Two Museums for a Heritage: Unangax̂ Collections from Unga Island
This article looks at the parallel fates of two Unangax̂ (Aleut) collections from the second half of the nineteenth century made by French Alphonse Pinart and American William Dall. Their explorations of Unga Island burial caves, partly driven by their rivalry, resulted in collections of unique and enigmatic objects divided between the Château-Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer (France) and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History (United States). In this article, the authors retrace the particular course of these objects, which, despite their exceptional character, remain understudied.