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
tabasco
(22,974 posts)somewhat of an asshole.
rpannier
(24,304 posts)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)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)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.
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)I love the rest of this story, returning the artifact to its own home:
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 Tlingitthe 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 clans 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 ownedladles, blankets, amulets, armorto 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 poles 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 Alaskas 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
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It took long enough, but the totem pole was helped by good people to make the trip home. Thanks for the information, Omaha Steve.