First Nations leaders talked about the need to develop a national repatriation strategy for artifacts, cultural items and ancestral remains at the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) annual general assembly in Winnipeg.
Officials from Canadian Heritage have confirmed the federal government has neither the means nor the ability to acquire any of the estimated 4,400 items in the Hudson Bay Company’s (HBC) collection of art and artifacts.
Leading academic, Gloria Bell, argues that the Vatican is not only stalling on Pope Francis’ promises of restoring the looted artifacts — but continues to falsely 'refer to everything in their collection as a ‘gift.’
Hudson’s Bay Company, North America's oldest company, faces bankruptcy and wants to auction objects amassed from its founding in 1670, but it includes many important pieces of Canada’s First Nations and colonial heritage.
Pope Francis promised to return artifacts to communities in Canada, but several years on, they remain in the Vatican’s museums and storage vaults. Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed the return in a meeting with Canadian Catholic Cardinals.
The House of Ni’isjoohl Memorial Pole, stolen in the 1920s, was rematriated from National Museums Scotland (NMS) in 2023. Noxs Ts’aawit (Dr. Amy Parent) of The Nisga’a Nation and Dr. John Giblin from NMS outline the process of international cooperation.
This book examines the ways in which law can be used to structure the return of indigenous sacred cultural heritage to indigenous communities, referred to as repatriation in this volume. In particular, it aims at developing legal structures that align repatriation with contemporary international human rights standards.
The National Museum of Scotland nearly had to call off the high-profile repatriation of a totem pole to the Nisga’a in Canada after the Scottish Government reneged on a promise to cover costs.
A 200-year-old wampum belt has spent much of its existence at the Vatican’s museums, across the ocean and thousands of kilometres away. Last year, the belt, made by Algonquin, Nipissing and Mohawk peoples in 1831, was returned to Canada for 51 days – for a brief appearance at a Montreal museum in the fall – before it was sent back the vaults of the Vatican. In 2023, nothing was returned, a Timeline reveals.
This report was developed as a response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #67 under the guidance of the CMA Reconciliation Council.
Alexander Herman: When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Pope Francis last month, he raised the issue of reconciliation with First Nations, and urged the pope to return Indigenous cultural artifacts from the Vatican collections to communities in Canada. This request came at a tense time.
