Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Omaha Steve

(99,079 posts)
Thu Oct 22, 2015, 06:26 PM Oct 2015

Alaska tribal members to get back totem pole taken by actor

Source: AP

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER

HONOLULU (AP) — A stolen totem pole that went from the garden decor of two golden age Hollywood actors to the basement of a Hawaii museum will be returned Thursday to Alaska tribal members.

Screen legend John Barrymore was traveling the Alaska coast by yacht and directed crew members to take the totem pole from an unoccupied village in 1931, said University of Alaska Anchorage professor Steve Langdon, who has long researched the object. They sawed it in three pieces.

Barrymore, star of such films as "Grand Hotel" and grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore, displayed the pole in the garden of his California estate.

Langdon learned the totem pole was used for burials, and he said there were remains of a man inside when Barrymore had it erected at his home. Langdon does not know what happened to the remains after they were removed from the pole.

FULL story at link.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a205e46b4f2543d480325dbabefc01c0/alaska-tribal-members-get-back-totem-pole-taken-actor

8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Alaska tribal members to get back totem pole taken by actor (Original Post) Omaha Steve Oct 2015 OP
Barrymore must have been tabasco Oct 2015 #1
Lots of actors were sort of a@@holes rpannier Oct 2015 #4
There is no evidence that it was enlightenment Oct 2015 #5
Well, I think taking the pole from a so-called unoccupied village qualifies him for the moniker. tabasco Oct 2015 #7
Summertime Mike__M Oct 2015 #8
John Barrymore may have been accomplished, famous, etc., but he was wrong to take this totem pole. Judi Lynn Oct 2015 #2
Good! nt 2naSalit Oct 2015 #3
Good things do happen. n/t jtuck004 Oct 2015 #6

rpannier

(24,304 posts)
4. Lots of actors were sort of a@@holes
Thu Oct 22, 2015, 10:50 PM
Oct 2015

My dad grew up in SouCal in the 50's and told stories about how actors and actresses would get into autowrecks and other trouble.
The studio lawyers would often arrive before the police checkbook in hand to pay-off people for their silence.
One actor (whose name he can't remember) killed someone in a drunken driving incident and the studio paid off the family

In 1931, taking the totem from an 'unoccupied' area probably didn't make him an a@@hole (though I'd like to know how unoccupied was defined. No one around at the time because they were semi-nomadic vs abandoned)
Disposing of the body inside, makes him an a@@

enlightenment

(8,830 posts)
5. There is no evidence that it was
Thu Oct 22, 2015, 11:23 PM
Oct 2015

a mortuary pole - it may have been a memorial pole. Regardless, bodies were not placed in the poles - remains were cremated. Usually, mortuary poles were plain (not highly carved), with a box containing the remains placed at the top, or at the base.

 

tabasco

(22,974 posts)
7. Well, I think taking the pole from a so-called unoccupied village qualifies him for the moniker.
Sat Oct 24, 2015, 10:22 AM
Oct 2015

The villagers might have been gone temporarily, and even if they were gone permanently, the decent thing to do would be to leave it in place.

Mike__M

(1,052 posts)
8. Summertime
Fri Oct 30, 2015, 11:57 PM
Oct 2015

when an actor would have visited, is berry-picking time; the people would have been at summer places, returning to the permanent town in winter to find the grave desecrated.

Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
2. John Barrymore may have been accomplished, famous, etc., but he was wrong to take this totem pole.
Thu Oct 22, 2015, 07:08 PM
Oct 2015

I love the rest of this story, returning the artifact to its own home:

Museum officials returned the cedar pole to seven Tlingit tribal members who traveled to Honolulu from the southeast Alaska village of Klawock for an intimate ceremony Thursday.

The tribal members wore leis as they sang songs and handed out gifts, thanking Hawaii for taking good care of the totem pole. The object was packed in a crate to be shipped to Alaska.


[center]

A large group dancing at a totem pole raising celebration in Klawock, Alaska, 2005



Tinglit elders





John Barrymore, on the left.[/font][/center]

A long story from the New Yorker regarding what the heck happened to this stolen artifact:

Our Far-Flung Correspondents April 20, 2015 Issue

The Tallest Trophy

A movie star made off with an Alaskan totem pole. Would it ever return home?

By Paige Williams

he predominant natives of southeastern Alaska are the Tlingit—the People of the Tides. They are believed to have settled the Panhandle and the Alexander Archipelago more than ten thousand years ago. The Tlingit (pronounced klink-kit) were hunter-gatherers and traders who typically lived on the coastline, moving between permanent winter villages and summer encampments, where they fished, foraged, and stockpiled food. They cremated their dead and marked milestones with lavish ceremonies, until missionaries, in the late nineteenth century, persuaded them to stop.

The Tlingit, at the height of their culture, had about eighty clans, who represented themselves with heraldic crests that almost always featured animals. A crest was considered a clan’s property: the Raven Dog Salmon people could not tell the stories or display the crest of the Wolf Killer Whale people without consequence. Crests were protected to the point of war.

Tlingits placed their crests on almost everything they owned—ladles, blankets, amulets, armor—to express solidarity with their clan and kinship with animals they considered “patrons.” In 1914, Livingston F. Jones, a Presbyterian missionary who spent years among the tribe, wrote that if a Tlingit “puts the image of his patron on his halibut hook, it will help him to have good success; on his paddle, to go safely over the deep; on his spoon, to protect him from poisonous foods; on his house, to bless his family.” Tlingits sometimes depicted clan images on the gabled fronts of their houses, and indoors on decorative wood screens.

They also carved totem poles. First, a carver selected a tall, wide log of Western red cedar, whose soft wood weathers well. He stripped the bark; dried the wood, if it was too damp for carving; and hollowed out one side with fire. The carver then shaped the pole’s face with knives and an adze. Using a brush made of porcupine hair, he painted the pole with mineral-based dyes; Tlingit colors were red, black, and, in moments of extravagance, blue-green. Carvers often sealed the finish with whale fat. A Smithsonian researcher once wrote that Alaska’s totem poles were “as beautiful and interesting as the Parthenon of the old Greeks.”

More:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/20/the-tallest-trophy

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
It took long enough, but the totem pole was helped by good people to make the trip home. Thanks for the information, Omaha Steve.
Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»Alaska tribal members to ...