Doing Shaku for Kanchendzonga at the British Museum: Ritual Care and Relationship Repair for Deities and Kin From the Sikkim Himalayas in the Center of Empire

ABSTRACT I didn't expect to meet Kanchendzonga in a plastic storage container in a British Museum study room. This is the chief mountain deity for my community in the Sikkim Himalayas; we live in his shadow in the valleys of Sikkim, and interact with him through daily rituals. My first response was to engage in a ritual apology that he had been left for so long. My next was to consider how this ritual apology may be extended into an act of ritual care that traces the provenance of this mask as a way to renew relationships between Kanchendzonga and the people of Sikkim, far from the British Museum, as an alternative to the extractive environmental practices underway in the Himalayas. This article contributes to discussions about Indigenous engagement and provenance histories in museum collections, and affirms the importance of ritual care as a form of rematriation.