From museum objects to cultural documents
Placing Native American objects owned by Akseli Gallen-Kallela in their original context
Keywords:
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Yhdysvallat, intiaanit, alkuperäiskansat, esineet, museokokoelmatAbstract
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865–1931) lived in New Mexico with his family from 1924 to 1925 and acquired Native American objects. As personal objects, they have exclusively represented Gallen-Kallela’s trip to North America, and their original context has been ignored. Collections of objects belonging to significant historical figures are connected primarily to the person in question. In a similar vein, objects owned by Gallen-Kallela mainly gain their importance through him. They represent his life, his work, and his achievements, regardless of their origin. By analysing the ethnographic objects he acquired and attributing them to their original cultural context, I have extended their meaning to also represent the communities and cultures that produced them.
Objects acquired by Gallen-Kallela have been made by many different indigenous communities in southwestern United States. He did not visit all the places himself, which means that the items were not acquired directly from their producers. In the 1920s, handicrafts were traded very extensively across state borders, and it was easy to buy objects made by different indigenous communities at the same place. Nowadays, there are 13 objects at the Gallen-Kallela Museum and 16 at the National Museum of Finland. In this article, I analyse these objects and place them in their original cultural context. In order to identify the objects, I use their collection history, the features and characteristics of the objects, work by artists, old photographs, written descriptions and studies, comparable documented objects, and the testimonies of the Native Americans.