NCW Libraries

Who owns the past and the objects that physically connect us to history? And who has the right to decide this ownership, particularly when the objects are sacred or, in the case of skeletal remains, human? Is it the museums that care for the objects or the communities whose ancestors made them? These questions are at the heart of Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits, an unflinching insider account by a leading curator who has spent years learning how...

"In 1905 George Hunt acquired a collection of materials from the Mowachaht band of the Nuu-chahnulth (Nootka) for the American Museum of Natural History. An assemblage of 92 carved wooden figures and whales, 16 human skulls, and the small building that sheltered them, the shrine had for centuries stood in Yuquot, or Friendly Cove, on the remote west coast of Vancouver Island, to be visited only by chiefs and their wives. Since its removal to New York,...