German museum returning objects robbed from Alaskan graves

BERLIN – A German museum is returning nine objects from its collection that it says were taken without consent from the graves of native people in Alaska.

The Prussian Cultural heritage Foundation said Monday the objects will be returned from Berlin’s Ethnological Museum to the Chugach Alaska Corporation, which represents indigenous people in the Chugach region.

The organization says the items were collected for the museum’s predecessor by Norwegian adventurer Johan Adrian Jacobsen between 1882 and 1884, apparently “through grave robbery and not by an approved archaeological excavation.”

They were taken from graves on Chenega Island from a location no longer known, and include two broken masks and a child’s cradle, as well as a wooden idol.

The German organization’s been working with the Chugach Alaska Corporation on the items since 2015.