A group of First Nations leaders and advocates in Manitoba want help repatriating thousands of Indigenous artifacts from a privately run museum in Switzerland.
The group says the collector wants to sell the collection, which includes sacred pipes, cradle boards and firearms believed to be associated with the period of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The items have been housed at a privately owned museum near Zurich, which closed its doors late last year after the collector decided he wanted to retire.
A delegation travelled to the country to visit the museum before it closed, and is now urging federal, First Nations and tribal governments in Canada and the United States to intervene and help bring these artifacts back to North America.
“We’ve got to do whatever it takes to reconnect our ancestral, sacred bundles back into our communities,” said Karl Stone, a councillor in Dakota Tipi First Nation, Man., referring to a group of sacred, cultural items.
“By bringing them home, that would reconnect our younger generation to the history of our people and it’ll bring back identity to who we are.”
Stone was part of the group that visited the museum a year ago after learning there could be belongings from Dakota communities in Manitoba.
Based on documentation the private collector has kept, the group has been told many of the items are believed to originate from First Nation communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario, as well as Lakota nations in the United States.
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Swiss collector seeks millions of dollars to repatriate Indigenous artifacts -
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Vatican returning 62 Indigenous artifacts to Canada after 100 years -
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Artifacts returned to Northern B.C. First Nation after more than six decades
The group said the owner amassed a collection of 10,000 items, with 70 per cent being Indigenous artifacts, over several decades. It is unclear how he obtained the items and how much they cost, the group said.
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There has been a push in recent years for cultural institutes and religious groups to repatriate items back to First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities.
The Vatican returned several items to Indigenous groups earlier this year after a delegation visited its museum and stressed the importance of returning these artifacts.
National museums and universities across the country have also been coming to terms with their roles in holding sacred items and have been working with communities to repatriate them to traditional caretakers.
“One of our biggest fears is that if we don’t raise the money and bring all of these items back, (the collector) could put these on private auction sites and they could end up in Dubai or in New York or elsewhere in some billionaire’s office under glass as a showpiece,” said Coleen Rajotte, a Cree advocate.
The group said it needs to raise approximately $20 million – this includes the estimated cost of the artifacts and additional funds to hire experts to authenticate the items.
One of those items is a bandolier, or a belt worn across the shoulders. It stretches about 20 centimetres wide and consists of thousands of beads that create a floral design typically seen in Ojibwa and Cree designs.
Other artifacts include large, feathered headdresses and sewn, leather moccasins believed to come from Sioux tribes.
Gerald Neufeld was part of the delegation that travelled to Switzerland and has been helping advocate for the return of the collection.
The non-Indigenous, retired engineer grew up on a Manitoba First Nation and has worked with communities on efforts to trace their genealogy.
“We need to get them authenticated. We need them priced, and we need to bring them home,” he said.
Neufeld remains in contact with the seller and said he seems to be empathetic to the group’s desire to have the items returned to Indigenous communities.
He said the seller is hoping to get things settled in months, not years, or the items will be put on the market.
The private collector did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
The Canadian Press reached out to the governments of Manitoba and Canada, as well as the Assembly of First Nations, and also did not receive immediate responses.
Where would all these artifacts be if someone didn’t preserve them in a museum?
They dont pay equal taxes, yet use the system get more funding from taxpayers then anyone else.
Taxpayers forced to pay for actions of the rich minority is un democratic. Let the rich deal with the issues they caused with jail sentences and seizures of all money earn from those criminal behaviors.
Never happen in Communist Canada
Fire arms are not an artifact. Since selling guns to Indians back in the day was illegal is is obvious those guns where stolden from some settler or soldier after they where brutally murdered and scalped.
The ‘indian giving’ continues. I find it hard to believe they were all stolen given the decades of trade that did ensue. Contrary to the lies we are told, it wasn’t all bad.
They supposedly gifted a lot. They traded fair and square for goods. It was a dirty bunch, much like what operates today in government that took advantage back then just as much as the indian did back then. Not everyone was out to take and steal and plunder. Just the church and government of the day.
@youknowme
So you are saying all native artifact collections were stolen? And that despite placing a high value on the artifacts and the culture that created them all Europeans for centuries have hated natives?
Europens, as usual.have been the biggest thieves in the history of mankind. Just looted the world and filled the coffers and have the ba@lls to be racist
Where are all the Native collections of artifacts? If they are so sacred and important why does it seem that there are none?
And don’t tell me because of residential schools. Not everyone went and artifacts weren’t sen, people were.
Of course the LPC will offer to pay for it all. Tax payers mean nothing to them, and wasting tax dollars is what they do best.
carney just announced he’s flying there next week. Soon as the pantry is restocked.
He owes them nothing
help, you mean more tax payer $$$$$$$$$$$
Sounds like that collector was a knowledge keeper, a very good one.
Without Europeans interventions, all of the wood, bone and leather trinkets that the that the Indians pretend to value so much would all be lost to their neglect and disorganization. Rather thank just demanding the return of their aging