“In the beginning, the book felt like this very static thing. But when you get into it, there are objects, there are stories, there are songs that have been recorded… that we can reproduce and bring back to life.”
– Corrine Hunt, 2018

As scholars and Kwakwaka’wakw researchers study museum collections, new attributions for 19th-century objects can lead to their material reproduction and ceremonial reactivation. For this to occur, regalia has to be identified as the hereditary property of particular ’na’mima—exactly the kind of genealogical information George Hunt later recorded for many of the 1897 illustrations. The resulting reproductions are not “replicas” but new iterations that in some cases have to be ritually validated in front of witnesses. Contemporary artists create new works for use and for sale that are partially inspired by old ones, fusing historic and modern styles and sensibilities.