Book details shrine's history

Page 9

Review

The Yuquot Whaler's Shrine

By Aldona Jonaitis

233 pages, $55

Douglas & McIntyre

The removal of the whaler'?s shrine near Yuquot has long remained an open wound to the Mowachaht First Nation.

Taken by anthropologist Franz Boaz in 1905 from a tiny island near the centre of a small lake behind the ancient village of Yuquot, the shrine?s sacred carvings and skulls remain in storage at the Museum of Natural History in New York where they've been for the past 95 years.

In the newly released book, The Yuquot Whaler's Shrine, are details of the history, controversy, and journey of the 92 carved wooden figures and whales, 16 skulls and the small building that sheltered them.

"The shrine is variously identified as a burial place for great chiefs and a shrine used for rituals associated with whale hunting," Jonaitis writes in the introduction. "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, it has captured the imagination of individuals who have represented it in anthropological and historical writings, film, television, video, and newspapers."

Jonaitis is the director of the University of Alaska Museum and professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has studied the Yuquot whaler's shrine, and worked with fellow-anthropologist, Richard Inglis, who is considered an anthropological expert on the shrine, to produce this in-depth look at the historic site, from its ancient history up to the present-day efforts by the Mowachaht First Nation to repatriate it.

"Because the shrine was removed from Yuquot in 1905 and has never been displayed as a complete assemblage, few living Mowachaht have ever actually seen it," writes Jonaitis. "Indeed, only a small number of people have visited the American Museum of Natural History's storerooms to study the shrine's component parts."

A tale of Mowachaht history and culture, transformed by the deceit and deception practiced by early explorers, collectors and anthropologists, The Yuquot Whaler's Shrine is an amazing exploration of the lasting pain felt by First Nations since European explorers first arrived along British Columbia's rugged coast.

Combining the anthropological research of Boaz with the oral histories and stories presented by Mowachaht Elders, The Yuquot Whaler's Shrine details how the actions of an overzealous 19th century cultural anthropological collector sparked one of the most well-known international repatriation claims of the 20th century.