Taku River Tlingit are reunited — almost by chance — with piece of cultural history lost for decades

"To be able to connect with the ancestors through this blanket, to be able to feed the fire, it's almost like welcoming our grandfathers, our grandmothers back into the community." — Wayne Carlick, Taku River Tlingit carver and elder

Taku River Tlingit elder Wayne Carlick never expected to be reunited in the meeting room of a Downtown Vancouver hotel with a piece of his Nation’s cultural history lost for more than 100 years.

But those were the circumstances Thursday.

“I’m kind of surprised at everything we’re doing,” Carlick said, moments before unboxing the exquisitely woven Chilkat blanket, a piece of regalia identified as being from the Tlingit Yanwulihashi Hit, or Drifted Ashore Clan, that longtime settler friend Peter Wright helped purchase at auction.

And, “to be able to connect with the ancestors through this blanket, to be able to feed the fire, it’s almost like welcoming our grandfathers, our grandmothers back into the community,” Carlick said.

Now, after a century of losing their regalia — Chilkat blankets, headdresses and masks — and having to be satisfied visiting their heritage in museums now, Carlick is happy to be bringing at least one item home to Tlingit territory, which crosses Yukon, B.C. and Alaska in the far northwest.

“It’s really tough, all that’s gone on and the grief that comes with it,” Carlick said, referring to the loss of their language, the loss of culture and the loss of children to residential schools.

“We have to kind of call on those ancestors when we feed the fire and help us today,” he added. “That’s what we’re doing when we bring this robe home and do those ceremonies.”

The intent is to have the blanket, which the auctioneer reckons sat in the collector’s basement for decades, restored and used again in ceremonies in Atlin to help spark some healing and cultural restoration after so many decades of hurt.

“We have to acknowledge those spirits that have been locked up in these basements or boxes or museums right across North America,” he said.

Carlick didn’t know the blanket existed until Nov. 30, when Wright, a gold-miner and collector of Ted Harris art was pointed to the item in Toronto auction house Waddington’s online First Nations Art sale, described generically as: Lot 201, unidentified artist, Tlingit.

“I’ve looked at many different blankets throughout my carving years, not only in New York City but in other museums,” Carlick said. “Being able to look at a small image of it, immediately, what I saw was a wolf pattern, so immediately I thought this might be definitely related to Taku River Tlingit First Nation.”

Chilkat blankets, which predate melton-wool button blankets, are worn in ceremonies like robes, which is how they’re also referred to.

Wright said he too was captivated by the image and “knew it was special.” Within a minute, he added, he was calling Carlick.

“And I didn’t care how I got it, how I did it, I was going to get it,” Wright said, on behalf of the Taku River Tlingit in Atlin. “That’s where I feel there’s a power in this blanket, it almost used me as an agent” to help bring it back to the Taku River Tlingit.

Doing so set off a whirlwind of activity to marshal resources and drum-up fundraising, including an impromptu GoFundMe to raise at least the $15,000 to $20,000 pre-auction estimate.

It took some extraordinary last-minute financing, including Wright’s sale of physical gold that he owned, to raise the cash they needed to beat a determined competitor as bidding spiralled to a final hammer price of $38,000 when the auction closed Dec. 2. With the auction house’s premium included, the realized price hit $46,500.

Seven days later, Wright picked up the precious item, woven from mountain goat wool entwined around cedar bark and dyed with ochre and iron oxide, from a courier’s warehouse in Burnaby and brought it to the hotel on Howe Street where Carlick was staying.

Together, Carlick and Wright, wearing nitrile gloves, wrestled apart the two layers of cardboard and two layers of bubble wrap in front of a small audience that included documentary filmmaker Gordon Loverin, who is also a Taku River Tlingit elder and Tamis Cochrane, from the Nation’s culture department.

The air under fluorescent lighting was a buzz with the energy of the moment as Carlick alone unfolded the blanket to reveal its still tightly woven fabric and still sharply defined form-line figures.

Cochrane, who is from the clan believed to have made the blanket, added words in Tlingit, which she translated, as Carlick worked.

“Our language is like medicine, ancient family is within you,” she said. “This moment my body, mind and spirit are cheering.”

Carlick invited Cochrane’s 10-year-old-daughter, Aria Binka, to help him untangle the strands.

“This moment will be remembered for a long time, especially what she’s doing,” Carlick said, the emotion creeping into his voice. “It’s almost like straightening somebody’s hair that’s been tangled. And then the connection will go with her forever.”

Carlick said elders back in Atlin are anxious to bring the blanket home.

However, there was some bittersweetness to the moment.

Cochrane characterized the blanket’s return as “hugely significant,” considering the impacts of colonization that are still being felt in the community, including the intergenerational trauma of residential schools and children being adopted and raised outside of their territory.

“And they’re evident within the community in the fact that we don’t have access to our tangible cultural heritage, such as this blanket, through colonial practices that saw the removal of them,” Cochrane said.

Carlick said the community will rejoice in the blanket’s return and using it again in ceremonies will help teach the Taku River Tlingit to be proud of their culture.

“What I do know is that we shouldn’t have to be purchasing our art through an auction,” Carlick said. “Canada has to do better about this. The people of Canada need to see what’s happening here. They need to know how much people suffer, and it shouldn’t be allowed to even be on auction.”

depenner@postmedia.com

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