Museums build “war chest” to repatriate Metlakatla artifacts

The Regina Leader Post has a story on the net about how federal government officials, museum curators and aboriginal leaders are rushing to put together a fund, to repatriate a most prized private collection of 19th century aboriginal artifacts.

Randy Boswell tells the tale of The Dundas collection, a large assortment of treasured sacred objects which is coming up for auction in three weeks.

It was acquired on October 26, 1863 by Scottish clergyman Rev. Robert Dundas on the shores at Metlakatla, and has been controversial ever since. It’s been the focus of a struggle between the Canadian Museum of Civilization and its British owner the Scottish missionary’s great grandson Simon Carey.

Sotheby’s New York plans on auctioning off the artifacts on October 5th, including a shaman’s mask that is expected to command over 1 million dollars, a war club and a clan hat carved in the shape of a frog are anticipated to fetch 500,000 dollars each, and on it goes down a list of some 80 items. The projected final tally for the collection is some 3 to 3.5 million dollars.

Sotheby's provides the following history lesson in their press release surrounding his "acquisition" of the collection:

The Reverend Robert J. Dundas

Traveling in British Columbia on the gunboat H.M.S. Grappler, the Scottish Reverend Robert J. Dundas spent the morning of October 26, 1863 on the shores of Metlakatla.

Here he was shown and acquired a group of Northwest Coast American Indian artifacts assembled by William Duncan of the church missionat Old Metlakatla. A journal that Dundas kept during his visit provides unusual documentation about the acquisition of the Collection, and historic and cultural information about the region as well.

His vivid observations of the Native inhabitants, recorded in his journal, bring the objects in the collection to ibrant life. An essay written by the consignor, Simon Carey, on the Dundas Collection is forthcoming.

The urgent nature of the coming auction has the Museum of Civilization, the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria and our very own Museum of Northern B. C. trying to pool their monies together in order to outbid the expected crush of deep pocketed private collectors.

Even with their combined resources and some other financial options that they might have, the fear is that they will only be able to purchase a portion of the 56 items and bring them back home.

Click on this link to see The Dundas Collection and learn more about it's history from the Sotheby press release. The full story on the upcoming sale and the Canadian attempts to repatriate it, is in the Leader Post article reprinted below.

Museums, aboriginals try to bid on artifacts

Randy Boswell
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Federal heritage officials, museum curators and aboriginal leaders are scrambling to create a multimillion-dollar war chest to purchase and repatriate the world's most prized private collection of native Canadian artifacts -- a treasure of sacred objects from 19th-century British Columbia that is set to be sold in three weeks at a landmark auction in New York.

The famed and controversial Dundas Collection -- for years the focus of a high-profile struggle between its British owner and the Canadian Museum of Civilization -- was acquired in 1863 by Scottish clergyman Rev. Robert Dundas at Metlakatla, a Tsimshian First Nation settlement near Prince Rupert, B.C.

Now the property of the missionary's great-grandson, London retiree Simon Carey, the collection includes several masterpieces of West Coast artistry and is deemed by B.C. native leaders "as significant to Canadian heritage as the Group of Seven."

One of the artifacts to be offered at the Oct. 5 sale by Sotheby's is a "magnificent" shaman's mask described by the auction house as "an extraordinary world-class work of art" and which is expected to fetch up to $1 million US.

A "rare and important" war club and a stunning clan hat carved in the shape of a frog -- each worth about $500,000 -- stand out among the 56 other relics, which comprise a collection with "unparalleled artistic and historic value" and a total price estimated at more than $3 million US.

But, even as officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage, three museums and Tsimshian tribal leaders work to pool acquisition funds and co-ordinate bidding strategies, experts fear the historic collection will be split up and sold to deep-pocketed private collectors in the U.S.

"We're certainly aware of the rapid approach of the date," Andrea Laforet, director of ethnology and cultural studies at the Museum of Civilization, told CanWest News Service. "The reality of the situation is that public institutions in Canada are not situated financially in such a way that they can find $4 million or more."

In May, the federal government and the Royal Alberta Museum shared the $1.1-million cost of purchasing most of the items from a rare collection of artifacts gathered by an eccentric Scottish earl who travelled to the future Saskatchewan and Alberta in the mid-1800s.

Now the Gatineau, Que.,-based Museum of Civilization -- along with the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria and the Museum of Northern B.C. in Prince Rupert -- is negotiating to tap a repatriation fund managed by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, a federal agency run by the Department of Canadian Heritage, to buy some or all of the Dundas Collection.

© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2006