A rchive Date
[ 05-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Living culture is no antique
Artifacts not for sale
By ROSANNA DEERCHILD -- Winnipeg Sun
January 27, 2000
Imagine a place where people always got to keep what belongs to them. If that's too much to handle, imagine a place where people return things that don't belong to them. That's what the Glenbow Museum in Calgary is doing by returning more than 200 sacred objects to the Blackfoot Nations.
The Blood, Peigan and Siksika have been trying for decades to have their pipes, bundles, clothes and other items returned to them.
It's finally happening thanks to the intervention of Premier Ralph Klein. Not only did he help to engineer the reclamation but he is also passing legislation in February to ensure the return of sacred objects from museums to all Native Peoples of Alberta.
But according to a National Post columnist, giving things back to their rightful owners just shouldn't happen. In his Jan. 20 article, Jeff White says because Christians don't get Christian relics back and Greeks don't get Greek relics back, then First Nations shouldn't get their things back. Isn't that a nice philosophy to live by. I hope nobody lends this guy a lawn mower.
Oddly, his name is fitting considering his passionate belief that all Canadians ought to be exactly the same. He suggests that because he is assimilated, everyone else should be, too. In fact, he states "millions give up their former nationality" to be swallowed into the Canadian identity.
This is just not the case. If millions of people come here to be assimilated into one national identity and culture, then why do you find, in large urban centres, communities based on ethnicity?
People come here for the freedom, not the assimilation. Were you not in Grade 9 history when they told us Canada is a mosaic and not a melting pot? Maybe you weren't paying attention that year.
Further, First Nations did not come from anywhere to be a part of anything. We were already here with our own identities, social structures and pride in our existing nations. Indeed, First Nations have fought and died to hold onto their distinct identities despite the best efforts to erase them.
The Blackfoot's belongings ended up in the museum because poverty forced some to sell them. Or they were given for safekeeping in a time when native spiritual practices were outlawed. They didn't decide one day that hey, this European culture is OK by me -- here have all vestiges of my culture and put it in a glass box.
White wrongly asserts that most Blackfoot are Christians and don't follow the traditional way of life. Even if the entire Blackfoot Nations (which is highly doubtful) converted to the Christian religion, those "artifacts" still belong to them. As a nation that is not extinct or conquered they have a right to own their cultural history.
He questions why should "these Canadian treasures be handed over, with no guarantee they'll receive museum-quality care?"
Our cultures are not antiques to be put in museums. We, including our spirituality, are still very much alive. We know the Creator gave us a certain path to follow and have continued to follow it. Not because, as Mr.White would have you believe, we are paid "billions in government handouts."
If that is the case, then the pay sucks and, considering the despicable state of all that is Indian, I want a raise.
But White is more interested in saving the paraphernalia of a people than actually saving the people themselves. Nor would he see the people saving themselves or their culture.
If White had his way, my Levis from 1988 would be put in Manitoba's Museum of Man and Nature and I wouldn't even have visitation rights.
The weakest part of White's argument is his thinly veiled accusation that First Nations are practising some kind of supremacist philosophy in having racial pride. He is obviously not familiar with the difference between pride and prejudice. Or maybe he is. Maybe Jeff White would have us preserve and foster a prejudiced way of thinking rather than leaving it in the dusty archives of the past.
Rosanna Deerchild can be reached by email at info@ncifm.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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