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Web posted Sunday, July 28, 2002

Sealaska receives artifact gift
Donation is largest from private collector

By GENEVIEVE GAGNE-HAWES
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2002

Sealaska Heritage Institute has received a gift of more than 50 Native artifacts from an Oregon businessman, its largest donation by a private collector to date.

Bob Bowlsby, chief executive officer for Oregon's Spacesaver Specialists, said he received the objects 35 years ago from an 80-year-old woman who traveled throughout Alaska as a teacher in the early 1900s.

"I think she just wanted me to be a good custodian of her memories and all of the things she enjoyed when she was up here with the tribal people," said Bowlsby, who lives in Tigard, Ore.

"It wasn't anything really heroic," he said. "It was just the idea that I needed to give these back to where they belonged, because they weren't doing any good to anybody down here."

The majority of the collection is utilitarian in nature and includes fishing tools, halibut hooks, carving tools and horn spoons, said Sorrel Goodwin, an archivist with the institute.

However, several of the more unusual objects appear to be shamanistic in nature, including a crown of grizzly bear claws from British Columbia and several bone and bear tooth charms from Klukwan.

These items will require additional care, Goodwin said.

"The shaman's material is always unique, and it's always something that we approach with a lot of caution," he said. "Our mission here is very much based on traditional cultural beliefs, so we always treat those differently."

About half of the objects are from the Northwest coast, Goodwin said. The other half - mostly tools - are from Arctic groups.

Bowlsby came into possession of the collection 35 years ago, when he was working as a media director for a joint school district project in southern Oregon. A retired teacher read an article about his work and approached him about donating the collection as a teaching resource.

"We had dinner one night and she just told me about what she had done and where," said Bowlsby, who does not remember details of the conversation. "She basically entrusted the collection to me and not to the school district because she kind of took a liking to me and decided it was the kind of thing she'd like to pass on."

The collection circulated through local elementary schools for several years, used in classrooms where students were studying Northwest Indians. But to Bowlsby's dismay, items began to disappear.

"They got pilfered," Bowlsby said. "It would go to the schools and some of the more choice items never came back. It finally got to the point where I realized to salvage the collection I was going to have to take it out of circulation."

Several ceremonial headdresses and "some outstanding beadwork" were lost, he added.

"It's really pathetic," Bowlsby said. "People have so little (sense of) value. They think, 'Oh, this is going to look pretty on my mantel or in my den,' or something like that."

Unsure of what to do, Bowlsby stored the collection in his home, where it remained for about 30 years. This year he was contacted by the curator of Oregon's Warm Springs Indian Museum, who put him in touch with Sealaska.

Donating the collection seemed right, Bowlsby said.

"I've had several people give me advice by saying, 'Gee, if you would have sold out those times you could have made some money on it,' " he said. "I don't need the money. It was just the kind of thing that ... they're part of someone else's culture, not mine."

Sealaska will display the collection eventually, Goodwin said. But the items must be catalogued and preserved before that can happen.

In the interim, anyone with any information about the objects is welcome to come forward, Goodwin added.

Genevieve Gagne-Hawes can be reached at geneviev@juneauempire.com

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