"The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has just acquired a new Native American shirt, and in doing so has returned it to its homeland after an absence of more than 300 years.

"It does not get any better than this - it's amazing," beams curator Joe Horse Capture.

Why?

"This is one of the earliest Native American objects from what we now know as Minnesota that exists. There's no other shirt like this anywhere," says Horse Capture. "But it's not in Europe, it's not in Brooklyn, it's right here at home. So if you're from the local Native American community, you can now see something created by one of your ancestors - something older than the United States of America - right here at the MIA."

While the details of the shirt's history are a little fuzzy, Horse Capture thinks he has a good idea of what happened to it.

"At one point when this whole area was known as New France," explains Horse Capture. "The royalty back home in France heard about Native Americans and their culture, and asked explorers to bring examples back with them."

Like many artifacts collected at the time, the shirt would have most likely been placed in a "cabinet of curiosities" (the private precursors to museums). Many of those objects were lost in the French Revolution. This shirt, like other items collected at the time, is coated in arsenic, which was used as a preservative."

Get the Story:
State of the Arts with Marianne Combs: Native American shirt returns home after 300 years (Minnesota Public Radio 4/22)