Heir to Indian headdresses suing Science Center

[StephGaub]

St. Louis — Kevin Airis holds up an American Indian headdress, admiring the eagle feathers standing tall above the intricate orange-and-black beadwork of the headband, and its flowing mink tails. [Full Story]

[kevin airis]

Hi I am Kevin Airis the person in this story I have found out through this lawsuit some very disturbing facts that I feel all museums should learn from.
Anyone who wants to learn of the facts ,please contact me
Thank You Kevin Airis

[Kevinbacone]

where is the article?

I am curious

[StephGaub]

The article is no longer available on the newspaper's website, but I was able to locate the text:

St. Louis — Kevin Airis holds up an American Indian headdress, admiring the eagle feathers standing tall above the intricate orange-and-black beadwork of the headband, and its flowing mink tails.

It is a family prize, he tells a visitor, a comforting reminder of his grandfather's love of the Indian culture. It's also a sour reminder that two others were lent and lost in a deal that has him suing the St. Louis Science Center.

Airis says it's time to reclaim the treasures. The center says it doesn't have them and doesn't owe the family anything.

Four headdresses had been in the family for decades. Thomas Airis loved the culture and spirit and kindness of the people, his grandson said, and was given them and scores of other artifacts while spending the better part of 40 summers living on reservations in the Southwest.

Two headdresses are safely packed in cardboard boxes in Kevin Airis' home outside Hillsboro. Nobody seems to know the location of the others, or of more than two dozen other pieces from the collection.

In a suit pending in St. Louis Circuit Court, Kevin Airis blames the science center. In the early 1970s, the suit says, about 40 items from the collection were lent to a predecessor, the Museum of Science & Natural History, in Oak Knoll Park in Clayton.

The museum was preparing an Indian exhibit, Kevin Airis said, and the family wanted to share its collection. The items, according to court documents, were received March 7, 1974, by the museum's curator and logged as "on permanent loan."

Thirty-two years later, Kevin Airis' mother, Jewel, was dying and wanted her sons and grandsons to reassemble the full collection.

In January 2007, 11 items were returned, according to court documents, including the two Cheyenne eagle feather headdresses, also known as war bonnets.

The rest, the documents say, were no longer in the science center's possession. They include an Osage headdress and another Cheyenne headdress, Airis contends — along with moccasins, a papoose carrier, beaded and woven items of clothing and a gourd rattle.

The missing items are valued at up to $150,000, according to Airis and his attorney, Kevin Kasper. That does not include the value of the eagle feather headdresses, which cannot be appraised because under federal law they are illegal to sell or to possess unless the owner had them before 1962. Airis qualifies as an heir, his lawyer said.

The suit demands the return of the items or at least $25,000 in compensation.

To Kevin Airis, 53, a tool-and-die maker whose walls and albums display faded pictures of himself, his mother and his grandfather dressed in Indian clothing, it's not about the money.

"All I want is my belongings back," he said. "I want the real truth about where my belongings are."

Jay Levitch, the attorney for the defense, sees it differently.

"The science center's position is that the claims are without merit," Levitch said. "And we'll present evidence at the appropriate time indicating that the claims are without merit."

He declined to address specifics of the lawsuit or his client's position.

Airis said science center officials variously told him that the items were returned, or that his mother had abandoned them, or that the intent was a donation. He presumes they were sold, stolen, lost or remain stashed away in a storeroom.

"I think the museum is going to try to say that they're not going to make good on this stuff," Airis said.

The attorneys said the case may come to trial later this year.

As for the two headdresses Airies got back, he said he plans to give one to his son, to pass down through the generations, and donate the other to a museum — in Oklahoma.

[kevin airis]

Hi we loaned the tools my Grandfather used in teaching Native American Dancing to the museum.I have all the paperwork of the loan.Three years ago I went to the museum to get the loan back,my mother was dying and my brother just died.At the collection dept I was told horror stories about the curator and his paperwork and that they had no records of returning the items but that they believed they did. The Fbi was called in and told me the museum did not have any paperwork showing a return which didnt make since to him. I could not get the president of the museum to come see my mother even with showing them pictures of how sick she was. She died on Feb 14 2007.They hired a lawyer and said they run investigations but at deposition they had no reports of any investigation they clamed in court documents to have run.They also addmited to not telling those who looked at their files that items were missing are they were involed in this lawsuit.But worse two weeks ago a letter stating that in 2001 their collection files were in boxes in the outgoing collection mangers office and from their they went to the lounge area to the trash .I will show you the Lawsuit May 4 trial date

[Museumgirl]

This story really illustrates the need for good record keeping, honest employees, and transparency of actions within a museum. I'm sorry to hear about what you are going through. Unfortunately, this seems to happen all to often with museum collections, especially when they are run by volunteers. That is not to say that there aren't a lot of very great volunteers and volunteer-run organizations, but when you bring someone into the mix that doesn't understand museum operations and ethics, there is a greater chance of something like this happening. However, we all know that these instances occur even with paid staff. I would be interested to hear from someone at the museum to hear their side of the story. Very interesting and thank you for telling us about your experience.

[Pettit]

Originally Posted by kevin airis

Hi I am Kevin Airis the person in this story I have found out through this lawsuit some very disturbing facts that I feel all museums should learn from.
Anyone who wants to learn of the facts ,please contact me
Thank You Kevin Airis

Hi,
If you hav the time I wouldn't mind knowning more. Nancy Brown

[kevin airis]

Originally Posted by Pettit

Hi,
If you hav the time I wouldn't mind knowning more. Nancy Brown

I would like to tell you you can email me
Kevin Airis

[kevin airis]

Hi
I was told by the St.Louis Science Center that they destroyed employee work records and I mean Curator employment records. What I want to Know is this a common pratice of Museums to destroy Important files of past Curators ? and if it is how long do you have to keep these records before destroying them?
Thank You for any feed back on this.
Kevin Airis

[lisa]

Mr. Airis,

Please keep us updated on your story. I'm curious to see how it plays out. It's an unfortunate incident for everyone involved and I can see both sides of the story. I definitely understand that you want your stuff back and rightly so. At the same time, from the museum's standpoint, what do you do when the people at a museum you inherited didn't keep good records 20, 30, or 40+ years ago (even though you have a professional staff now who keep very good records), none of the staff is still around, and you have no idea what happened to the items? You can't retun something if you don't have it even if you want to and there's noone left to put the blame on since it wasn't the existing museum that entered into the loan. Knowing that, is there anything the museum could have done to work this out before going to court? The situation is just all too common (although maybe not to the extent of your case as far as value is concerned) and I think it's something we could all learn from.