Toxic Representions: Museum Collections and the Contamination of Native Culture

AbstractDespite the explicit aims of legislation in both the United States and Canada, the process of returning Native art objects to their respective communities has been fraught. Native communities have been thwarted in their efforts to reintroduce cultural artifacts because of past conservationist practices which sanctioned the contamination of objects in the name of preservation, dissemination, and interpretation. The problem is surveyed from the perspective of a range of Native communities, and past conservationist practices are outlined. Efforts are underway to mitigate the effects of decades of mismanagement, though solutions are often costly and their success is difficult to measure.ResumeMalgre les visees explicites des lois portant sur le rapatriement aux Etats-Unis ainsi qu'au Canada, le processus de rendre des objets d'art autochtone a leurs communautes respectives a ete controverse. Les communautes autochtones se sont vu contrecarrer dans leurs tentatives de rapatrier des artefacts culturels a cause des pratiques de preservation anterieures qui permettaient la contamination d'objets au nom de la preservation, la dissemination, et l'interpretation. On explore ce probleme a partir de la perspective d'une variete de communautes autochtones et on fait le bilan de ces pratiques de preservation anterieures. De nos jours, les interesses font un effort pour attenuer les effets nuisibles des nombreuses annees de mauvaise administration, bien que les solutions soient souvent couteuses et leur efficacite difficile a evaluer.IntroductionFor decades, public and private institutions across North America subjected Native artifacts within their collections to pesticides and other contaminants in the name of conservation and cultural stewardship. Whatever the original intent, these practices, in their aggregate effect, have significantly undermined efforts currently underway across a range of communities. Repatriation, meaning the identification and return of native artifacts to their communities of origin, is itself part of a larger context in which Native communities across North America have begun to redefine their relationships with the various governing cultural and political institutions which have both constrained and shaped their identity. Generally this process of redefinition has involved a gradual increase in self-government, some initial settlements of land claims, however fraught, and continuing disputes over issues such as taxation, hunting and fishing rights, and cultural autonomy. As part of this process, North American Native communities have increasingly been seeking, and gaining, ownership of their cultural artifacts in the name of repatriation. (Simpson 215; Clifford 236; Sirois et al. 175).Repatriation is important for many reasons, not least because Native groups have seen it as an integral part of redefining longstanding relationships and as one of the most tangible ways through which they can reclaim and reintroduce their rich cultural traditions to their own young people. As Bray puts it, repatriation has [...] become a focal point for many within the Native American community due to deeply held convictions about the need to rectify past injustices and prevent further transgressions (1). Unfortunately, in how it has often unfolded, has brought with it a new set of frustrations and grievances that are themselves revelatory of longstanding misguided conservationist practices.Beginning in the early 1990s, the United States federal government responded to the call for the of artifacts by passing a series of legislative initiatives, initiated by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, otherwise known as NAGPRA (United States). In its stated claims this legislation sought to redress past wrongs by returning Native artifacts to First Nations communities and has thereby served to legitimize Native-American claims of ownership over certain cultural patrimonial objects related to the lives of their communities. …

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