Karl May Museum in Saxony: Native Americans Demand Scalp Back

This story is essentially about transmissions, and the first one dates back to the year 1904.

In that year, the artist and Native American researcher Patty Frank is said to have met a Dakota Native American, who was carrying the scalp of another man from the Ojibwe tribe. Patty Frank and the living Native American are said to have quickly come to an agreement: You give me the scalp, and I’ll give you $100 and three bottles of liquor.

The second transmission is now sought by Cecil Pavlat 110 years later, and 1-1-0 is the right code for the plaintive emergency call that he transmitted in March in the form of a letter.

Pavlat is the repatriation specialist of the Ojibwe Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Michigan; he thus demanded the transoceanic delivery and subsequent burial of the scalp. The handling of it and especially its display are, he wrote, “disrespectful, insulting and unconscionable.”* Howgh.

Pacta sunt servanda, or deals are deals, is basically what Claudia Kaulfuß, director of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul, wrote back. The scalp has belonged to the museum’s collection for more than 80 years, and it has not been on display for more than 20 years.

Pavlat turned to the museum as an actual descendant, Kaulfuß answered similarly as the successor of Patty Frank, who was once the first director of the Karl May Museum in Villa Bärenfett in Radebeul in Saxony. In 1928, the museum opened with a Native American exhibit at the same location where May died 16 years before.

So these were the lines of conflict this spring: Cecil Pavlat demanded the scalp, making reference to the existing U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2007, in which a right to the repatriation of mortal remains is formulated; Germany has signed this nonbinding declaration. Claudia Kaulfuß in turn ruled out the return with a reference to the lack of scientific examination of the authenticity of the scalps in the museum’s collection.

In a “letter of understanding,” both sides have agreed to a better investigation of the exhibit.

Karl May in particular, however, was a person in whose thoughts practically all walls separating reality and fantasy crumbled violently at times. Only a few of his spoken or written sentences would stand up to an authenticity test by today’s standards, but Claudia Kaulfuß hopes that it might go better for her. Because of this, at the recent Karl May festival, there was a sign of understanding between the museum and Pavlat, which for now takes the heat out of the fight.

Both sides signed a “letter of understanding,” the declared mutual intention of which is to research the exact origin of the scalp. Initially, a timeline for that should be created and subsidies should be applied for.

Now, you cannot get such an inquiry nowadays for $100 and three bottles of firewater. That said, besides the study of all sorts of records, inquiries in the U.S. and Radebeul have been planned. The museum no longer completely rules out a return of the scalp, but instead wants to make it dependent on the results of the investigation.

Even more so than the written intentions, however, eyewitnesses were given hope by small advances that they observed on the periphery of the festival. Weeks ago the museum removed all real scalps from its exhibits for “ethical and political reasons,”* as curator Hans Grunert said — the four scalps in a display cabinet were replaced by replicas. At the festival itself, there was a discussion panel, in which Kaulfuß and Pavlat took part.

The latter’s voyage was his first ever visit to Europe. In Radebeul he showed his readiness to reconcile. The Sächsische Zeitung documented: “Maybe the letter sounded aggressive, for that I apologize.”* Claudia Kaulfuß in turn gave Pavlat a gift — for now no scalp yet, but a watch, with an engraving of the Villa Bärenfett. This is a gesture, not a reparation.

The understanding on the issue seems believable, and the Karl May Museum at least will not complain over the amount of attention. Its visitor numbers have sunk badly in the last years, and every fight naturally lures rubberneckers.

This thought, incidentally, can be found better formulated in an undervalued standard work of secondary literature by Roger Willemsen. He once reduced May to rhyme, and the collection, “Ein Schuss, ein Schrei — das Meiste von Karl May ” was the result. Director Kaulfuß could one day refer to this nice quatrain on page 149 with a nod: “Not exactly the career wish of many, is the role of ‘enemy.’/ Whoever themselves was a party in a quarrel, knows however: the part is thankful.”

* Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.