Cultural artifacts help define identity

Page 5

Tansi, ahnee and hello. I've grown to love the soft light of morning. No wonder, really. Throughout our traditional stories and legends the coming of light represents awareness, enlightenment, knowledge. Maybe it's the vestiges of those teachings that attracts me to this time of day or perhaps it's the freshness and energy that exists here which calls me.

Either way, morning and the coming of light to the world is a special, transcendent time for me.

I remember the old man telling me once that morning arrives with grace and dignity. Light covers the landscape gently and unassumingly, he said, and it's the same with the landscapes with us. Teachings and the birth of the truths that will define us as human beings come in the same elegant manner. They dawn. The motions that gave birth to that dawning might be chaotic, troubling and upsetting but the dawning of the truth is like the dawning of a day.

You emerge from darkness and the shadows dissolve slowly around you until gradually you see clearly and without fear. The catch lies in the desire for vision.

I read with interest about the efforts of two aboriginal nations seeking to recover cultural artifacts. Both nations, a coastal nation and the Siksika near Calgary, have been fighting for years to reclaim vibrant parts of their culture which had been appropriated by museums.

The good news is that some of these links to heritage are on their way home. The bad news is, as nations of people, we still must battle to repatriate our own culture from their institutional foster homes.

Our elders have said for generations that the most fundamental human right in the world is the right to know who you are. It follows, logically, that in order to know yourself in today's world you first have to know where you came form. The continued appropriation of cultural artifacts, often thousands of miles from their origins, denies aboriginal peoples that most basic of human rights.

The story which ran in the Globe and Mail regarding the reclamation efforts of

the coastal people bore the headline, The Day Ottawa Gutted A Culture. Seldom has

a mainstream paper billboarded an issue so accurately.

Because that's exactly what happens. Apprehending objects which a people use

to define themselves results in nothing less than an eviscerated culture.

In the five years since the storm of protest surrounding the Spirit Sings exhibition during the 1988 Winter Olympics resulted in the formation of a national task force to investigate relations between First Nations and museums, nothing has changed.

The U.S. - long recognized as a leader in cultural appropriation - signed their Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act three years ago. This legislation guarantees that museums will work with aboriginal peoples in determining the fate of the artifacts in their collections. And although nothing is guaranteed besides consultation, it is still legislation directed towards addressing a crucial issue.

Museums have always struck me as places which promote dead culture. Anyone who has attended a powwow or ceremony knows that Native culture is not only alive but flourishing and enjoying a period of unparalleled renewal. It seems only fitting that the people themselves be allowed to safeguard those objects which land themselves to cultural revitalization.

The Canadian Museums Association should be the vanguard for motions to institute an act similar to the USA's Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act.

Because the most basic human right is the right to know yourself. Cultural artifacts lend themselves to self-knowledge by virtue of their tremendous history. For most of us they are the only physical link we have to the days of our grandfathers. The days which continue to define and sustain us as nations of people.

Our elders understood implicitly that the dawning of understanding is like the unfolding of a morning. They also understood implicitly that a desire to see and understand isthe foundation of vision. But the real lesson lies in the truth that vision without action is useless.

It's time that all our medicine bundles, pipes, rattle et cetera et cetera were returned home. Time they took their rightful place at the heart of our cultures. Museums and those in control of appropriations fully understand the importance of this. They've been granted the vision largely through the repatriation efforts of our people.

What's left is for them to allow aboriginal peoples that most basic of human rights. We are, after all, the guardians of our own cultures. Until next time, Meegwetch.