#i have to assume dam's pr team essentially wanted to watch lukavic get run over by a steamroller when they found out he said that shit

[hag-o-hags]

I was going to put this in the tags BUT ACTUALLY FUCK IT

NAGPRA doesn't stop museums from digging in their heels over repatriation. Denver Art Museum has refused for years to return art and important cultural objects to the Tlingit and Haida clans to whom they rightfully belong.

“We’re not in the business of just giving away our collections,” [John Lukavic, DAM Native Arts collection curator] said. “Nobody is.” (Denver Post, April 8 2024.)

Applying pressure to these institutions is ABSOLUTELY necessary, because they have no reason to act with grace or humility, and Native nations are forced to work within the laws and framework of the US federal government, NOT their own sovereign laws. The same laws that were broken in order to steal these objects during colonization.

Went to the Aboriginal artifact exhibit in Chicago. And it’s interesting. How many blankets and masks and totem poles say ‘unknown source’, because every five seconds my mom would stop and point to something and say. “Pauline’s grandmother made that,” or, “That belongs to Mike’s family, I should call him” because. It’s all stolen