"Museum Correspondence" by Beth Piatote
This is a selection from our Spring/Summer 2021 "The Empire Issue". Please click here to purchase a print or digital version of the full issue featuring prose, poetry, and art.
Founded in 1901, the Museum of Anthropology
We write regarding
is dedicated to the study of cultures
the missing remains of our ancestor, a child,
from yesterday and today,
referred to by the museum
both near and far.
as catalogue number 12-3552.
Not only was the grave of this young person violated
Today, the Museum contains an estimated 3.8 million objects
but now we have to live
from California
with the knowledge that the child’s remains
and around the world,
could be in a closet,
as well as extensive documents,
attic,
photographs
or desk drawer
and film recordings.
of a researcher.
We continue a legacy of enrichment
This is a very difficult
and education,
and gruesome matter for us.
functioning as a research unit
Imagine having to ask
for the University of California, Berkeley
members of another society
by supporting scholarly discovery
to look for the stolen and subsequently lost
and community-based research.
bodies of your own relatives.
—
This is a found poem. The sources are the public website of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (PAHMA), “Mission Statement,” https://hearstmuseum. berkeley.edu/, accessed 27 April 2020; and a letter written to PAHMA from The Klamath Tribes Culture and Heritage Department, for the Tribal Council, Elders Committee, and Culture and Heritage Committee, dated Feb. 23, 2017. The Klamath Tribal Council has given consent for the letter to appear in this poem.
Beth Piatote is a Nez Perce writer and author of The Beadworkers: Stories (Coun- terpoint 2019), which was longlisted for the PEN/Bingham prize for Debut Short Story Collection and the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and shortlisted for the Cal- ifornia Booksellers Alliance “Golden Poppy” Prize for Fiction. She is an associate professor of Comparative Literature and Native American Studies at the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley.
