Repatriation

We were treated to a beautiful documentary about the efforts of a tribe - the Haida - to retrieve the bones of their ancestors from museums, more specifically the Field Museum. The entire Haida community took part in the effort to bring their ancestors home. From the school children, who learned to weave or sew items to use in the bentwood boxes, to the elders who told their stories, the community made a case to the Field Museum to allow them to bring their ancestors back. It had never occurred to me that all of the skeletons in museums perhaps really belonged back in their original communities, with their families. But this moving documentary helped me to put my feet in the moccasins of the Haida . . . and I would not like knowing the my grandparents’ bones were sitting in a museum instead of in a grave. Perspective is a wonderful thing.