The Pohwith winter drum is sacred to the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo Native American tribe. They play, pray and dance around the instrument, which is fashioned from cottonwood and white-tailed deerskin.
Yet, since being wrongfully acquired by the Dutch collector Herman F.C. Ten Kate in 1882, the drum has mostly sat noiselessly in dark cabinets in the Netherlands. Now, however, the 350-year-old artifact is one of seven objects that has been returned to the tribe, marking the first Dutch restitution of cultural heritage artifacts to the United States.
Governor E. Michael Silvas, a member of the Texas-based tribe who formally accepted the objects at a ceremony in Leiden, said it was an emotional moment. “Each Pueblo has their own drums,” he told The Art Newspaper. “You need to pray to it, you need to feed it, you need to talk to it, you need to give it sun. You’re feeding life into the drum.
“There is so much emotion running through my heart…Our grandfathers heard our prayers.”
When it comes to artifacts acquired during its colonial years, The Netherlands sees itself as a global frontrunner. A 2020 report from the country’s Council for Culture recommended an ethical approach, with “the guiding principle being that what was stolen must in principle be returned”. The government established a process to handle requests to return objects taken involuntarily, or of particular cultural significance, and in 2023 it returned 478 objects to Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
Dr Wayne Modest, the director of content at the Wereldmuseum, which has locations in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Leiden, said that by granting a request first made by the Native Americans 60 years ago, the institution was looking to the future. “Requests for restitution aren’t new—they have been happening for a very long time,” he told The Art Newspaper.
“We don’t feel this is a loss at all. We don’t feel this is about feeling a sense of guilt or shame about the past. It’s feeling responsibility for the future.”
Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You, the chair of The Netherlands’ Colonial Collections Committee, addressed representatives of the tribe, the United States and Dutch museums, explaining that the drum and other objects were not honestly acquired and belonged back with their true owners. “The Dutch buyer thought nothing of using bribery and coercion. The seller was not even authorised to sell and the community itself did not want a sale at all,” she said.
“For 142 years, these cultural objects have lain here, exhibited as lifeless objects for the purpose of piquing the curiosity of the visitors…And all that time, they were longing for home.”
