in our Collections: A Sign of the Changing Material Culture?

"Before Plastics" objects on display

in the Plastics Unwrapped exhibit

The Burke Museum’s new exhibit, Plastics Unwrapped, examines how plastics went from being rare to being everywhere in a short period of time, and how material culture was changed by plastics.

To help visitors explore what life was like before plastics, several objects from the Burke’s ethnology collections – made from a range of materials found in nature – are on display. These objects include: a rain hat made of twined cedar bark, a child’s waterproof parka made of seal gut, toy blocks made of wood, and containers made of clay.

That made me wonder, will more and more plastic objects begin to make their way into the Burke Museum’s permanent collections as a reflection of this shift in material culture?

I asked Rebecca Andrews, ethnology collections manager, and she pointed me towards several objects in the ethnology collection that are either partially or fully comprised of plastic. For example:

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.

My Favorite Style of Doll

The Ethnology Department houses a collection of dolls that originated among the Alaska Native Cultures. These dolls have been gifted or traded to the museum over the last several decades, and includes dolls recently received in 2010. I was fortunate to be involved with a recent donation of Alaskan Arctic dolls by Dr. Jonathan and Mrs. Ellyn A. Ostrow, which included one of my favorites - a doll with a very expressive leather face.

Untitled, this doll (2010-166/25) was made by Rose Ann Kanrilak of Chevak, probably between 1970 and 1995. This doll has a seal skin face with appliqué nose and eyes and teeth of small beads and I noticed that it is similar to some of the other dolls from Alaska. Arctic dolls can be separated into nine distinct regional doll types according to author Suzi Jones. Included as one of the nine types is the leather-faced doll that is found all over Alaska, but it turns out there is a localized type of leather-faced doll with expressive, whimsical, sometimes funny, features. These dolls come from the community of Chevak.

Inspired by the success of Chevak doll maker Rosalie Paniyak, there are many artists in this village making dolls with sealskin faces, dressed in traditional clothing and engaged in humorous or traditional activities. The Burke Museum has four other dolls from Chevak in its collections by doll makers Rosalie Paniyak (2010-166/20), Ursula Paniyak (1999-37/2 and 2010-166/14) and Annie Hurlbut (2008-85/1). As a group, these dolls are delightful to look, whether carrying a child, nursing a pregnant woman, gathering eggs or just gazing back at the viewer, and they always seem to evoke a smile.

Posted By: Rebecca Andrews, Ethnology

Lee, Molly, ed. 'Not Just a Pretty Face'. 2nd edition. University of Alaska Press. 2006.
Jones, Suzi, ed. 'Eskimo Dolls'. Alaska State Council on the Arts. 1982.

Can you guess what it is?

For the past several months, we’ve been inviting Burke Museum Facebook fans to play a weekly game on our Facebook page we call “Collections Close Up.” Each week, we post a cropped picture of something from the museum collections and ask our fans to guess what it is. The next day, we reveal the full picture. The goals of this game are to expose our fans to the breadth of objects and specimens in the Burke collections and to promote interactivity on our Facebook page.

Here are a few samples from Collections Close Up. How many of these photos can you recognize? Click “More” below the photos to find the answers. Follow the Burke on Facebook to participate in the game!

More...

Answer: Petrified wood known as “Araucarioxylon arizonicum” from the Chinle Formation in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. This petrified wood comes from an extinct species of conifer that is related to the Monkey Puzzle trees that grow in South America. Araucarioxylon arizonicum is the state fossil of Arizona.

Answer: Snowflake Obsidian. Obsidian is a natural glass that was once molten magma. The "snowflakes" in this type of obsidian are quartz crystals that developed over time as the Obsidian turns from glass to rock.


Answer: Gable mask from Papua New Guinea. These masks are placed on the eaves of Middle Sepik ceremonial houses. These houses represent a mythical woman who is the origin of all life and protects the inhabitants of the house. The building itself is her body and the gable mask represents her face.

Answer: Chinese pangolin, also known as Manis pentadactyla. Despite their scaly appearance, pangolins are mammals; this one is part of the Burke's mammalogy collection.

So, how'd you do?

Posted by: Julia Swan, 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:

1,000 Sugar Skulls Made for Dia de Muertos

What can you find when walking through the hallways of the Burke Museum? Many exciting and interesting projects! Community involvement is a very important part of our work here at the Burke, and last week many dedicated staff, students and volunteers came together to create 1,000 sugar skulls for the Burke’s table at the Dia de Muertos Festál at Seattle Center last weekend. Isaac Hernández Ruiz led the group through the sticky process, as sugar and meringue were mixed and molded to make the skulls.


Burke educators then took the skulls to the Dia de Muertos: a Mexican Remembrance event at the Seattle Center where hundreds of people decorated the skulls to take home. Celebrating life through death, Dia de Muertos or “Day of the Dead” honors loved ones who have passed away through community alters, dancing, music and much more. The sugar skulls were accompanied by Mexican heritage performances and crafts at the Seattle Center House.


Learn more about Dia de Muertos on the Burke’s special interactive educational Web site all about the holiday.

Photos: The creative process of making sugar skulls for the event.
Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

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

Pacific Voices Valued Objects: Coast Salish Voyaging Canoe

Local resident Peg Deam, a member of the Coast Salish community, contributed to both the development of the Pacific Voices exhibit at the Burke Museum and the creation of the accompanying book featuring personally significant cultural objects from communities of the Pacific. Peg Dream chose the voyaging canoe as the object that represents the richness of Coast Salish culture for her.

This is a photo of a Coast Salish canoe model from the Burke’s Ethnology Collection.

“When the cedar tree comes down, it is transformed into another life-form—a canoe. The canoe carries the people. It carries the songs, the language, the traditional protocol. It carries the salmon, the cattails—everything that’s collected. The paddles represent the people who participate and interact with the cedar. It becomes part of the whole culture.”
-- Peg Deam

In preparation for the Washington State centennial in 1989, the Native American Canoe Project was organized to rekindle the art of making cedar voyaging canoes, and with it the skills and stamina for canoeing. Hundreds of Native people from seventeen Western Washington tribes participated in the project . In the summer of 1989, a 170-mile voyage commenced from the Quileute Reservation along the western Washington coast and culminated in the “Paddle to Seattle”—a dramatic flotilla of thirty canoes that were paddled across the inland Puget Sound from Suquamish to Seattle. Thus was born the modern Northwest Coast canoeing revival.

The canoe represents carrying the culture. With the paddles inside, it also represents carrying the people—from the past to the present and into the future.

This text is excerpted from Chapter 14 of Pacific Voices: Keeping our Cultures Alive.

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.

Pacific Voices Valued Objects: Hawaiian Pahu

Posted by: Nicole Robert, Communications

‘Iwalani Christian and Moodette Ka’apana, members of the Seattle Native Hawaiian community, both participated in the development of the Pacific Voices exhibit and the creation of the book featuring personally significant cultural objects from communities of the Pacific.

When asked which one object represents the richness of Native Hawaiian culture, they both chose the Hawaiian pahu.

“Of all the hula instruments, the pahu, is the most revered. This is because the pahu is considered to be the voice of the gods. The drum opening, called waha, or mouth, is said to speak.”
--‘Iwalani Christian


This photo shows a pahu from the Burke’s Ethnology Collection.

The hula pahu (PAH-hoo) evolved from the pahu heiau (PAH-hoo HAY-yow), or temple drum. In the temple, it was used mostly to call the gods down to be present at ritual ceremonies to guide the priests. Some of the temple rituals had choreographed movements that the priest went through with the beating of the pahu. The pahu really didn’t get utilized for hula until the early 1800’s, when the Hawaiian religion was cast out due to missionary influence. At that time, it came out of the temple and was used as an accompaniment for hula.

“The pahu is the symbol of the kumu, or hula master. It’s the symbol of the beginning of the hula tradition for the Hawaiian people because it was brought over from Kahiki, or Tahiti, to the Hawaiian Islands. It was the first sound of drumming and the first type of sound that was used for hula.”
-- Moodette Ka’apana

This information is excerpted from Chapters 1 and 2 of Pacific Voices: Keeping our Cultures Alive.

*This Friday, November 21, the Wing Luke Asian Museum is opening an exhibit titled Ho'omau Ka Huaka'i, The Voyage Continues: Native Hawai'ians in the Pacific Northwest. This exhibit explores the experiences of Native Hawai’ians in the Pacific Northwest from past to present day and will display a mixture of artifacts, photographs, multimedia and first-hand stories from Native Hawai’ian civic and cultural leaders. Check it out. The exhibit will be on display until August 16, 2009.