Posted on 07/10/2021 1:29:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
With German institutions placing a renewed emphasis on the repatriation of various objects in their holdings, the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt said this week that it had given the leather shirt of Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear (Mato He Oklogeca), of the Teton Lakota, to his great-grandson Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear. In a press release, the museum cited “moral and ethical reasons” for the return.
The leather shirt was handed over to Duane Hollow Horn Bear on June 12 in Rosebud, South Dakota. Duane Hollow Horn Bear had visited the Weltkulturen Museum in 2019 and submitted a request for the shirt’s return that included a historic portrait photograph, dated to 1900, by John Alvin Anderson. The picture showed Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear, who died in 1913, wearing the shirt. Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear was a well-respected leader and politician who advocated for the rights of his people and was often a chief negotiator with the U.S. government.
In 2019, when he requested the shirt’s return, Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear said in a video documenting the repatriation process, “It’s been a hard journey just to come here today. I’m humbled not just to see [his shirt] in a picture, but to hold it in my hand, like I’m holding his hand. . . . Grandpa come home. We need you.”
In a statement, the Weltkulturen Museum said, “The Chief’s shirt is a culturally specific, identity-forming object of religious significance to the Teton Lakota Indigenous community. It bears special patterns of brightly colored glass beads and human hair, which are undoubtedly attributable to the Hollow Horn Bear family and prove personal possession prior to 1906. . . . For Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear and his family, the return of the shirt is like the return of the great-grandfather himself.”
The Weltkulturen Museum came into possession of the shirt in 1908 through an exchange with the American Museum of Natural History in New York. For the past 30 years, the shirt had been on permanent loan and display to the German Leather Museum in nearby town of Offenbach.
The AMNH had received the shirt only two years earlier as part of a larger donation by James Graham Phelps Stokes, a New York millionaire and philanthropist whose family’s wealth came from the Phelps-Dodge Company. In its release announcing the shirt’s repatriation, the Weltkulturen Museum said, “The circumstances under which the shirt previously came into the possession of J.G. Phelps could not be reconstructed.”
In a statement, Ina Hartwig, deputy mayor in charge of Culture and Science for the City of Frankfurt am Main, said “Provenance research is one of the great challenges facing museums in the 21st century. The Frankfurt museum landscape has been taking this challenge very seriously for years and is subjecting its collections to a systematic revision. Even if it represents a loss for the collection and the object was legally acquired by the Weltkulturen Museum: I see the return of the leather shirt to Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear as an obligation that outweighs the formal legal situation.”
Idiotic virtue signaling. What will the Lakota do with this old decrepit shirt?
Dump it in the basement and forget all about it?
If you want to follow this line of reasoning, museums around the world will empty.
Which really doesn’t seem so bad.
Some Navajo blankets have fetched north of a million dollars at auction. This shirt, with it’s provenance, could probably go for the same... I suspect the Lakotas will be very happy with this deal.
Good grief.
Does this mean that the little kid is going to have to give the sweaty Steelers jersey back to Mean Joe Green?
Thank you for posting. Interesting subject.
I lived in OK for 7 years. New lots of Indians. And my father-in-law’s grandmother from Quanah, TX was full blood Comanche.
I have Navajo friends and know others from my time in NM 1972-1986.
I have zero Indian blood.
The chief in the 900 portrait is not an old man. How old is his grandson today, 121 years later?
What happened to the bead work on the sleeves?
Who knew bears had horns?
A new shop rag?
It's there. Look near the cuff of the left sleeve (on your right in the picture) and you can see part of it.
Idiotic virtue signaling. What will the Lakota do with this old decrepit shirt?
Dump it in the basement and forget all about it?
Why so negative ? The Germans did the right thing.
Better not wear that shirt when you visit the US Capitol.
Further than zero dollars?
now about the Elgin marbles ...
I lived in Pierre, SD in the 1950’s until we moved in 1963 when I was 13 years old. One of my friends was a full blood Lakota Sioux. One of the nicest friends I ever had. His dad worked on the Oahe Dam. The shirt belongs back at Rosebud.
I also had a girl friend whose name was Jaquita. She was named after her mother’s Lakota Sioux childhood friend.
Don’t get me started on Custer.
Now the next question is: will they be returning those human skin lampshades made during WWII to their rightful owners or descendants?
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