Tlingit and Haida continues pressing Denver museum to return cultural objects
At least five pieces came from collection of Chief Shakes items
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April 17, 2024
RJ Sangosti / The Denver Post
Visitors to the Denver Art Museum look at "Drum (Gaaw)," a cultural item from the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, on display in the Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art Galleries on March 27. The tribes have been trying to reclaim their cultural items from the museum for more than 30 years.
In 2017, a delegation from the Tlingit and Haida tribes flew to Colorado to meet with officials from the Denver Art Museum.
The dozen tribal members came to discuss the return of a 170-year-old wooden house partition, painted by a master Indigenous artist. The panels - 67 inches tall, 168 inches wide - illustrate the story of how a raven taught the Tlingit to fish.
The delegation told the museum that this screen never should have left Southeast Alaska and belonged home with its people under a 1990 federal law designed to repatriate objects of cultural significance to Native Americans.
But at t...
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