Symposium
When Oberlin hosted a symposium to repatriate the bag in 2002, we were delighted to invite a series of expert speakers on topics relevant to the "Oberlin Bag" and its repatriation.
The symposium was made possible by sponsorship by The Ohio Arts Council, the Ohio Humanities Council, The Mead-Swing Lectureship Committee, the Office of the President, the Alumni Association, the Archaeological Studies Curricular Committee, and the Department of Anthropology.
Symposium Participants:
Lynette Pinkham and Josiah Pinkham are members of the Nez Perce tribe who came to the Symposium at Oberlin in order to speak on the subject of twined weaving and to receive the bag. Lynette Pinkham, Nez Perce weaving artist, gave a master class on the technique of flat-twined weaving, and her brother Josiah accepted the bag on behalf of the tribe as the Nez Perce Tribal Ethnographer and accompanied the bag on its way home. For images from the Symposium, see the gallery on the right.
Dr. Linda Grimm is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Oberlin College, retiring after working in the department from 1972-2007. Professor Grimm was the project director for the Closing the Circle symposium and served as narrator as well as primary adviser for the two exhibitions that accompany this project. A social scientist by training, Grimm taught courses and guided student research in museum studies.
Dr. Steven L. Grafe gave an illustrated presentation on the Spalding-Allen Collection. Grafe is known as an expert of Columbia River Plateau region arts and history. The Oberlin Bag was once a part of that collection, which is described in greater detail through the link on the right. His persistent efforts to locate material missing from the original Spalding inventory lie at the heart of this repatriation project.
Dr. Mary Dodds Schlick is a preeminent expert on Native basket weaving, after working with native artists on the Colville (1950-56), Warm Springs (1960-64) and Yakama (1969-75) reservations. She has written the definitive book on the subject of Columbia Plateau basketry (Schlick 1994, 2002) and continues to publish and lecture regularly on this topic. She gave a presentation on the history and development of flat-twined bags on the Columbia River Plateau. Schlick also lent several bags from her own personal collection to the Allen Memorial Art Museum for the exhibition, Qaqa'pe: Flat Twined Bags of the Columbia River Plateau. Those bags and others are displayed in the virtual exhibit portion of the site.
Elizabeth Atack '01 is a graduate of the Anthropology and Archaeology programs. Her archival research made significant contributions to understanding the history of Oberlin’s flat-twined bag and achieved a precise understanding of how and when the bag became misplaced in the former Oberlin College Museum. In addition to sharing some of the results of her research, she spoke at the symposium about the educational value of the project for undergraduate students of anthropology, art history, and museum studies.
Roland Baumann Oberlin College archivist, provided bibliographical instruction as well as direction on projects such as this one. He also taught as an adjunct Professor of History at Oberlin for 15 years. Baumann spoke about using detective work in this project to show how people used archival records to make new discoveries and to use these materials in innovative ways.
Dr. Joyce Szabo, Professor of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico, specializes in Native American Art History, particularly Plains Indian art. Even before the symposium, Szabo was no stranger to Oberlin. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the famous Howling Wolf ledger book in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. During her visit to Oberlin, she chaired the panel discussion on the repatriation of Native American art and material culture.
This symposium also would not have been possible without help from the two external reviewers:
Dr. Sharon Dean was the head of the Cultural Anthropology and Visual Arts Department at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and has had a long-term interest in the "social life" of objects. She is also an expert on Native American basketry and is a co-author of a book on Paiute and Shoshone baskets of the Owens Valley, California.
Dr. Joshua Piker (OC’89) was an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma with a specialty in Native American and Colonial History. His publications have appeared in Ethnohistory and Reviews in American History, and at the time of the symposium he was completing a book on the eighteenth century Creek Indian community of Oakfuskee.