Quakers travel to Kake to return wooden paddles, baby booties and other cultural artifacts

Joel Jackson, President of nan Organized Village of Kake (OVK) holds up up a mates carved woody paddles, which were among nan objects a group of quakers returned to Kake successful August. (Photo courtesy of Juulie Downs)

A group of Quakers from Oregon traveled to Kake past period for nan yearly Dog Salmon Festival. The sojourn to nan distant Southeast Alaska colony was portion of an ongoing effort to apologize for nan belief group’s information successful nan forced assimilation of nan Tlingit people. 

The Quakers returned an assortment of taste artifacts that had been taken retired of Kake complete a period ago, including babe booties, woody paddles, blankets and a mini family totem. According to Juulie Downs, who was portion of nan group who went to Kake, immoderate items were easier to carrier than others.

“Oh, a group of canoe paddles — gorgeous, perfectly gorgeous! And really difficult to get done TSA,” Downs said, laughing.

“I wanted to transportation them connected board, because I wanted to beryllium careful,” Downs said. “But TSA said, ‘Oh, no, you’re going to person to spell backmost and cheque them, because they could beryllium utilized arsenic a weapon. You know, you could whack personification pinch them!’ [And truthful I said,] ‘Yeah, okay, whatever…’”

Many of nan items had been passed down done Downs’ family, done her great-grandmother, Bell Gardner, who taught astatine nan Quaker schoolhouse successful Kake astir nan move of nan century. It was a time schoolhouse wherever nan kids went location astatine night.

Downs said bringing those pieces backmost was conscionable nan correct point to do, arsenic a measurement toward repairing nan harm of nan forced assimilation of Alaska Native people. In letting spell of nan items that had been pinch her family for 3 generations, she besides learned thing astir them.

“There was 1 point I could ne'er fig out,” Downs said. “I couldn’t spot what it could perchance beryllium for — it made perfectly nary consciousness of immoderate kind. It’s a pouch pinch a handle. I asked somebody, I said, ‘Do you cognize what this is?’ And she looked astatine it, and she picked it up and she handled it. She [said] it was a medicine bag. So it was important.”

A brace of beaded babe booties a group of quakers returned to Kake successful August, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Cathy Walling)

Joel Jackson is nan president of Kake’s tribe, nan Organized Village of Kake. He said nan motion meant a awesome woody to nan community. But, that Kake is still recovering from colonization. He said galore of nan community’s elders, who went to nan Quaker time school, don’t for illustration to talk astir their experiences there.

“I don’t cognize if they’re embarrassed aliases [if] they conscionable consciousness that it’s something they want to put down them,” Jackson said. “But nan main point I expressed astir that schoolhouse was nan forced assimilation of our group into nan Western world. And that’s what batch of group crossed Alaska, successful nan United States, you know, they consciousness that, you know… They were forced into going to schoolhouse and pursuing nan Western ways, and they were forbidden to speak their language. “

The return of nan objects was preceded by a general apology successful January. S’eiltin Jamiann Hasselquist is an Indigenous activistic from Angoon. She was location to witnesser nan apology arsenic a descendant of a personification from Kake, and said it wasn’t conscionable a broad apology for operating nan time school.

“They talk astir nan horrific maltreatment conditions, nan taking of culture, nan intersexual abuse,” Hasselquist said. “They speak of nan things that happened successful their apology, which is precisely really an apology should beryllium erstwhile coming to make apologies to Indigenous people. It shouldn’t beryllium vague. Because we cognize what happens to us. And apologies without reparations are conscionable words that autumn to nan ground.”

Downs said it was difficult for her to face that portion of her family’s history. She remembers her awesome grandma arsenic a gentle, benignant person, and doubts that she participated successful nan worst of nan abuse. But, she said it was yet basal to reconcile her views of nan world pinch what Bell Gardner, who she calls “Nana,” participated in.

“It it conscionable struck maine … still not connecting it to Nana astatine that point,” Downs said. “But conscionable realizing that we, arsenic achromatic people, person often not really understood different people’s religions.”

Juulie Downs (center) returning objects to Kake residents astatine nan Dog Salmon Festival successful August. (Photo courtesy of Cathy Walling)

Then, 1 day, erstwhile she was putting connected a scrimshaw pin that her awesome grandma had brought down from Kake, she said it deed her “like a ton of bricks.”

“I was getting dressed, I thought, well, I’m going to deterioration that pin,” Downs said. “And past I went: ‘Ah!’”

Downs was getting fresh for a meeting, wherever Hasselquist was speaking astir nan lasting harm missions and boarding schools had brought upon Indigenous group crossed North America.

“I sewage up and said that location was this pin that came down successful my family, and [then I] gave it to this female that had been speaking,” Downs said. “And I’m telling you, location wasn’t a barren oculus successful nan full room. Quakers person a benignant of a conception that sometimes successful a group there’s a heaviness of nan Holy Spirit comes down and conscionable enshrouds everybody, for illustration successful a cloud. It was for illustration that.”

Cathy Walling is pinch different Quaker group: nan Alaska Friends Conference. She helped shape nan reconciliation effort — including nan return of nan artifacts. She said she didn’t want nan apology to beryllium an empty, self-congratulatory gesture.

She said that’s why nan group put up over $92,000 to screen nan security costs for nan village’s treatment center, which is successful nan works. Walling said she hopes this enactment inspires different organizations pinch histories of colonialism to return akin reparative steps.

“I’m hoping this communicative conscionable helps to uplift the importance of apology,” Walling said, “for treatment journeys, [and] for, you know, really — how we move guardant successful bully ways together, toward greater healing that moves america toward translator connected our planet. Because, boy do we need it.”

Jackson said nan return of nan artifacts represents a measurement toward treatment intergenerational trauma brought astir by colonization, and that nan monetary publication to his brainchild — nan community’s taste treatment halfway — made nan motion moreover much meaningful.

“We’ve been talking astir this intergenerational trauma for… really agelong now?” he said. “And I deliberation it’s clip that we commencement treatment our people. I’ve had nan taste treatment halfway successful mind for … I don’t cognize really long. Quite a while. It came to maine aft I mislaid 2 of my brothers to alcohol.”

As for Downs? She said that she’s only a small spot sad to portion pinch immoderate of nan items, which made her consciousness connected to each nan hands they had passed done — those of her mother and grandmother. But she said she knows it was yet nan correct point to do, and that she hopes she traded successful nan artifacts for lasting relationship pinch nan group of Kake.