Exhibiting Warriors at Glenbow

Glenbow opened Warriors: A Global Journey Through Five Centuries in April 1994. This interdisciplinary exhibit examines issues faced by warriors in many different cultures. The curators faced several issues in developing this theme, including the value of an interdisciplinary exhibit, the difficulty in achieving balance in the exhibit, representation of other cultures, the representation of women as combatants, finding artifacts to fit the topics, and avoiding the representation of warriors as relics of the past. Résumé Le Musée Glenbow a inauguré en avril 1994 l'exposition interdisciplinaire Warriors: A Global Journey Through Five Centuries, qui examine les problèmes auxquels se sont heurtés les combattants de nombreuses cultures différentes. Au cours de l'élaboration de ce thème, les conservateurs ont dû tenir compte de plusieurs facteurs, notamment la valeur d'une exposition interdisciplinaire, la difficulté de parvenir à un juste équilibre, la représentation d'autres cultures, la représentation des femmes en tant que combattantes, la recherche d'objets propres aux sujets retenus et la nécessité d'éviter de représenter les combattants comme des reliques du passé

A Forgotten Adivasi Landscape: Museums and Memory in western India

This article focuses on processes of remembering, forgetting and re-remembering. It examines a fundamental tension between the project of retrieving an adivasi past, initiated by an adivasi museum in rural western India, and the social and material landscape surrounding it, characterised instead by fragmentation and separation from the identity of adivasi. The article reflects on a collaborative research project between the researcher, young adivasi curators and inhabitants of the area adjoining the museum. It shows how, while curators engaged in a project of recuperation, at the same time, they were distancing themselves from their traditional identity by joining reform movements and new religious sects. Processes of memory and forgetting, however, also co-existed. People held multiple identities and the process of retrieving the past also called for transformation and reform. The article is a timely contribution to debates about adivasi identity, social transformation and religious reform. It also offers a reflection on the new role of indigenous museums and their potential to address a ‘crisis of postcolonial memory’ (Werbner 1998). Finally, it contributes to discussions of methodology with a focus on the collaborative process of collecting and its role in eliciting or preventing certain kinds of memories

Review of \u3ci\u3eBlackfoot War Art: Pictographs of the Reservation Period, 1880-2000\u3c/i\u3e By L. James Dempsey

Representational art depicting important historical events has always been integral to the lives of First Nations people. James Dempsey\u27s Blackfoot War Art is concerned with the biographical art produced by the Blackfoot-speaking people, the original inhabitants of a vast territory that extended across the Plains of present-day southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and most of Montana. Dempsey begins by situating this art within its cultural context, including a separate chapter on the importance of the warrior ethic. He then goes on to discuss the art in terms of its artists\u27 media. Rock art is the oldest surviving example of Blackfoot art, and Afsfnai\u27pi (Writing-On-Stone) on Alberta\u27s Milk River has the greatest concentration of pictographs in the Northern Plains. Dempsey draws upon the work of archaeologists, rather than the Blackfoot, for the interpretation of the figures, tying some of them to historical events. This important place speaks to the antiquity of the Blackfoot presence in the region and the long-standing importance of warriors

Le rapatriement du matériel sacré des Pieds-Noirs : Deux approches

Le rapatriement des objets sacrés a transformé les relations entre les musées et les Premières Nations. Souvent, il est à l’origine de nouveaux partenariats positifs. Devant une situation problématique, ces partenariats trahissent la nature coloniale des relations entre les musées et les Premières Nations. Le présent article examine la nature des connaissances des musées et des Premières Nations envers les objets sacrés et étudie la façon dont ces savoirs modifient la compréhension de ce qu’est le matériel sacré.The repatriation of sacred objects has significantly altered relationships between museums and First Nations. Often, new and positive partnerships are developed. When adversarial situations do occur they underscore the traditional colonial nature of relationships between museums and First Nations. This paper examines the nature of museum-based and traditional-based knowledge about sacred objects and considers how that knowledge shapes understanding of the nature of the sacred material.La restitución de los objetos sagrados ha transformado las relaciones entre los museos y las Primeras naciones. Con frecuencia, se han originado nuevos formas de cooperación positivas. Ante una situación problemática, esas formas de cooperación revelan la naturaleza colonial de las relaciones entre los museos y las Primeras naciones. El presente artículo examina la naturaleza de los conocimientos de los museos y de las Primeras naciones con respecto a los objetos sagrados y estudia la manera en que esos conocimientos modifican la comprensión de lo que es el material sagrado

We Are Coming Home: Repatriation and the Restoration of Blackfoot Cultural Confidence

In 1990, Gerald Conaty was hired as senior curator of ethnology at the Glenbow Museum, with the particular mandate of improving the museum’s relationship with Aboriginal communities. That same year, the Glenbow had taken its first tentative steps toward repatriation by returning sacred objects to First Nations’ peoples. These efforts drew harsh criticism from members of the provincial government. Was it not the museum’s primary legal, ethical, and fiduciary responsibility to ensure the physical preservation of its collections? Would the return of a sacred bundle to ceremonial use not alter and diminish its historical worth and its value to the larger society? Undaunted by such criticism, Conaty oversaw the return of more than fifty medicine bundles to Blackfoot and Cree communities between the years of 1990 and 2000, at which time the First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Act (FNSCORA)—still the only repatriation legislation in Canada—was passed. “Repatriation,” he wrote, “is a vital component in the creation of an equitable, diverse, and respectful society.” We Are Coming Home is the story of the highly complex process of repatriation as described by those intimately involved in the work, notably the Piikani, Siksika, and Kainai elders who provided essential oversight and guidance. We also hear from the Glenbow Museum’s president and CEO at the time and from an archaeologist then employed at the Provincial Museum of Alberta who provides an insider’s view of the drafting of FNSCORA. These accounts are framed by Conaty’s reflections on the impact of museums on First Nations, on the history and culture of the Niitsitapi, or Blackfoot, and on the path forward. With Conaty’s passing in August of 2013, this book is also a tribute to his enduring relationships with the Blackfoot, to his rich and exemplary career, and to his commitment to innovation and mindful museum practice. “…deeply informative and readable…. An absence of Canadian texts in the museum field and in cultural communication leaves open the mistaken idea that we are mere ciphers for practices from abroad. By making an important Alberta story available in this fascinating and important volume, AU Press has performed an essential cultural service for all Canadians.” —Literary Review of Canad