Ceavccageađggi suoladuvvon dievdu
vuoi dát suoladuvvon dievdu londonis
gean raddevuovda ain váillaha
ceavccageađggi oahpes bálgáid
this is a song about
repatriation
an open letter to the hunterian museum in london
a call for action and redemption
a song drawn from the stained soil
of those who walked these lands before us
this is a song to 554
to lost skulls
coveted crania
and muzzled ancestors
this is a song to the unearthed children of vuonnabahta
of unjárga and várjjat
sent as gifts
and memoranda to museums far away
so
i weave fireweed into questions
stolen ribs into boat-shaped vessels
proofed with pine resin
wrapped in birch bark
and silent resistance
on paper
you’ve been reduced
to a series of numbers and letters
one of many unnamed in a closed archive
and i long for a story to be told
beyond the price of your body
broken into parts
and sold for six pounds
due to the perceived purity
of your unmixed skull
when nordvi dragged you
from your grave
in ceavccageađgi
a field of sacred stones
covered in seal fat
and cod liver
and stripped your bones from your gods
he marketed you and ten others as
ancient pagan lapps
assuring flower
the museum curator
that
genuine lapp skulls
are only to be found in heathen tombs
and that
any skeleton he could find would be sent gratis
along with the skull belonging to it
thus explaining your woeful existence
as an afterthought in the museum collections
and i hate that we know more about
the ones who defiled your graves
than we know about you
that their letters talk of your unnamed descendants
resisting your defilement
to no avail
that the skis you used
were treated with more respect
when the merchant opened your graves in the 1850’s
than the ribcages that used to hold your souls
by the time he had to sell his parents’ trading post
nordvi had turned your graves
into a thriving business
each skull earning him a week’s salary or two
he had taught german academics
the importance of stealing your bones in the middle of the night
as
their people consider them sacred
and guard the graves from all intrusion
with superstitious care
he had made a name for himself around the world
taking out ads in boston papers
on the other side of the planet
to proclaim that he was selling
skeletons and skulls of Lapps
from heathenish tombs in Lapland
all collected by himself
in 1878 nordvi sent you
and nine others from ceavccageađgi
to the royal college of surgeons in england
the letters talk of your grave robber
as the world’s foremost dealer
a man selling our people
to washington
copenhagen
strasbourg
to stockholm
berlin
and now london for profit
years later
keith would use your ribs to define our people as
aberrant
dwight in turn would refer to you as a specimenin his studies on
the significance of the third trochanter
talk of your body’s
roughish lines
only to conclude that
in wild and in but slightly civilised races
there are great discrepancies
between different individuals
so this is a song to 554
to the one not on public display
to the one who remains
to counter the silence
and guide you home