Tribal artifacts to be returned from Canada

NETT LAKE-A significant trove of Bois Forte band historical artifacts held for over a century by a Canadian museum will soon be returned to the reservation, but not before band members are given the opportunity to weigh in on how to properly handle, store, display, and honor the items being returned.
The first such conversational meeting was held Monday at the tribal government center in Nett Lake, with a small group in attendance to hear Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Jaylen Strong describe how and what items were removed from Nett Lake and the issues involved surrounding their return.
The items in question, about 160 in total, are currently held at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa, and include items such as clothing, items common to everyday life, spiritually significant artifacts, and even recordings.
At the request of Strong and with respect for band beliefs, the Timberjay agreed to not publish any pictures of items and to mention only broad categories rather than identify specific artifacts.
“The biggest thing to emphasize is the level of cultural importance of these items,” Strong said. “A lot of the stuff that was taken really can’t be replaced, and as part of that they have kind of fallen from our current modern cultural society. In our society, only certain people could know certain things. Having these additional pieces brought back, we’re filling in the gaps of the knowledge we have currently, and hopefully we can bring it back more to the general community of the tribe.”
Getting to Canada
In 1909, 38-year-old Albert B. Reagan was assigned to the Nett Lake School by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Reagan had previous experience in schools in Arizona and New Mexico and was quickly promoted to superintendent of the Nett Lake school. He was also designated as the special disbursement agent, responsible for distributing annual federal allotments to band members. Through his work with the BIA, Reagan developed a keen interest in documenting Native cultures, and in his later years became a professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University. He was noted for his research into Native relics, legends, and pictographs, publishing numerous books and over 500 scholarly articles.
He brought that general interest to Nett Lake at a time when many scholars believed that Native cultures would soon become extinct.
“Back then, a lot of historians, a lot of the people that documented Ojibwe culture were under the impression that Native people weren’t going to exist in the next 50 years,” Strong said. “So, they wanted to document and save a lot of the culture and the history and the language.”
In 1911, Reagan came into contact with Edward Sapir, the head of a new division of anthropology at the Canadian museum who wanted to obtain items for their growing collection. With a buyer in place, Reagan set about getting items he could sell to the museum.
“One of the things that Albert Reagan was doing was taking a lot of stuff by any means,” Strong said. “There are notes of him waiting on people going out for a funeral and putting things out in the woods, and he’d wait for them to leave and then he would go and find them.”
But Reagan also bought items from band members.
“Eventually after so much begging or talking he was able to work out a deal, and a lot of times these items were underpriced,” Strong said.
In one example Strong provided, Reagan bought an item for $3 and sold it to the museum for $19, plus postage.
Eventually, Sapir decided to stop collecting items from the United States, and the exodus of items from Nett Lake to Canada stopped.
“The good thing about it was because he was an anthropologist, a lot of the stuff is pretty well documented – who he got it from, who he talked to, how much he paid for it, and some of the backstories behind a lot of this stuff,” Strong said.
Repatriation
Strong said that former Band executive director Fred McDougal expressed interest in having the collection returned to the band in the 1980s or 1990s.
“He said that one of his interests when he was working as the executive director was trying to track down some of these items that were rumored to have gone missing,” Strong said. “The story was that Albert took (redacted) and he was looking for them because he heard that Reagan had taken them or gotten them somehow.”
At the time, museum officials weren’t interested in discussing giving the collection back, but times have changed, Strong said, and the museum is now working to return items not only to Bois Forte, but to other First Nations tribes in Canada.
Strong and tribal council member Robert Moyer Jr. went to the museum in Ottawa earlier this year to view the collection and to make sure that the items were being treated in accordance with the band’s principles.
“They had taken pictures prior to us going there for their records, and we told them that we don’t want them taking any more pictures, and we don’t want them to be handled any more, if they can avoid it,” Strong said.
And the pair also paid appropriate respect to the items.
“When we went up to Canada we feasted them, we offered tobacco to them, and we made sure that when we left, we had some cedar by each of these pieces,” Strong said.
But getting the collection back is more involved than simply driving up to get it, and Strong described some of the issues.
It was common practice in the early 1900s for museums to use toxic chemicals like arsenic, mercury, and carbolic acid as preservatives and pesticides. While the hazard is minor today, skin and respiratory irritations are possible if chemicals are present. The museum has offered to test the items for toxic residue – the band must decide if they want the museum to do that, Strong said.
The museum has also offered to do restoration work on many of the items. Some have been marked with cataloguing letters and numbers that could possibly be removed. Others have pieces of wood that were glued to them to facilitate display in the museum. And some beaded items have frayed. The Band will have to decide if the restoration work should be done, weighing the potential risk of damaging or altering pieces in the process as well as the tolerance for the additional handling required.
Strong noted that any testing or restoration will affect the timing of when items can be returned.
Another question needing an answer from the Bois Forte community is how the items should be received upon their return, Strong said. Should there be a welcoming ceremony, what items should or shouldn’t be put on display for Band members, and if displayed where and for how long?
Storage is another consideration. Strong said that space at the Bois Forte Heritage Museum is limited, and that they are evaluating the current collection to see where they might make room for the repatriated items. The tribal council has indicated their support for buying more storage units, which are extremely expensive, Strong said. Some items will be suitable for display in the center and perhaps used to replace or enhance current displays, while the nature of other items would require that they be kept out of general view.
Monday’s meeting was the first in a series of community conversations Strong intends to hold to get input to inform the necessary decisions. He said he would also hold conversations with various individuals to get their takes. Strong said he hopes to complete these activities this fall so that the band can move forward with the repatriation process in the spring.
Band members who would like to contact Strong with their views or with questions about the collection can contact him by calling the Heritage Center at 218-753-6017 or by email at Jaylen.strong@boisforte-nsn.gov.