[Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch] This reliquary guardian is shiny and really carries the light in the gallery in the same way that it would've carried the lamplight when people were using it. Kota families would keep the relics of particularly revered ancestors in a basket below this form, and that's why you see decoration only on the upper part of the object. Kota craftsmen were specifically looking for different colors of metal to make this object come alive. So you have that red of the copper, the yellow of the copper alloy, or bronze or brass, and then the dark black of the iron. Those flat prints of brass are particularly interesting because the shininess of the brass sort of evokes the shininess of really serene pools of water. And the idea of the ancestors in Kota thought is that they reside over vast expanses of water, that the ancestral realm is separated from us by this sort of serene pool. And so when we're looking at the face of this reliquary, we can imagine that distance being collapsed between us and those that we love who have passed on.

[Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch] The shape of the mount that's holding this reliquary upright is meant to evoke the basket that Kota owners would've put their revered ancestors' relics in. A number of years after such illustrious ancestors had died, the skull would be exhumed from the grave and put into the reliquary basket. Now, that may seem like a strange way to honor your ancestors, but you should remember that the Kota, like many Americans today, moved fairly frequently. And so this was one way of ensuring that you could still revere those that you'd lost and loved, but have them with you even though you were moving. And so the reliquary basket is the most important part of the object, the one that carries the skulls of those who are being honored by the family and their lineage. And the reliquary ornament on top is merely a decoration for this more important group below [Aaron Henkin] Reliquaries, or objects for holding sacred bodily remains, are a tradition in many religions, including Catholicism and Buddhism, in particular.