Tough row to hoe to reclaim sacred objects

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It's not just a clash of culture, but also a clash of ideas.

That's the message Catherine Bell delivered in a speech on protection and repatriation of First Nation cultural property, given to about 100 people at Luther College's Rex Schneider Auditorium at the University of Regina on March 18.

Bell, a professor at the University of Alberta's law school in Edmonton who specializes in Aboriginal and intercultural issues, said one of the biggest flash points in Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations will be the reclamation of sacred objects.

Many of these objects, she said, lie in museums in Canada and around the world, but are actually important cultural and religious objects.

About a century ago, museums in Europe and eastern Canada began collecting objects and goods from First Nations people in northern and western North America. In some cases, the goods were presented as gifts from Aboriginal peoples, but in most cases they were just taken, most often without permission.

Many of these appropriations were done with the belief that the Aboriginal cultures were dead or dying, Bell said. The anthropologists of the time wanted to keep the material in order to preserve the remnants of what they considered to be a dead culture.

However, she added, many Aboriginal people today would challenge that belief and many Aboriginal political organizations have made getting their sacred objects back to their home communities a priority.

So, how does a First Nation get its cultural artifacts back from a museum?

With great difficulty, Bell said. The process is slow, and requires a determination of who actually owns what.

Different cultures have different concepts of ownership, she said. In many cases, the idea of ownership-especially ownership of something of religious or cultural importance-differs between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures.

While the Canadian and American legal systems traditionally look at an object as being owned by a person or a stockholder, Aboriginal cultures tend to regard objects as being owned by the community. This means that the courts are left to decide the issue of ownership.

"The existing legislation by federal and provincial governments fails to protect First Nations on cultural matters," she told the audience.

In most cases the only way a First Nations can legally reclaim a cultural or religious artifact is to purchase it from the museum that's currently holding it, she said. The First Nation must also prove they will be able to care for and preserve the object, usually in a museum-like setting. This means, in practice, that the band has to purchase the object and then has to spend even more money to keep it preserved. Without grants from the federal or provincial governments, many can't afford to do this.

This doesn't mean that First Nations are alone when it comes to reclaiming these parts of their culture, Bell added. Federal legislation requires that anyone trying to export any cultural good first obtain Ottawa's permission. There is also a waiting period during which a Canadian group that might also want the artifact can make a competing bid.

The system works better in theory than in practice, Bell said, adding that the federal government is under no obligation to notify anyone if the object is being sold.

She praised the Alberta government's initiative to return sacred objects to the Blackfoot Nation. Through a program begun in 2000, more than 250 sacred objects that once were on display at the Royal Alberta or Glenbow museums have been returned. The Alberta legislation doesn't cover private collections, non-sacred relics or material that have been taken out of the province.