[WIND BLOWS, DOGS PANT AND BARK]
>>LAUREL KENDALL: When you go to the northeast of
Siberia, that part of the world, it's very stark.
But in its starkness, it's beautiful.
The far north is tundra, and forests,
and a long, empty coast.
[MUSIC PLAYS]
The Jesup North Pacific Expedition was probably
the most ambitious anthropology expedition
of all time.
The idea was to take two teams of experts—
one on the American side,
one on the Siberian side of the Bering Strait,
and have them explore the question of
who came over the Strait, when.
My name is Laurel Kendall. I curate the
Asian ethnographic collection at the
American Museum of Natural History.
[MUSIC PLAYS]
>>KENDALL: The scope of the Jesup collections is enormous.
Their brief was to collect every aspect
of how people live.
Well, that's impossible but they came as
close as they possibly could.
>> JUDITH LEVINSON: The Siberian collection
numbered more than 5,000 pieces.
We chose a hundred of those to
focus on for full conservation treatment.
My name is Judith Levinson. I'm Director
of Conservation in the Division of Anthropology.
We're able to have very well-developed
consultation and collaboration with Native groups,
and part of why we were able to do this was
that we had a very important project
participant who is a scholar, who is a native Siberian.
>> VERA SOLOVYEVA: My name is Vera Alexseyevna Solovyeva,
and I am a PhD candidate at George Mason University.
This collection is very important because
it has probably the most elaborate
collection in the whole world about
our peoples' pre-Soviet period.
And it has, like, the full range of
the material and spiritual culture.
And then, second, it has
pictures of our ancestors' everyday life.
When the Soviets came to power,
they tried to erase the memory of people.
So, they, you know, they destroyed
all items that belonged to the shamans,
that belonged to the rituals.
When the Soviet Union collapsed,
Indigenous People started to have
interest to revitalizing their culture
and their spirituality.
And in my view, the Museum's collection
have very important role to showing
what was truly ancestral way of living.
>> LEVINSON: Each of these pieces holds valuable information
for people from around the world, and we want
to preserve them for many years to come.
Here in the Objects Conservation Lab, we
work to stabilize the physical condition
of the objects.
What I love about conservation is
it's a fabulous blend of
science, art, and history, and cultural studies.
>> AMY TJIONG: I get to work on a variety of
material, including robes that were made
from fish skin, containers that were
made from birch bark, coats that were
made from reindeer hide.
My name is Amy Tjiong. I'm a conservator in
the Objects Conservation Lab at the Museum.
The first thing that we'll do is
documentation of the object before treatment.
>> LEVINSON: We will take pictures.
We will write a condition report documenting
everything that we see, and we're able to
take teeny-weeny samples and have
particular kinds of scientific analysis
done that help us identify the materials
of manufacture in ways that couldn't be
done by the anthropologists who formed the collection.
So, for instance, because we work
in a natural history museum,
we could pull individual hairs from a fur
and compare it to our vouchered specimens
in the Mammalogy collection to identify
the exact animals that came from Siberia.
Once we've gathered all this information,
we develop the treatment plan, and
actually start treating.
We may work to replace missing parts or correct
surface finishes, but we'll use materials
that are easily reversible.
>> TJIONG: Among the objects that were chosen
for treatment are 14 gut skin parkas.
They're constructed from bands of intestine
that have been cut open and flattened.
To better understand this material, I also attended
a gut skin processing workshop up in Seattle.
You know, with gut lovers.
I mean, there was- People who have a real
fondness or for studying gut skin.
I was able to learn from a Native artist from
Kodiak, and also a curator at the Burke
Museum who is Aleutic.
And both of them have experience
processing intestines.
[PEOPLE SHOUTING, OARS SPLASHING]
And then we went to Siberia to reach out
to members of the community, to try to
see if there was any remaining knowledge.
And one of the most important goals for
us was to share information about the
collection to the members of the
community there.
>> SOLOVYEVA: The Museum's collection—
it's really important to value again our culture.
Actually when I came, I just—
I want—
First when I saw that,
I almost cry.
Yeah, because, you know, like, it's
I never saw this kind of clothing before,
for example.
I didn't even realize that they exist.
And to see them, it was like,
"Oh, wow."
>> TJIONG: I do love what I do.
I find it meaningful to preserve
these cultural artifacts. They all come with such an
amazing history. I would love to see that
they're here for as long as possible.
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