Scriver accused of violating trust

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Tears flowed and angry words erupted at the Provincial Museum of Alberta as Blackfeet Indians accused Robert Scriver of selling them out.

Scriver sold his collection of Blackfoot artifacts to the museum for $1.1 million (U.S.). The exhibit opened June 4.

Over 40 delegates from Indian bands in southern Alberta and Browning, Montana met with museum officials to demand the return of some to the sacred Indian artifacts.

Montana Blackfeet bundle holder George Kipp said Robert Scriver violated his position of trust as a pipe holder when he sold his collection to the Alberta government.

He said Indian philosophy is "you trust a man for what his is and who his is."

"But Scriver violated that trust when he sold those Indian items," said Kipp at a meeting with provincial museum acting director Phillip Stepney.

Kipp said the sale of the Scriver collection now means there will be five artifact collectors knocking at the doors of every Indian family.

"For one sacred bundle he (Scriver) was paid $125,000, a bundle he paid little for. Now collectors will come to Native people like we are grab bags and take what little culture we have left," Kipp said.

Kipp said the museum must return the sacred bundles and pipes the Montana Blackfeet are asking for "so that in 10 years an Indian won't be hanging next to the bundles."

In his emotional speech Kipp said he holds the museum and the provincial government responsible for stealing Indian culture.

In a closed door conference with Stepney, Blackfeet older George Kicking Woman asked for three sacred pipes and bundles to be returned to the Montana Blackfeet.

"We want to take them home but Stepney said museum items were loaned before and were never returned," Kicking Woman said.

The Scriver collection contains more than 1,500 items dating back to the mid-188s.

The collection was a family effort began by Robert Scriver's father, Thaddeus, who passed the legacy on to his two sons.

Many of the elders from the Peigan, Blood, Blackfoot and Montana Blackfeet nations said the trop was an historic event.

"This is the first time the Blackfeet Confederacy has come together as one voice," said Blackfeet member Gordon Belcourt.

"We are a small number here but we represent 30,000 people and many more who consider themselves Blackfeet descendants. The struggle to return what's ours will go on but it doesn't have to. Just give us back the things holy to our people," Belcourt told Stepney.

Blackfeet speaker George Heavy Runner said the process of how Indian items left Browning , Montana was not upfront.

Heavy Runner accused Stepney of wearing an invisible coat when he collected items from Scriver in Montana.

"This reminds me of a doctor who stole skeletal remains. He writes in his story he had a long coat he put stuff into and sneaked off and bragged about it.

"Your coat was invisible and I saw you bragging in your writing about it," Heavy Runner said.

Stepney said it was not bragging but a sense of accomplishment he wrote about in his book.

"We were able to stop this collection from being sold out of the country, out of North America. It is one of the first things we have to appreciate because it could have all been totally lost," he said.

Stepney said there is room for negotiation.

He said the museum has been able in the past to deal with North Peigan Indians openly.

"We want to see if we can find where everyone can get what we're after. It's very important we find some sort of common ground," Stepney said.

In discussion with the Montana elders, who wanted the return of a medicine pipe and the Native bundle, Stepney said it is much more complicated than just handing them over.

"I do believe in what you're trying to do and have mentioned his on numerous occasions but we need to talk about it," he said, adding that both the museum and the Blackfeet Confederacy have to negotiate some long-term solutions.

In the closing moments of the meeting that took place in a small room where elers and museum officials sat in a circle, a Montana Blackfeet elder left the room after hurling angry words at Stepney.

"When you took those artifacts you were told "Don't go across the mountains (through Blackfeet country).' You were told to go 250 miles to Missoula (Montana), then to Lincoln and back to Cutbank.

"Why wouldn't you folks go back across our reservation? You were afraid there was a leak and there was.

"When you start treating Indian people like people, when you give us back our life's blood that you have caged, then I will have some respect for you," she said.