Four Views of a Parfleche Bag · Four Views (jenniferandrella.com)
The history of the parfleche bag I researched was surprisingly well-recorded post-1884, because it was sold to an Indian agent’s wife who recorded everything she bought while she and her husband lived on the Kainai reservation (mootookakiossin.ca). The Kainai man who sold the bag was named Weasel Fat (mootookakiossin.ca). Unfortunately, the history of the bag prior to 1884 is largely unknown.
The obfuscation of history is very common when it comes to objects of Native origin, as Claire Heckel explores in the article Classification, Culture Areas, and Gifting on the Great Plains: Remobilizing Objects of Exchange at the American Museum of Natural History. Heckel discusses the problematic nature of imposing settler-colonial interpretations onto Indigenous materials in the context of museums (Heckel, 56). She argues that while museums–particularly in the early 1900s–attempted to define ethnic and cultural boundaries through the study of cultural “traits,” the actual people and objects they were attempting to classify continued to cross and renegotiate these boundaries (Heckel, 56). Most of the people that these museums were attempting to classify would not have identified with the labels that the museums put on them and their cultures (Heckel, 56). Because of these categorizations, traditional museums do not explore the multifaceted ways that their collections can be understood. Heckel points out that the objects that appealed to collectors were the same types of objects that would be central to the systems of gifting in Plains nations cultures, meaning that static museum collections may be more likely to have been manufactured as mobile objects (Heckel, 56). These objects were finely crafted and richly decorated, which made them valuable to both collectors and to the systems of gifting (Heckel, 56). This is important to recognize because traditional museums do not recognize the mobility of these objects, and generally record the community that objects are collected from, but not the community of origin (Heckel, 56).
I found this idea of the mobility of objects being curtailed by museums and other collections interesting, especially given the history of the parfleche bag that I researched. Its movement was only recorded after 1886, but the recorded movement is very limited. We do not know where it was made or how it came into the possession of Weasel Fat, but we know that the bag moved from his ownership to that of the Indian agent’s wife, then was sold to the Royal Ontario Museum and the British Museum in 1903 (mootookakiossin.ca). After this, the bag lost its mobility, staying in the museum until 2002, when it returned to Blackfoot territory for an exhibition at the Galt Museum and Archives (mootookakiossin.ca). It is currently in storage at the British Museum in London, England, but is included on a website as part of a digital repatriation effort (mootookakiossin.ca).
The mobility of this bag is complicated by its inclusion in a digital collection. Digital objects do not physically move, but they also kind of exist everywhere that the internet does. Simply, a digital object is not a physical object, nor does it have the same implications of mobility. A digital object is not sensed or interacted with in the same way as a physical object. I think this is especially important to acknowledge when considering digital objects in repatriation efforts.
Going into this, I didn’t know anything about digital objects in repatriation efforts, so I read the articles Digital Heritage, Knowledge Networks, and Source Communities: Understanding Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society, by Graeme Were, and Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation, by Kimberly Christen. Were’s article asks if virtual repatriation efforts are seen as lesser than physical repatriation, or if they reproduce a system that supports traditional knowledge and practices (Were, 133). Were investigates this through a digital heritage project in Papua New Guinea (Were, 133), but the themes of colonial acquisition of Indigenous artifacts, preservation, and repatriation are applicable to Native American repatriation efforts as well. Were explains that some scholars view digital preservation and repatriation as a collaborative, community-needs driven approach to helping people connect with their traditions and identities (134-135). Others argue that ownership of and access to digital preservation and repatriation can be problematic (Were, 134). They question the ability of digital media to capture the complexities of cultural forms–for example, they claim that Aboriginal Australian narratives about the land do not easily translate into a digital format because this knowledge must be performed in order for it to be operative (Were, 134). Were explains that digital repatriation is not meant to replace physical repatriation, but rather supports new understanding of cultural heritage through repatriation of image and text (135). The Nalik people, the community Were worked with, are an image-based society, so in this case digital objects worked well as a means of passing on cultural heritage (Were, 135). I do not now which, if any, Native American communities were image-based, so I do not know if any of the digital repatriation websites that we looked into would function in the same way.
In addition to the image-based nature of the Nalik, issues with the assumed power of pre-colonial objects and the inaccessibility of printed representations made digital preservation and repatriation a good option for their community (Were, 137). Unfortunately, once again, I do not know how or if these issues are applicable Native American communities, but I think this shows that different variables might make digital repatriation and preservation a fitting option for some communities and objects but not for others. This need for different types of repatriation, including different types of digital repatriation, seems to be a common theme in digital repatriation projects.
In Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation, Kimberly Christen writes about potential solutions to the questions of access that digital repatriation efforts raise. In her work with Indigenous people in Australia, access to digital archives was based on community membership, gender, age and other characteristics that were dynamic and under constant negotiation (Christen, 186). This was a solution to the issues of access that a digital collection might have, but it would not be feasible as a widespread option in the United States, since public institutions cannot restrict access to their collections (Christen 199). Christen points out that digital repatriation projects have become prolific as different communities create unique ways of revitalizing and circulating knowledge through digital collections (186-187). She argues that the Western understanding of public and private domains needs to be critiqued when exploring Indigenous knowledge systems, and these systems should be viewed as a viable alternative to Western constructs (Christen 189-190, 191). Despite potential reproduction of Western hierarchies, Christen is optimistic about the future of digital collections, writing that with digital repatriation efforts, “emergent curatorial possibilities for both collecting institutions and the many communities they serve as new digital opportunities become available for the curation, display, and reproduction of cultural heritage material” (193). Fun fact: Christen was involved in the creation of the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, one of the digital collections that we could explore for the four views project.
When exploring the discussion around digital preservation and repatriation efforts, it became clear that many historically marginalized communities are finding ways to answer questions of access, ownership, and Western versus Indigenous knowledge systems that these projects raise. In addition to this, scholars continue to critique and mold digital collections. For example, Christen argues the need for expanded metadata to challenge Western notions of knowledge (198). I learned a lot about digital repatriation projects for this blog post, and it made me optimistic in a way that history usually doesn’t. The unique solutions, creativity, and ideas of these repatriation projects and the discussion surrounding them make me hopeful for future collections that will provide connections with traditions and identities in new, exciting, and respectful ways.
Works Cited:
Christen, Kimberly. “Opening archives: Respectful repatriation.” The American Archivist, vol. 74, no. 1, Apr. 2011, pp. 185–210, https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.74.1.4233nv6nv6428521.
Heckel, Claire. “Classification, culture areas, and gifting on the Great Plains: Remobilizing objects of exchange at the American Museum of Natural history.” Museum Anthropology, vol. 44, no. 1–2, Sept. 2021, pp. 55–68, https://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12240.
“Mootookakio’ssin: Distant Awareness.” Mootookakio’ssin: Distant Awareness, mootookakiossin.ca/. Accessed 30 May 2024.Were, Graeme. “Digital Heritage, knowledge networks, and source communities: Understanding Digital Objects in a melanesian society.” Museum Anthropology, vol. 37, no. 2, Sept. 2014, pp. 133–143, https://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12058.