Powder horn returns to Stockbridge-Munsee

Object repatriated because it once belonged to tribal leader
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

A powder horn once owned by Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians advocate John W. Quinney has been returned to the tribe by Oshkosh Public Museum, bringing home a vital icon of the tribe’s history.

Officials with the tribe and museum came together Nov. 19 to welcome the horn back to the community at the Arvid E. Miller Library and Museum. With purple gloves and masks galore, the horn bearing Quinney’s initials and an animal face on it was placed into a glass display case near the building entrance.

Most tribal members will have to wait until the end of the pandemic to see the horn in person, but leaders and cultural office employees got to see it up close as they thanked the Oshkosh museum’s representatives for allowing an important piece of the Stockbridge-Munsee’s history to be brought home.

“Thank you so much for being such good stewards of something so significant to our tribal nation,” said Stockbridge-Munsee President Shannon Holsey to Anna Cannizzo, the museum’s assistant director. “It’s not just a powder horn. John Quinney played a significant role historically in our tribe’s survival throughout the years, and it’s symbolisms like this that remind us how far we’ve come, from our ceded territory out east to where we reside today.”

The horn also represents, in Holsey’s view, the tribe’s resilience and who it is as a cultural race. It’s something that allows tribal members to always remember who they are and where they came from.

“It’s our culture, language, tradition, and it’s seen in everything we do,” she said. “Let’s continue to bring these things back, because they significantly and they inherently belong to us, and they hold much more for us. This is something that our future generations will learn from.”

The tribe requested the repatriation of the horn because officials believe it represents the tribe’s culture due to Quinney’s importance. Heather Bruegl, the tribe’s cultural director, noted that Quinney was seen as a vital part of the tribe’s prosperity, serving as sachem — a chief or leader — for the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe from 1852 to 1855.

Quinney was a renowned orator and lobbyist for the Stockbridge-Munsee, negotiating with the United States on behalf of his people and being credited for helping the tribe get through difficult times.

“He was born in New York, the ancestral lands on the Mohican Nation,” Bruegl said. “He was one of the first elected sachems that we had, and he was a diplomat; he was a statesman. He spent a lot of time lobbying in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Stockbridge-Munsee, but native nations everywhere.”

Bruegl noted that Quinney not only fought to keep the tribe on its traditional homelands, he also was instrumental in reversing the 1843 Congressional act that tried to absorb Native Americans into white America and take away the tribes’ sovereignty.

“He was a leader among his people. He didn’t lead above his people,” Bruegl said. “So we were able to argue the cultural significance of the item, and we were able to bring it home.”

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act allows for repatriation and disposition of specific Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony. The Oshkosh museum determined that the horn met the criteria for being a patrimonial object, defined as objects possessing continuing cultural, traditional, or historical importance to the heritage of a group, particularly those considered inalienable by the group as of the time the objects had been separated from the group or from the historical setting of the objects.

The horn has already been in the tribal museum once before, as Bruegl was able to get it on loan from Oshkosh in 2019 and display it locally until February of this year.

However, this wasn’t the first time the Stockbridge-Munsee had tried to bring Quinney’s horn back to the reservation. Cannizzo noted that the tribe had attempted to petition for repatriation in 2002, but the request was challenged.

“It was contested initially … we weren’t sure about the facility,” Cannizzo said. “One of our initiatives is to have objects cared for, and the facility, we weren’t sure if it had the right kind of security, safety, environmental controls. Also, accessibility — would it be accessible?”

Cannizzo researched the first petition and found in the paperwork that the tribe did not adequately explain why the horn was so significant for the tribe.

The latest repatriation petition was more eagerly embraced, according to Bruegl, and the approval process went much faster than normal. She noted that it is not easy for such items to be returned, not only for the Stockbridge-Munsee, but for other Native American tribes.

“In terms of indigenous objects out there, there’s thousands of items out there that native nations have tried to bring home,” Bruegl said. “It’s a long process. You have to follow the laws, which is good, but it drags the process out. This process moved very fast because it was approved by their board right away, the Oshkosh Public Museum board.”

Cannizzo noted that her museum was much more “educated” about the horn’s value the second time around, with Bruegl and Bonnie Hartley, the tribe’s historic preservation manager, providing a lot more documentation and information that showed Quinney’s horn was linked to the Stockbridge-Munsee culture.

The horn found its way into the Oshkosh museum’s hands in 1934 and was originally supposed to just be a loan to the museum. However, the family of Fred McKay, who had brought the horn to the museum’s attention, never asked for it back, according to Cannizzo.

“It was left at the museum. It was abandoned,” Cannizzo said. “So, the museum went through the legal process of the Wisconsin Abandoned Loans process in order to fully acquire as part of our collection.”

Tribal council member Joe Miller attended the private ceremony, which was broadcast on the tribe’s Facebook page for people to see, and he said it was an important thing the horn was back in the Stockbridge-Munsee’s possession.

“Our artifacts are history, and the people that carried them got us to where we are today,” Miller said. “It’s very, very important never to lose sight of that. As you travel along the highway of life, it’s important to glimpse into the rear-view mirror — in order to get where you’re going, you need to know where you’ve been.”

Once the pandemic is over, the tribe plans to hold an open house at its museum so tribal members and neighboring communities can see the horn for itself.

Tribal council member Brock Schreiber was also appreciative that the horn was back in the tribe’s hands.

“Oshkosh Public Museum, we’re happy to receive this gift,” Schreiber said. “It is a good gift.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com