feature
The return of stolen spirits revitalizes community
The Haida’s quest to repatriate their ancestors’ remains
Lawrence Shanoss’s life changed the moment he saw an owl headdress projected onto the wall during a recent repatriation conference in Old Massett on Haida Gwaii.
His reaction was instantaneous. Leaping out of his chair and smacking his forehead where the carved wooden headpiece would sit, the 50-year-old Gitxsan from the village of Gitsegukla declared ownership.
“ That belongs here,” he says.
The impromptu dance he performed is one of his clan’s—the owl clan—and although Shanoss, who was raised by his grandmother, had never danced it before, he’d seen it in the feast hall as a child.
“ I’ve never practiced my culture. It just kicked in automatically,” he explains.
The piece is part of a Parks Canada’s collection amassed years ago when the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs managed the portfolio.
Parks, along with some museums and universities, is trying to be proactive with their collection and encourage First Nations to request information about the objects they hold.
Now that Shanoss knows it’s out there, he hopes to get it back.
“ If it is sacred and no conflicts exist over ownership, then repatriation can happen quickly,” says Barbara Wilson, who works in the cultural resource management department in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve.
According to Wilson, finding out who sold a piece and why is the first step toward getting it back. But these questions must be answered before Parks will enter negotiations.
Back in his community, Shanoss immediately began talking to clan members and delving into the history of the eaddress.
“ One elder said he’d heard about this one, but he’s never seen it and he’s 70.”
No one is sure of the story behind the headdress, or why it left the community.
He says the headdress now rightfully belongs to his brother, Morris Williams Jr., who is the most recent recipient of the chief’s name Guoexgyaw.
Shanoss’s research suggests that sometime in the last 70 years the headdress left the community when the chief’s name changed hands.
The heydey of collecting northwest coast pieces for museums took place between 1875 and 1940. Sometimes the pieces were bought with respect, other times haggled from the hands of the vulnerable and if all else failed, grave goods and other objects were often unscrupulously stolen. At the end of this era, experts say there were more northwest coast artifacts in New York City than there were in British Columbia itself.
Whatever happened in Gitsegukla, Shanoss who holds the chief’s name, Gunghaguntxw, believes repatriation of the headdress will help restore some lost power to his clan.
“ Ever since I’ve seen this, my spirit has strengthened.”
He’s now trying to get the paper work done and make preliminary plans for a feast that will welcome the headdress home.
At the conference, the Haida made it clear repatriation is a long and arduous journey. Not only does dealing with museums take a long time, but communities need to be prepared from within, for the return of their treasures.
The process is part of the healing and Haida presenters at the Old Massett conference said one of the most important outcomes has been that the whole community, from school children to elders, have had the chance to learn about Haida history and ceremony along the way.
Haida volunteers have been working with repatriation for nine years. During that time they have brought home more than 400 items, most of them human remains.
In 1992, a collection of materials returned to the islands, before many Haida were aware their ancestors remains languished on shelves in far-flung museums.
Nathalie Macfarlane, the director of the Haida Gwaii Museum, tells the disturbing tale of items taken from the museum and the islands.
She knew the boxes contained items from the museum’s collection—some taken out of the country without a permit—but she never imagined she’d find skeletons among them.
The boxes ended up on the shelf in the museum for a number of years, while the community did some soul searching. They had to think seriously about how to deal with not only this collection but others that were out there.
“ Some people had a hard time working here,” says Macfarlane who along with others, noticed a real change in the energy in the museum.
“ There were ghosts.”
This initial repatriation forced people to realize their ancestors had been taken off the islands as late as the 1980s. The issue became impossible to ignore.
As Lucille Bell, of the Old Massett Repatriation Committee says, “There are not many nations in the world that would dig up their ancestors and rebury them, so we really had a lot to learn.”
Bell got involved a number of years later when she learned of human remains in an American museum.
“ I couldn’t go forward with my life knowing our ancestors bones are in a museum,” she says.
Through prayer and consultation with elders, the Haida communities decided on appropriate ceremonies to bring the remains back.
“ When I asked my ‘nonnies’ how we are going to bring our ancestors home, they told me we will bring them home with respect.”
Involving as many people as they could in the process, the repatriation committee had artisans make hundreds of bentwood boxes with everyone helping paint them and school children learning to sew their own button blankets for the ceremony.
Most museums now agree they don’t have the right to keep human remains in their collections. Many are trying, proactively, to return these to the rightful communities.
But convincing big institutions in the United States or Europe to let go of ceremonial masks, bentwood boxes and totem poles is another matter.
Macfarlane says museums haven’t traditionally returned objects unless there was evidence of outright theft, but thanks in part, to the work of the Haida, things are starting to change.
“ It is the perfect example of the conflict between traditional western museum values and First Nations’ values,” she says.
Museums see themselves with the lofty role of being repositories of the world’s cultures. When an object becomes part of a museum collection, it is placed there forever so it will last forever, says Macfarlane.
But according to Vince Collison of the Old Massett Repatriation Committee, First Nations have a different notion of preservation.
“ To preserve something we expect it to be used in the community,” he says.
The Haida are thankful some of their treasures have been preserved, even if they don’t approve of the collection methods.
If not for the collecting that went on, some art forms may have been lost forever, echoing the reason many ethnologists, archaeologists and treasure hunters proclaimed they were in the business—to save the last pieces of a dying culture.
But the culture didn’t die, as dire predictions warned. Approximately 700 Haida survived the decimation of small pox that came with European contact and Nika Collison of the Skidegate Repatriation Committee says their descendents have the right to their cultural materials.
“ If there is only one out there, it should be here.”
That’s not to say the Haida want all of the 12,000 items they are aware of returned. They treat each museum on a case-by-case basis. In many instances, the Haida would simply like a say in how their stories are presented.
Artifacts need to be placed in context, maybe with a Haida available to demonstrate how things like cedar hats and bentwood boxes were made.
They also seek partnerships with different institutions, including long-term loans of materials, title transfers, as well as, opportunities to train and study with museum staff.
Impressed by their successes, many First Nations have asked the Haida how they have come so far. Nika’s advice is simple.
“ Go talk to who you need to talk to, to figure out what you should do.”
Shanoss who is in the throes of his community’s first attempt to repatriate a cultural treasure is working on doing just that.
Multiplying museums
Most museums won’t even entertain the notion of repatriating cultural materials unless there is a museum-like facility in the First Nations community.
’ Ksan, in Old Hazelton, has been around for a long time, but over the next few years expect to see cultural centres opening across the northwest.
Gitanyow: A heritage and cultural centre has recently been built to house artifacts.
Gitsegukla: For now, there is a showcase in the elementary school that can house treasures.
Wet’suwet’en: They have identified objects at museums and want to get started, but lack funds to do so. In the meantime, they are fixing up an interpretive centre at the Moricetown Canyon.
Nisga’a: Repatriation is part of their treaty. They intend to break ground for a museum this year and have negotiated 50 per cent of certain museums’ Nisga’a collections.
Your Comments on The return of stolen spirits revitalizes community
No one has commented yet on this article.
comments are not open for this article