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She promised a “full lobby of museums, governors and at the national level of Washington D.C.” to recover First Nations artifacts, citing two items in particular at the American Museum of Natural History — the Great Canoe and the Whalers’ Shrine.

“There’s the Whaling Station (shrine) from up the coast, which has tremendous cultural significance, deeply spiritual significance, which has never been displayed, which should be returned,” Clark said.

The whalers’ shrine — which includes an original shed-like building with 88 carved human figures, four carved whales, and 16 human skulls — had been built over generations by the Mowachaht tribe as a place of purification for the community’s chief whaler. It is still regarded by the Mowachaht as having enormous power even though Nuu-chah-nulth whaling days are long gone.

In 1903, an agent for Franz Boas, considered the father of modern cultural anthropology, convinced two Yuquot elders to sell the shrine to the American Museum of Natural History for $500.

The shrine was then surreptitiously spirited away, with just a few pieces ever shown.

Brody said the museum only displays a tiny model of the shrine, “about the size of a laptop computer.”

Brody said the museum has agreed that the human remains should be returned, but a “consensus” needs to be reached among aboriginals on how to move them.

He said that while most want the shrine returned and displayed in a prominent place, some traditionalists want it to be allowed to decay at its previous open-air site as per indigenous custom. “All the museum types shrieked in horror about that idea.”

Brody maintains the B.C. government should push for its return. “Here’s a piece of B.C. heritage, a work of culture and enormous power, a work of art of undoubted importance completely buried away. No one gets to see it even on display. Let’s find the funds and the will and the plan to put it in place at Friendly Cove on the Island.”

American Museum of Natural History spokesman Roberto Lebron said Wednesday that the museum has not received any requests to repatriate the shrine “and so we have not considered the matter and are unable to comment further.”

bmorton@postmedia.com