Sara Jacobsen, 19, grew up eating family dinners beneath a stunning Native American robe.
Not
that she gave it much thought. Until, that is, her senior year of high
school, when she saw a picture of a strikingly similar robe in an art
history class.
The teacher told the class about how the robe was
used in spiritual ceremonies, Sara Jacobsen said. “I started to wonder
why we have it in our house when we’re not Native American.”
She said she asked her dad a few questions about this robe. Her dad, Bruce Jacobsen, called that an understatement.
“I
felt like I was on the wrong side of a protest rally, with terms like
‘cultural appropriation’ and ‘sacred ceremonial robes’ and ‘completely
inappropriate,’ and terms like that,” he said.
“I got defensive
at first, of course,” he said. “I was like, ‘C’mon, Sara! This is more
of the political stuff you all say these days.’”
But Sara didn’t
back down. “I feel like in our country there are so many things that
white people have taken that are not theirs, and I didn’t want to
continue that pattern in our family,” she said.
The robe had been
a centerpiece in the Jacobsen home. Bruce Jacobsen bought it from a
gallery in Pioneer Square in 1986, when he first moved to Seattle. He
had wanted to find a piece of Native art to express his appreciation of
the region.
The Chilkat robe that hung over the Jacobsen dining room table for years. Credit Courtesy of the Jacobsens
“I just thought it was so beautiful, and it was like nothing I had seen before,” Jacobsen said.
The
robe was a Chilkat robe, or blanket, as it’s also known. They are woven
by the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples of Alaska and British
Columbia and are traditionally made from mountain goat wool. The tribal
or clan origin of this particular 6-foot-long piece was unclear, but it
dated back to around 1900 and was beautifully preserved down to its long
fringe.
“It’s a completely symmetric pattern of geometric
shapes, and also shapes that come from the culture,” like birds,
Jacobsen said. “And then it’s just perfectly made — you can see no seams
in it at all.”
Jacobsen hung the robe on his dining room wall.
After
more needling from Sara, Jacobsen decided to investigate her claims. He
emailed experts at the Burke Museum, which has a huge collection of
Native American art and artifacts.
“I got this eloquent email
back that said, ‘We’re not gonna tell you what to go do,’ but then they
confirmed what Sara said: It was an important ceremonial piece, that it
was usually owned by an entire clan, that it would be passed down
generation to generation, and that it had a ton of cultural significance
to them.“
Jacobsen
says he was a bit disappointed to learn that his daughter was right
about his beloved Chilkat robe. But he and his wife Gretchen now no
longer thought of the robe as theirs. Bruce Jacobsen asked the curators
at the Burke Museum for suggestions of institutions that would do the
Chilkat robe justice. They told him about the Sealaska Heritage
Institute in Juneau.
When Jacobsen emailed, SHI Executive
Director Rosita Worl couldn’t believe the offer. “I was stunned. I was
shocked. I was in awe. And I was so grateful to the Jacobsen family.”
Worl said the robe has a huge monetary value. But that’s not why it’s precious to local tribes.
“It’s
what we call ‘atoow’: a sacred clan object,” she said. “Our beliefs are
that it is imbued with the spirit of not only the craft itself, but
also of our ancestors. We use [Chilkat robes] in our ceremonies when we
are paying respect to our elders. And also it unites us as a people.”
Since
the Jacobsens returned the robe to the institute, Worl said, master
weavers have been examining it and marveling at the handiwork. Chilkat
robes can take a year to make – and hardly anyone still weaves them.
“Our
master artist, Delores Churchill, said it was absolutely a spectacular
robe. The circles were absolutely perfect. So it does have that
importance to us that it could also be used by our younger weavers to
study the art form itself.”
Worl said private collectors hardly ever return anything to her organization. The federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires
museums and other institutions that receive federal funding to
repatriate significant cultural relics to Native tribes. But no such law
exists for private collectors.
Bruce
and Gretchen Jacobsen hold the Chilkat robe they donated to the
Sealaska Heritage Institute as Joe Zuboff, Deisheetaan, sings and drums
and Brian Katzeek (behind robe) dances during the robe’s homecoming
ceremony Saturday, August 26, 2017. Credit NOBU KOCH / SEALASKA HERITAGE INSTITUTE
Worl
says the institute is lobbying Congress to improve the chances of
getting more artifacts repatriated. “We are working on a better tax
credit system that would benefit collectors so that they could be
compensated,” she said.
Worl hopes stories like this will encourage people to look differently at the Native art and artifacts they possess.
The Sealaska Heritage Institute welcomed home the Chilkat robe in a two-hour ceremony over the weekend. Bruce and Gretchen Jacobsen traveled to Juneau to celebrate the robe’s homecoming.
Really glad that this is treated as hard hitting news, no really, I am
In some pretty great hockey news, Jessica Platt of the CWHL’s Toronto Furies has announced that she is trans and has been since swamped on twitter w/ tweets of support and admiration from teammates, fans and tons of others. It’s a good day for women’s hockey!
whats the point of fantasy novels if youre still going to treat women like shit
actually the point of it is to show that women were treated like more shit back then and since most fantasy novels take place in medevil/premedevil times, women were literally seen as breeders and only knew to please their husbands and raise their children and sew so women are treated actually very well considering what it used to be. don’t post stuff like that pls thanks bye
“Hi I’m basement bob and I think potatoes and dragons should be allowed in fantasy novels despite being entirely historically inaccurate but extreme sexism which literally hurts real live woman on a daily basis is super cool and has to be included. Can’t be historically inaccurate lol.”
Fantasy novels are not remotely “Accurate” to any period of human history ever recorded and anyone who seriously thinks that stuff like Game of Thrones is “Historically accurate” in any way shape or form I’m going to go ahead and assume flunked history class
“Most fantasy novels take place in medieval/pre-medieval times”. They dont. Theyre fantasy. They take place in their own world and their own technology. They often have similarities to those times but are fundamentally their own thing and history doesnt apply to them
Apparently adding dragons and ogres and sorcery is fine but taking away misogyny is going too far
‘dont post stuff like that’
Also, medieval women raised crops, wrote books, made music, made clothes from scratch, tended animals, brewed beer, baked bread, balanced the books, and yes, even commanded soldiers in a pinch. Even noblewomen! A castle involved a lot of administrative work, and guess whose job that was? (Hint: not Mr. ‘Going on a Crusade, back never probably’)
So much pseudo-medieval fantasy isn’t content with merely the misogyny of the period they claim to emulate, they have to add extra misogyny so that, presumably, the wimminz feel properly grateful rather than kind of wishing we could be an abbess.
Look, medieval times and ancient times in general aren’t gender egalitarian utopias, but a lot of the sexism and misogyny we are familiar with today in society, are recent additions, or resulting from recent additions.
i.e. Yeah, women didn’t have the right to vote until like a century ago – but go back another century or two, and most people in general didn’t have the right to vote, either. Women have historically been sidelined out of “professional” leadership and politics – but up until the last few centuries, most societies had other areas in life, other strata of leadership, that women were either a part of or even dominated. (i.e. We regard religion as a relatively private or local matter today, but in many ancient Roman or Hellenic socieities, temple and religious matters were part of public life, and guess who usually headed those spheres?)
The reason why most fantasy has to add sexism or misogyny is to justify why a male character who doesn’t address sexism or misogyny that exists is still a “progressive” character. A male character who accepts a female leader as long as he can sexualize her is progressive compared to one who wouldn’t accept her at all – but compared to a society of men who are okay or even accustomed to take leadership and orders from women, he looks like an ass.
I can’t get over this shit.
actually the point of it is to show that women were treated like more shit back then […] so women
(now) are treated actually very well considering what it used to be.
That’s some tacit acknowledgement that women are treated like shit and that you gotta reach into fantasy to show them that it could be worse..
During a talk at Oxford Union, according to the Daily Mail, McKellen applauded victims for coming forward about sexual harassment saying “it’s sometimes very difficult for victims to do that.” He added, “‘I hope we’re going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether.”
He then went on to share his own experiences during the early ’60s. “The director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs,” he said. “Some of them had at the bottom of their photograph ‘DRR’ — directors’ rights respected. In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me.” He pointed out how that was commonplace and said it was “madness.”
That’s literally from the article. Deadline ought to be ashamed of themselves.
It’s like a window back into the era of feudalism, the idea that a movie director can act like a manorial lord and demand sexual favors as a prerequisite for employment and good references. (O.o)
Today I met a woman, whose age she did not mention because she is a lady, was buying a lot of Star Wars merch because we had it on sale. And she was telling me that she couldn’t wait to see the new one and how she was going to stay up and see the midnight release and take pictures of people in costumes. She was so excited, and then she leans in close:
“You know, all these young men at these conventions- they see me and they ask me trivia about this that and the other thing and I tell them- ‘Son, I went to see the first one in 1977 before you were even a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.’ If I don’t know the answer, its because I damn forgot.”
This cycles around again every time there’s another Star Wars movie and I hope that the lady is at each and every opening night with unlimited sass for these nerfherders.
Frozen Inuit princesses redesigns. ❤ I think it would have been really awesome if they did something like this instead. Either way, it was really fun to gather reference and draw some snowy cuties.
You do realise that Frozen is based on a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen – a Dane. And let me inform you that the ethnic demografic of Denmark was almost exclusively caucasian until after WWII – so I think it is really unfair to criticise Disney of whitewashing when it was written and takes place in a country where literally everyone was white!
it’s got a fucking talking snowman and a breed of mono-antlered reindeer with split hooves that’s being impossibly ridden like it’s a fucking caribou and you wanna go out of your way to paragraph at someone about “criticism” when it’s just a picture with the caption “would have been cool if it were like this but i had fun drawing”
you literally want to flop in “historical accuracy” when it’s set in a fictional kingdom, with an amalgamation of clothing styles that are either butchered attempts or native to no one, freaking snow magic, and—allow me to repeat— talking snowmen and improper riding of reindeer that aren’t built to be ridden in the first place. but suddenly Inuit redesigns aren’t historically accurate enough? Because the author of a fictional story was a white Dane?? Might you be interested in learning that the earliest known version of Cinderella was about a Greek slave girl and an Egyptian pharaoh? Historical accuracy doesn’t mean squat to Disney and everyone knows it, it’s an extremely tripe card to pull.
do you literally think that every single person in Denmark/Scandanavia was some kind of 100% whiteAryan wet dream until magically after world war 2 some brown people finally wandered by??? even though they had an entire country full of indigenous peoples under their thumb AND a monopoly on trade with the place until like 1953 like is that really something that is going through your head at this very moment because i am truly aghast.
It’s fanart, a redesign, based on what would have been neat. and there’s literally zero reason to tear it apart just because you’re uncomfortable about the fact that they’re not white.
Steel Phoenix Studios 