Federal law enforcement rangers are still seeking the public’s help identifying a tourist who broke a tribal artifact last month while trying to photograph it at Grand Canyon National Park.
According to witnesses, a white man — believed to be in his 60s or 70s — fell while standing atop furniture inside the Desert View Watchtower. Staff rendered first aid to the visitor, who left before officials were dispatched on June 17.
This colorful, hand-carved wooden crown worn during Butterfly Dance ceremonies was fashioned years ago by the late Fred Kabotie.
“If people have heard of one Hopi artist, it’ll be Fred Kabotie,” said Kelley Hays-Gilpin, curator of anthropology at the Museum of Northern Arizona. “When he was a student in Santa Fe, he was actually working with Elizabeth DeHuff, his teacher, to kind of define that style of what they would have called then Indian painting.”
Born in the village of Shungopavi atop Second Mesa at the turn of the 20th century, Kabotie swiftly became a beloved artist. As his popularity grew, the Hopi even met first lady Eleanor Roosevelt during a 1941 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Kabotie also worked alongside architect Mary Coulter, who was employed by the Fred Harvey Company to erect buildings near the Grand Canyon’s edge. His fingerprints are all over the walls — painting kiva murals — inside the South Rim watchtower.
“I remember one of the stories,” said Meg Kabotie, one of his granddaughters. “There was like a certain color of blue. He kept having to go up and down the ladder and it still wasn’t the right color and he finally slashed open the whole tube of paint — just kind of a renaissance man.”
Usually when relics are damaged, they’re sent to the Western Archeological and Conservation Center in Tucson. This facility oversees the curation of 14.5 million objects across more than 70 parks throughout the Intermountain West.
The National Park Service is temporarily storing the kopatsoki — the Hopi word for headdress — inside its museum collection while undergoing an evaluation by staff to see whether repairs can be made.
“I was just surprised and disheartened to hear that had happened,” added Kabotie. “It’s hard to see people not caring about beautiful pieces of artwork or artifacts or things that are very sacred and special, and just kind of being dumb tourists.”
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