Exhibition
QAQA'PE: Flat Twined Bags of the Columbia River Plateau
Life
of a Flat Twined Bag | History
of the Oberlin Bag
Biographical
Sketches of Spalding and Allen
Welcome to
CLOSING THE CIRCLE!
On April 27, 2002, the Oberlin College Department of Anthropology returned to
the Nez Perce Tribe a twined root bag that had been lost in their ethnographic
collections for over a hundred years. This bag was collected by Henry Harmon
Spalding, missionary to the Nez Perce, in the 1840's, and is part of the
Spalding-Allen Collection that is on display at the Nez Perce National Historic
Park in Spalding, Idaho. The symposium consisted of lectures on the history of
the collection and the development of flat twined weaving in the 19th and 20th
centuries, as well as panel discussions on museum collections and repatriation
of Native American cultural patrimony.
The symposium was accompanied by an exhibition at the Allen Memorial Art Museum
titled, QAQA'PE: FLAT TWINED BAGS OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER PLATEAU, and an
exhibit in the Oberlin College Library about the early missionary movement in
the Oregon Territory.
The purpose of this page is to provide a virtual version of the AMAM exhibition,
as well as to provide historical background on the people and the events leading
up to the return of this root bag to the Nez Perce Nation.
Any questions or issues with
this page, please contact Gwendolyn.Kelly@oberlin.edu
This page
is under construction, sorry for any inconvenience.
This
page written and maintained by Linda Grimm and Gwendolyn Kelly. Last updated 10
May 2002.