Connecticut museum plans to return Klukwan-woven Chilkat robe to Tlingit & Haida

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, intends to return a Chilkat robe woven by a Klukwan weaver to the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes, according to a federal notice published Thursday, Oct. 8. The transfer may happen on or after Nov. 9.

The robe is known as Xoots Naaxein, the Brown Bear Chilkat Robe. Under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the museum classified it as an object of cultural patrimony with ongoing cultural importance central to the tribe or a clan within it.

Harold Jacobs of the Central Council examined the robe at the museum in 2005 and identified the design as an orca with a man riding on its back. He said it was woven by Kaax'eidei.át of the Gaanaxteidi clan of Klukwan, the only person who wove the colored fringe seen on the piece, the notice said.

The robe, woven mostly of commercial yarns in black, yellow, turquoise and white, is fringed on three sides.

Alice Taggart (1881-1954) collected it. Based on the objects she gathered, the museum believes she was in Alaska sometime between 1900 and 1920. Travel records place her there in August and September 1920. Her niece, Eliza Macknet Taggart Davies, donated the robe.

Any lineal descendant, tribe or Native Hawaiian organization not named in the notice can send a written request to Kirsten J. Reinhardt, Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT 06830, or [email protected]. Requesters must show by a preponderance of the evidence that they are a descendant or culturally affiliated. If requests compete, the museum decides who receives the robe. Joint requests count as one.

Melanie O'Brien, manager of the National NAGPRA Program, signed the notice Sept. 30. The determinations belong to the museum alone, it said.

A 2016 tribal newsletter reported the Central Council's Cultural Resources program had repatriated more than 125 objects under NAGPRA. In August, a Beloit College notice cleared human remains held in Wisconsin for return to the Central Council.

Speaking about Chilkat weaving generally, not this robe, Mary Peltola told the crowd at Sealaska Heritage Institute's Celebration 2026 in Juneau in June: "Your Chilkat weaving is legendary. It is legendary. It is your land title."