Glenbow auction of First Nations artifacts causes emotional uproar

Across the country there are First Nations families who are missing a valuable piece of their history because the Glenbow Museum auctioned off 167 cultural artifacts.
 “There’s a valuable link missing to a family, a link for family authentication, ceremonial authentication. It is the piece we need to have in order to pass down that knowledge to the next generation,” said Patricia Goodwill-Littlechild, executive director with Maskawacis Cultural Centre.  “It makes me very sad.”

The outcry that followed the Sept. 27 auction by Hodgins Art Auctions in Calgary has taken Glenbow officials by surprise and evoked the promise that the same procedure will not be followed with First Nations artifacts that are deaccessioned in the future.
“It’s been heart-rending truly. We value so much the support we get from the First Nation community and the relationships we have that we don’t want to do anything to damage that. So we proceeded with this auction thinking we were doing the best thing for the museum.  There was no intention to damage relationships or cause pain in anyway,” said Jennifer Conway Fisher, manager of marketing and communications with the museum.

Conway Fisher stressed that the Glenbow followed the correct procedure to disperse of the First Nations artifacts, which were among the many items to be deaccessioned in a process that began in 1998. Of the 220 First Nations items for sale, 211 were purchased by the Glenbow over the past 30 years with the remainder given to the museum by private donors.

None of these items were sacred or ceremonial, Conway Fisher said, and all were in storage at the museum. The items were in poor condition, and because their histories could not be traced, the museum could not display them. To the best knowledge of museum staff, none of the materials were from First Nations in Alberta or Saskatchewan.

Under provincial regulations, the Glenbow cannot sell items to individuals but must make them available to institutions. In 2005, the Glenbow did just that. The deaccessioned material was offered for free to First Nations museums before being offered to other Alberta museums and institutions. Contact was initially made by telephone, followed up through fax, and then the items were placed on the Virtual Museums ListServe. Of the nine First Nations museums contacted, five responded and four, including Maskawacis Cultural Centre, took materials. Fort Whoop-Up Interpretive Centre, although not a First Nations museum, also took artifacts.

Access to the deaccessioned material happened before Goodwill-Littlechild joined the staff of Maskawacis Cultural Centre. While Goodwill-Littlechild appreciates that the Glenbow Museum followed protocol, she disagrees with the declaration that the museum had no way to trace the origin of the items.

“Every item can be identified by us. There is never an unknown. Everybody knows whose work comes from which territory. It still stands to this very day,” said Goodwill-Littlechild.

Before Europeans came to the country, she said, tribes identified each other by their handiwork, their materials, their apparel.

“It’s not lost among us. Had (the Glenbow) put the (items) in any First Nations paper, we could have identified them and pointed (Glenbow) in the right direction,” said Goodwill-Littlechild. “Every tribe has connections today with every tribe in the country.”
Conway Fisher said she is only now beginning to understand that connection.
“(People are saying), ‘It doesn’t matter where the items are from, it’s our collective history,’” she said.

Goodwill-Littlechild goes a step further. “We still all hold the same value of repatriation. All of our artifacts should be repatriated to the respective tribe.”

Fifty-three items did not sell. Normally they would be added to the next auction.

“We are fully aware of the reaction that the auction has caused so we’re re-evaluating our options at this point,” said Conway Fisher. “We need to revisit the whole sort of idea of auctioning these particular artifacts off and figure out the best way to treat them and manage them.”

Goodwill-Littlechild said she will be sure to have input into any new policy adopted by the provincial museum.

Conway Fisher noted that if any items of value for Alberta were mistakenly put up for auction, the Glenbow could cancel the sale.