"Growing Goodness": An Alaska Native Collection at Oberlin College

Life History

In archaeology, an object's 'life history' refers to the whole of its journey - the places it has been housed, the people who have interacted with it, the attitudes those people held towards it, and the ways in which it was used. The objects in the Oberlin Arctic Collection were originally collected from Indigenous groups in Arctic Alaska and Canada by traders and naturalists, given to the Smithsonian by these collectors, and traded from the Smithsonian to Oberlin College in 1889. They have remained at Oberlin College until the present day. In each of these places, the objects held different meaning and different value, creating a particular life history for each of them. In this section, these objects' journey from Alaska to Oberlin is explained in more detail.

The map below shows the place of origin for each artifact in Oberlin's Arctic Collection, as recorded by the Smithsonian. Click on a pin to learn more about the object and the places it has been.





Note: The Fishing Tool Bag and the Throwing Stick are not displayed on the map because their exact collection locations are not known. 

Disclaimer: These are the locations from where the objects came from to the best of our knowledge. Our information was gathered by the Smithsonian archives.



 

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