Opened in 1899, the Northwest Coast Hall is the Museum's oldest gallery. Franz Boas, the "father of American anthropology," conceived it as the first museum exhibition to value indigenous cultures on their own terms, not in relation to Western cultures. The cultural items displayed in the hall were acquired by the Museum during the late 1800s and early 1900s from different Northwest Coast communities.
"Northwest Coast" refers to the coast of North America that extends from southern Alaska through Canada to Washington State. With vast cedar and spruce forests and myriad inlets, islands and rivers, this unique region has been home to people for millennia. Some of the Northwest Coast's indigenous cultures—still vibrant today—are highlighted in this hall.
For more than a century Museum visitors have sought out this unique hall as a center of learning and a source of wonder. The Museum engages and collaborates with people from the Northwest Coast and all over the world through exhibits like this one, as well as through education, public programs and other projects.
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On September 25, 2017, the Museum announced a multi-year project to update, restore, and conserve the Northwest Coast Hall. Kaa-xoo-auxch/Garfield George (head of the Raven Beaver House of Angoon/Dei Shu Hit “End of the Trail House,” Tlingit) addresses Northwest Coast Hall press conference attendees with his daughter Violet Murphy-George and Haa’yuups/Ron Hamilton (head of the House of Takiishtakamlthat-h, of the Huupach'esat-h First Nation, Nuu-chah-nulth).
On September 25, 2017, the Museum announced a multi-year project to update, restore, and conserve the Northwest Coast Hall. Kaa-xoo-auxch/Garfield George (head of the Raven Beaver House of Angoon/Dei Shu Hit “End of the Trail House,” Tlingit) addresses Northwest Coast Hall press conference attendees with his daughter Violet Murphy-George and Haa’yuups/Ron Hamilton (head of the House of Takiishtakamlthat-h, of the Huupach'esat-h First Nation, Nuu-chah-nulth).
Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw Educator Kaleb Child (Musgamdzi) shares cultural information with visitors to the hall.
Image credit: AMNH/R. Mickens
Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw Educator Kaleb Child (Musgamdzi) shares cultural information with visitors to the hall.
Image credit: AMNH/R. Mickens
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The Museum often repatriates, or returns, specific items in its collection to the culture of origin via prescribed procedures when formal requests are made. These returns are often part of a U.S. law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Here, Museum staff and people from the Haida Nation sign papers in 2014 for an emotional return of human remains to Haida Gwaii, Canada. Because this group is international, the repatriation was not mandated by any U.S. law, but was purely voluntary on the Museum’s part.
Image credit: AMNH/C. Chesek
The Museum often repatriates, or returns, specific items in its collection to the culture of origin via prescribed procedures when formal requests are made. These returns are often part of a U.S. law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Here, Museum staff and people from the Haida Nation sign papers in 2014 for an emotional return of human remains to Haida Gwaii, Canada. Because this group is international, the repatriation was not mandated by any U.S. law, but was purely voluntary on the Museum’s part.
Image credit: AMNH/C. Chesek
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Heather Powell (Lgeik’i), a Tlingit educator and weaver, visited the Museum’s collections to look at Naaxiin (“Chilkat”) robes—ceremonial blankets woven by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people for more than 200 years. The designs tell stories, she says. “Our ancestors’ story has been woven into them. The stories are older than us. So they’re a place keeper for that moment in history, and they’re very, very precious.”
Image credit: AMNH/D. Finnin
Heather Powell (Lgeik’i), a Tlingit educator and weaver, visited the Museum’s collections to look at Naaxiin (“Chilkat”) robes—ceremonial blankets woven by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people for more than 200 years. The designs tell stories, she says. “Our ancestors’ story has been woven into them. The stories are older than us. So they’re a place keeper for that moment in history, and they’re very, very precious.”
Image credit: AMNH/D. Finnin
Hall History
German-born scholar Franz Boas was the driving force behind this hall. Boas achieved renown as the "father or American anthropology" for his revolutionary idea of cultural relativism—that individual cultures should be understood to be valued on their own terms rather than in comparison to Western civilization.
AMNH Library 2A5161
Boas and his Native collaborators believed that indigenous Northwest Coast cultures were vanishing—huge numbers of people had died of European diseases, and those remaining were under pressure to assimilate into Western society. To be sure, much had changed. Yet the anthropologists also recorded vibrant, living traditions. Here, Stanley Hunt, Sr. stands proudly by a giant feast dish carved in the image of Dzunuḵ̓wa, a spirit being in the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw tradition.
Image credit: AMNH Library 337824
A hand-drawn map of a suggested route for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition.
Image credit: AMNH Division of Anthropology
Displays at many museums in the 1800s grouped items of the same type all together. For example, around 1980 the Boat Hall at the Smithsonian's National Museum displayed Native American canoes next to models of sailing vessels and steamboats from around the world. This style of display allowed visitors to see how people from different places in different times solved similar problems. But it did not interpret the cultural context in which items were made and used.
In 1899 anthropologist Franz Boas created innovative exhibits that showed the unique lifeways of individual cultures on the Northwest Coast. In this original plan of the hall, each group had its own alcove and display cases. The layout of the hall has changed somewhat since Boas designed it. For example, cases in the center have been removed, which once held archaeological items.
Image credit: AMNH Library
Boas made another innovation in museum display—he created "life groups" of mannequins showing the context in which items were used. This life group demonstrates the uses of cedar. The case was later disassembled, but today elements of it are still on display at the end of the hall nearest the theater entrance.
Image credit: AMNH Library 338764
Around 1900, the Hall looked liked this—the Great Canoe hung from the ceiling and light streamed in through windows. After the original curator, Franz Boas, left the Museum in 1905, his successor rearranged the thematic alcoves, added totem poles and commissioned murals. Little has changed in the hall since then. The central organizing idea put forth by Boas has endured for more than a century—to honor the uniqueness of individual cultures.