Indian Country in the News: April 13 - April 20, 2012

This week's news highlights include a story exploring how climate change is impacting indigenous tribes in the Amazon; the intersection of drug law and religious freedom; the long-ranging effects of a federal settlement for $1 billion and an environmental award for a Inupiat tribal leader:

• NatGeo: Traditional Slash and Burn Agriculture Sustainable Solution to Climate Change - "Climate change is the result of not behaving in the right way, according to the isolated Trio, an indigenous people living in Suriname’s Amazon forest near its border with Brazil. “They see climate change as big problem. They say their forests are changing, deteriorating,” said Gwendolyn Smith, a project director for the non-profit organization Amazon Conservation Team (ACT). ACT was launched by U.S. ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin and Costa Rican conservationist Liliana Madrigain Madrigal in 1996 to work with indigenous peoples in the rainforests of Suriname and elsewhere in the Amazon to retain their traditional knowledge."
• Reuters: Religious Marijuana Lawsuit Gets New Life in 9th Cir. - "A Native American group will get its day in court, as the Ninth Circuit has revived part of a lawsuit that seeks permission to smoke marijuana for religious purposes. The Oklevueha Native American Church of Hawaii sued the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration after agents seized a $7,000 shipment of marijuana addressed to the church's founder in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reports. The church's lawsuit demanded the return of, or reimbursement for, the seized pot, which was intended for use during religious ceremonies. The church also sought a declaratory judgment affirming the legality of its members' religious marijuana use."

• NPR: Idaho Tribes Part Of Billion Dollar Settlement But There's More Than Money - "A landmark settlement announced this week between the federal government and Native American tribes is expected to have long-term effects beyond the $1 billion in the agreement. Three Idaho tribes are part of the deal, the Coeur d’Alene, Nez Perce, and Shoshone-Bannock. Forty-one tribes filed lawsuits alleging the federal government mismanaged tribal accounts for generations. The accounts held decades of royalties on timber, farming, grazing and other leases on land held in trust for the tribes. Fletcher teaches indigenous law at Michigan State University. He says the $1 billion settlement goes a long way to address non-financial debts as well."

• Inupiat tribal leader wins prize for opposing offshore drilling - "Her father was a Point Hope whaling captain. Her mother taught her how to butcher the bowhead and care for the meat. The family depended on the sea and land for so much. Caroline Cannon's lifelong connection to the Arctic Ocean pushed her to become one of the state's most vocal opponents of offshore oil drilling. Now, just as Shell Oil is poised to drill exploration wells off Alaska's northern coast, her advocacy has won her a coveted environmental award. Cannon, an Inupiat mother of nine and grandmother of 26, is one of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, described as the world's biggest for grassroots environmentalists."

Mother Earth in Crisis: A Moment of Reflection

In the Film and Video Center, we often find that an image is worth far more than a thousand words. And when words and images come together, they can reach the mind and touch the heart in ways that mere words never could. This is especially true when it comes to climate change.

In the spring of 2011, the Film and Video Center held its Native American Film + Video Festival, which included a special program entitled Mother Earth in Crisis. This program began with an evening screening of Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, a film that looks at the impact of warming temperatures in the Arctic. The screening was followed by a conversation with the filmmakers, including Zacharias Kunuk (Inuit), who took part via Skype from Igloolik, Nunavut, northern Canada.

The second part of Mother Earth in Crisis was a day of films and panel discussions with a focus on rivers. Throughout the program, we saw how industrial development is endangering the Earth’s rivers and glaciers. We heard warnings from all parts of the Americas about the effects of climate change on indigenous communities, as well as calls to action to protect our Mother Earth. 

This video is a compilation of footage from both parts of Mother Earth in Crisis. We hope it will get you thinking about, and involved in, the problems facing our Mother Earth in the 21st century. Just as the festival was a hemispheric event, this video contains both English and Spanish speakers.

In Spanish and English. Use the CC button at the bottom of the video to switch between language and closed caption tracks.  

 

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Conservator's Challenge: Faux-Fur Trim for Athabaskan Mittens

As a graduate intern in the NMAI's conservation department, I recently had the privilege of making an unusual repair to the fur trim on a pair of Athabaskan mittens (object no. 25/5333). Gwich'in artist Leah Roberts made the mittens in Fort Yukon, Alaska, in 1983 using tanned moose hide, glass beads, beaver fur, nylon thread, and acrylic fabric and yarn. They were part of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board Collection, Department of the Interior, transferred to the NMAI collections in 2000.

The mittens were chosen for exhibition at the museum in Washington because they are a beautiful example of Athabaskan design and craftsmanship. Sadly, the fur trim was damaged by webbing clothes moth larvae, which are notorious for eating protein-based clothing like wool coats, wool sweaters, and fur. In this case, larvae had eaten right down to the skin, as you can see on the bottom of the left mitten. Areas of complete fur loss were the biggest issue in displaying the mittens, and it was my job to create a faux-fur fill that could be placed in the areas of missing fur so that museum visitors could appreciate the overall look of the mittens. In keeping with conservation practices, I used materials that have excellent aging properties and applied the fills in a manner that can be removed fairly easily, just in case that is ever necessary. 

The mittens before conservation treatment. 

I began the conservation treatment by thoroughly documenting the construction and condition of the mittens with photographs and a written report. Then I carefully removed dust and insect debris by vacuuming. In the process, I collected loose pieces of fur that were detached and scattered around the surface of the mittens.  I was able to integrate this fur into the fills that I made. 

Reducing dust and debris with a low-suction vacuum. The vacuum nozzle was custom-made with a plastic pipette.  

There wasn't enough loose beaver fur to fill all the losses, so I custom-dyed wool roving with acid dyes, mixing red, yellow, and blue dyes in an attempt to match the brown color of the beaver fur. Although my color mixtures were slightly off—one was too red, the other too green—I was successful in using wool carders to blend the dyed fibers by hand  until I had a nearly perfect match. 

Wool hand-carders at top. Custom-dyed wool on the lower right and left with blended wool (the best color match) in between. 

Following the lead of NMAI conservator Kelly McHugh, who treated a similar pair of Athabaskan mittens, I made faux-fur by attaching the wool fibers and loose pieces of beaver fur to an archival support. The technique is based on methods described by Hodson, Maile-Moskowitz, and Heald in the poster Hole-istic Compensation: Needle-felted In-fills for Losses in Wool. I used a barbed felting needle to punch the fiber ends into a nonwoven polyester fabric, turned the fabric over, and felted the fiber ends a little bit on the back to make sure that they wouldn’t fall out. Here is a video of the needle-felting process. 

This image shows my set up and me. You can see that I was felting over a piece of polyurethane foam that could withstand the vigorous punching that is part of the needle-felting process.

Rebecca Summerour, graduate intern, in the process of needle-felting faux-fur. The Athabaskan mittens being conserved are partially covered on the table. Photo by Lauren Horelick.

This is a detail image of a patch in progress. The top left edge of the patch is filled with loose beaver fur, while the bottom and right sections are sheep wool. You can see that the beaver fur looks best, but the sheep wool is a pretty good match too.

Detail of a patch in progess, with both beaver fur and wool inserted in the polyester support. 

After inserting the fiber in the polyester support, I cut the top edge of the support to the shape of the loss and attached thin strips of an archival thermoplastic adhesive to the top edge of the patch with a heated spatula. You can see the shiny adhesive strips, as well as the texture of the felted fiber ends, in this image of the reverse of one of the faux-fur patches.

Detail of the reverse of a patch. The shiny areas are the adhesive along the top edge.

I heat-set the adhesive film to the exposed leather in the mitten trim using an electric spatula on low heat. As you can see in the picture below, I introduced heat from the front and protected the fur from the spatula using a polyester barrier. The fibers needed to be fluffed a little after activating the adhesive in this way. 

Securing the fill in the loss by heat-activating the adhesive film with a warm spatula. 

In order to make the patches more easily reversible, only the top edges were attached using adhesive. I secured the bottom edges by folding them around the bottom of the cuff and stitching the support fabric along the seam between the fur cuff and yellow lining fabric. 

Securing the bottom edge of a faux-fur fill with cotton thread using a curved needle. The patch is pinned in place with thin insect pins. 

I made a total of three patches, two on the front of the mittens and one on the back. Now museum visitors can appreciate the beauty of these mittens in a state that is much closer to the way Leah Roberts intended them to look.  

Above: Details of mitten trim before (top) and after (bottom) conservation treatment.  
Below:  The conserved mittens (left) on display.

The mittens are currently on display outside the Lelawi Theater on the 4th floor of the museum on the National Mall, along with a Tlingit model totem pole, a Yup'ik mask, and three Alutiiq ceremonial paddles.

—Rebecca Summerour, NMAI conservation intern

Rebecca Summerour is a graduate student in the Art Conservation Program at SUNY Buffalo State. She is currently completing her 3rd and final year of graduate school as an intern in textile and object conservation at the NMAI.