Minikwallace - Blog Posts

Did You Know the Natural History Museum held human remains?!

NO. 1

Robert Peary, the famous adventurer, and explorer traveled to Greenland around 1897. There, he studied Inuit survival strategies and proved that Greenland was an island. But this isn’t about him, but about the group of Inuit descent he deceived to become famous. This is about Minik Wallace, a small boy that grew up in America because of Peary's lie.

NO. 2

Robert Peary invited the Inuit to the Natural History Museum. A group of six was chosen to go: Minik’s father, Quisk, was a renowned hunter, then the shaman Atangana (ca. 1840–1898) with her husband, renowned hunter Nuktaq (ca. 1848–1898), their adoptive daughter Aviaq (ca. 1885–1898) and the young adult Uisaakassak, the fiancé of Aviaq. The adults did not understand the purpose of the trip, but some wanted to travel. They were told that while in America, they would receive gifts, tools, and weapons. Not to mention the promise of being able to return back to Greenland after. Instead, when they arrived in September in New York, they were exploited like objects and specimens. The museum staff did not house them in a safe environment but instead made them stay in their basement. In the light of day, over 2,000 people paid for tickets to see the Inuit group. Truly, the new world was not what they expected it to be, and Peary did little to help them. Four of the group succumbed to tuberculosis, including Minik’s father, and were taken to Bellevue Hospital, and died, unfortunately, leaving Minik alone.

NO. 3

On February 17, 1898, Minimik's father passed away. Minik begged for a proper burial for his father with the traditional Inuit burial rites. The museum staff staged a fake burial, filling the coffin with stones for weight, and placing a stuffed body inside. They performed the burial for Minik’s benefit. The staff stole the body to research, and studying the dead would be impossible if their 6ft in the ground. The body of Quisuk was de-fleshed and his skeleton was sent to the Natural History Museum for display. William Wallace adopted the boy and raised him like his own son, but got fired from his job in 1901. In 1906, he found out from a newspaper that the skeleton of his father was being displayed. In Wallace’s own words, "He was coming home from school with my son Willie one snowy afternoon when he suddenly began to cry. 'My father is not in his grave,' he said, 'his bones are in the museum.' "We questioned him and found out how he had learned the truth. But after that, he was never the same boy. He became morbid and restless. Often we would see him crying, and sometimes he would not speak for days. "We did our best to cheer him up, but it was no use. His heart was broken. He had lost faith in the new people he had come among."Minik, with the support of his adopted father, urged the museum to give back the skeleton of his father.'' The museum staff denied his many requests to reclaim his father’s bones. They evaded the questions of having Inuit skeletons displayed in the gallery. Minik was never able to reclaim his father's bones.

 NO. 4

In 1909, Minik returned to Greenland as an adult, but felt more alienated there than in the U.S. Minik had forgotten his native language and had to learn how to hunt. "Why am I no longer fit to live where I was born? Not fit to live where I was kidnapped?" "Why am I an experiment there and here, and tormented since the great white pirate interfered with nature and left me a helpless orphan, young, abandoned, 10,000 miles from home? I don't think both ends and the middle of the Earth are worth the price that has been paid to almost find one pole." Minik returned to live in the states again in 1916, but caught the influenza flu. He died on October 29, 1918, and it wasn’t until 1993 did the body of Minik’s father and the remains of the others were returned to Greenland for their burial. Read Give Me My Father's Body: The Story of Minik, the New York Eskimo to honor Minik, his father, and the comminity of Polar Eskimoes.