The discussion of the return of items from museum collections to First Nations communities can be emotional, even when everyone involved has the same goals in mind. It can also be very confusing, because many historical events play a role in how collections are thought about. Requests and decisions made by First Nations can also include or be tied to issues such as land rights and family histories. There are different precedents and procedures for different countries, which means that reading about returns taking place in Australia or the United States will not necessarily help someone to understand how work is being done in Canada.
In Canada, the Royal BC Museum will work within the formal Treaty Negotiation Process or outside of treaty negotiations. This depends on what the Nations want to do and if they have decided to include cultural artifacts as part of their treaty agreements, or if they prefer to address the return of museum collections separately. Like the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Royal BC Museum negotiates through government treaty negotiators (federal in the case of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and provincial in the case of the Royal BC Museum). Although it is not considered a precedent, the Nisga'a Final Agreement (1999) has been a template for some subsequent treaty agreements with regard to Culture and Heritage issues. The Snuneymuxw have found it challenging to work with this agreement as an example because of the sparseness and the nature of their collections.
Responsible museums make their return or repatriation policies available and let the public know what they have in their collections. The Internet is making this information even more widely accessible.
One of the biggest concerns is not whether objects should be returned, but rather which ones should be rightfully included in each Nation's agreements. Because so many families from different Nations married, thereby gaining privileges and items, two or more communities may have an interest in a single object. Nineteenth and early 20th century ethnographers often recorded the language spoken in the region they collected something from, but not the exact geographical location. This shows that systems of organizing information change over time and means there will be uncertainties about origins in some cases. The label "Hul'q'umin'um'" could mean something came from Nanaimo, the lower Fraser River or the Cowichan area. Rather than try to make those distinctions themselves, the Royal BC Museum requests that the Nations work out solutions to shared or conflicting issues.
It is the policy of Canadian museums to voluntarily return human remains. This began long before the guidelines outlined by the Canadian Museums Association in 1999. There is no prescribed or legislated path for the return of "artifacts" under Canadian law, but there is federal government policy. In British Columbia, at the provincial level, the Archaeological and Historic Sites Protection Act of 1960 and the more recent Heritage Conservation Act of 1977 and 1996 were put in place to prevent the desecration, damage or unauthorized removal of cultural heritage. This applies to archaeological and other First Nations sites. The Act does not protect Snuneymuxw sites in the ways and to the extent that they would wish, and it does not address the return of items from museum collections. However, museums like the Royal BC Museum hold ancestral human remains in trust for First Nations and return all human remains and directly associated burial materials at the request of the First Nation. In 2001 and 2002, the Royal BC Museum repatriated all Snuneymuxw ancestral remains in a large ceremony that was an emotional event for the Snuneymuxw community.
In the United States, there is a national legal policy, known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990). NAGPRA is governed by the United States Department of the Interior, and in some regions, by the National Park Service. This act requires museums to inventory their collections, determine the origins of the items, and contact tribes and descendents to notify them of the possibility of repatriation. There is a lengthy process of federal bureaucratic involvement that has slowed requests for repatriation, and often left the decision-making out of the hands of the tribes. NAGPRA includes provisions for foreign requests made by Canadians, but there are even more challenges than for returns filed by Americans. In recent years, the Cowichan people, neighbours of the Snuneymuxw, have successfully repatriated a mask from a museum in New York. The Snuneymuxw are hoping that they too can repatriate sacred masks from museums in the United States.
Museums play an important role in how we learn about the world. Many objects that were once part of Snuneymuxw daily life and ceremonies are now in museum collections.
A Snuneymuxw band member, an Elder, a museum Collections Curator and a scholar of cultural history will each have something to say about this topic. Each person will have opinions and reasons for their thoughts, but their hopes for the care of items in collections and the continued education of First Nations and non-First Nations communities will likely be similar. How do you think museums and First Nations can continue to work together to return significant items while looking at history and sharing culture?