Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/04/thieves-apologize-profusely-an.html
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Good on them.
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I still kind of hope the thieves are caught and forced to pay the entire cost of restoration.
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Well, I mean, who hasn’t stolen some art work and later regretted it…
Actually the one time I stole some artwork I didn’t regret it. I was pretty sure it was going to end up in the trash.
But seriously, it’s nice to see they aren’t total bastards.
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Canadians are famously good at apologizing, after all.
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This is local.
The original story said the hand was stolen. But a later story detailed video footage that suggested someone was hanging from the hand, and it came off. That suggests it wasn’t destruction (they could have done much more damage) or scoring (bringing home something to boast about) but stupidity.
Since the hand has been returned, all is well. And I think the museum is right to not pursue charges. The hand is back, and maybe in the future if something like this happens again any idiot involved will return the item. But not pressing charges means the perpetrators may actually think about the totem pole’s meaning. And lots of People suffer from alcohol abuse, so this is acknowledging that it’s a problem, not crime.
It was Orange Shirt Day on Monday (and Cindy Blackstock’s birthday), and that’s when the news of the returned hand got out. The day is to remember the native children taken away to residential schools, something that was still happening a few decades ago. It was abusive to begin with, but thwre was physical and sexual abuse, and some of the children never went home.
The totem pole was carved to remember those children pulled away from their families. It was supposed to be on loan to the.museum for about half a year, but two years later it’s still there. I’ve left canned sc’win there a few times, totem poles aren’t ancestral, but half a continent away they are close. It’s a wonderful thing to have here. I just go and sit near it to keep it company.
Of course, the museum’s big theft has never been solved, and if they were caught there shouldn’t be forgiveness. Over Labor Day weekend in 1972, some paintings were stolen, the thieves getting in through the skylight. They were interrupted so they didn’t get as much as they could, but the missing paintings have never been seen or heard of since.
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“We would like to let all know that in NO WAY, SHAPE OR FORM was this done in spite” [but in a state of drunkenness when our imbecilic true selves are revealed].
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There are some things even thieves know better than to mess with. It’s like the (unconfirmed) story of Mr. Rogers’ car being stolen, only to be returned with a note of apology once they figured out who it belonged to.
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Thank you for the local perspective! I was lucky to tour the museum back in June, and it has become one of my favorites.
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Thank you very much 
So many important details that would have been lost in the noise.
I hope you will keep us up-to-date as this matter progresses.
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I get you there, I think.
In vino, veritas is a real thing, IMO
But for those who have the self-awareness to look back and say “Holy f&ck, that thing I did was so wrong, on so many levels…
I like to imagine that the individuals who express remorse at that level will truly examine their lives and take corrective action as appropriate.
So much depends on the miscreant acknowledging the crime, which seems here to have been done.
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I read the headline and immediately thought “Canada?” Yep, Canada.
I wish I lived in Canada.
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Obviously, that’s a good thing to hope for and which I agree with… always… even though I’m informed by the on-point histories of certain relatives, friends, and acquaintances. Let’s just leave it at that.
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Well, they felt remorse and they did the right thing in returning it - we should give them a hand.
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Just a heads up to the writer: the Kwakwaka’wakw people’s (translated to people who speak kwakiutl) have been commonly misrepresented as the same peoples, where they are separate nations, and referring to this as a kwakiutl artifact continues this misrepresentation. No fault to you, but rather the colony. But yours too if you do not fix it with this knowledge now. Thank you.
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That’s a good point. I think I wondered if it was the same People but one a more corrected spelling. Certainly there has been a lot of imposed words on People, like the Syilx being called “Okanagans”. One change since about the Occupation of Alcatraz, the 50th anniversary coming up in December, is that People have reclaimed their real names and words from the garbling that has gone on since Europeans came over.
Though, it’s the quoted Smithsonian article tgat garbled this.
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