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