George Blucker found it in an Illinois flea market. Now, it\u2019s coming back to Alaska.<\/p>\n
This afternoon, Sealaska Heritage Institute will formally take possession of a sacred Chilkat robe in a ceremony at the Walter Soboleff Building. The public is invited to the event, which begins at 1:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pretty excited,\u201d said Rosita Worl, president of SHI.<\/p>\n
The robe took an unlikely path to Juneau that included a stop on eBay, where Worl and SHI learned about it. Its seller was Blucker, an artist from Illinois who now lives in a small Texas town northwest of San Antonio. <\/p>\n
Blucker found the woven robe one day while visiting a flea market in southern Illinois. Blucker holds a master\u2019s degree in art, and he thought he could identify the object draped across a dusty Volkswagen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like nah, no, that can\u2019t be \u2014 but it was,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime find.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blucker held on to the robe, keeping it preserved and protected in his home. \u201cI was able to preserve it for \u2014 God, 25 or so years \u2014 and then it went back to where it\u2019s supposed to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m retired now, and on a more or less fixed income,\u201d he said, which is why he decided to sell the robe.<\/p>\n
It ended up on eBay, where tribal members saw the listing and notified SHI. In two days, SHI raised $14,500 \u2014 \u201cIn the fundraising mode we\u2019ve been in, we\u2019ve made some very good friends,\u201d Worl said \u2014 and made an offer to Blucker, asking him to remove it from the auction site. He could have refused \u2014 there is no law mandating the return of Native artifacts in private collections, and previous Chilkat robes have sold for more than $30,000.<\/p>\n
Instead, Blucker agreed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could\u2019ve used the money, but a lot of stuff is just more important than money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Eagle or raven?<\/strong><\/p>\n Imagine a fat, downward-pointing triangle longer than it is tall. Now, chop off the left and right ends. What you\u2019re left with is the shape of the robe, which is made of wool, possibly during the first half of the 19th century, explained Steve Brown, who consults with SHI from his home in Washington state.<\/p>\n Robes like these are usually divided into a central panel and two smaller, flanking ones. \u201cA lot of them, into the middle of the 19th century, would conform to this particular arrangement,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThis particular one has what appears to be a bird in the center.\u201d<\/p>\n Chilkat designs can be abstract, which makes deciphering them difficult. Based on elements in the central panel \u2014 a pair of three-clawed feet and bird-like head shapes \u2014 \u201cIt very possibly could be interpreted as a thunderbird,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n Because he\u2019s not sure, and no one else is, today\u2019s ceremony will include representatives from both the eagle and raven moieties. That\u2019s a somewhat unusual step for SHI, which has held previous return ceremonies.<\/p>\n \u201cSince we are not sure what the crest is, it makes it more difficult for us,\u201d Worl said. \u201cThese are the kind of things where you almost have to do innovative things.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018They want to come home\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n With the robe protected in SHI\u2019s collections, it will be accessible to weavers and other artists for examination and study. Traditional weaving was ordinarily passed down in a chain, master teaching apprentices who taught others. In the 19th century, through disease outbreaks and deliberate suppression of Native culture, few people kept up traditional weaving. Having an unknown artist\u2019s work to study can be an inspiration and an insight into lost techniques, Brown said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time you see another robe or another design you haven\u2019t seen before … you can get ideas of \u2018Oh, I never thought about that before,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In weaving, it might be as simple as where things connect. \u201cAny time you have those kinds of new information, every different robe has the potential to provide some significant new information,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a connection on an emotional or spiritual level.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery object that\u2019s repatriated … has the potential to inspire people visually, but also on an emotional level, as things people\u2019s ancestors handled,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n Worl and Blucker each said they\u2019ve felt similar emotional and spiritual connections. \u201cI know it\u2019s hard to explain this at times,\u201d Worl said, \u201cI\u2019ve just had cases where an object … sometimes they just seem like they want to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" George Blucker found it in an Illinois flea market. Now, it\u2019s coming back to Alaska. This afternoon, Sealaska Heritage Institute will formally take possession of a sacred Chilkat robe in a ceremony at the Walter Soboleff Building. The public is invited to the event, which begins at 1:30 p.m. \u201cWe\u2019re pretty excited,\u201d said Rosita Worl, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}