I personally believe that there is a difference between a physical and a digitized version simply of the idea that not everything can be seen through an image. For example, if someone was working with a bag or something that had a purpose to have something inside of it, the perspective of the inside isn’t shown or perhaps the way that people interpret it when they have in physically in their hands is different for the smell or the sounds that it might make like for the skirt that I did my research on that had beads on it which perhaps made a certain sound when shaken around. It is also important to think about the idea that the websites didn’t really specify certain history of the items which made it a bit harder to recognize when looking for more information. In this case, the “National Museum of the American Indian Repatriates Two Objects to the Siksika Nation” (2023) made it very clear what the item was used for which was for the society leader. This information is key to knowing its history but like I mentioned before, it might be harder to comprehend from just reading as I am a visual learner so being able to have the object physically I am able to learn better. The work that has been put in by the museum is definitely interesting and easy to understand, but I think that being able to learn more about its history would perhaps mean tracing it back to the tribe and looking for people who still remain to learn more about it from the people who the item belongs too. So the idea of maintaining a piece of history like this is fascinating but can also be a type of debate. Additionally, this idea of not knowing what collection some items belong to was very interesting. While I was doing research for my object I tried finding items that had more information about them but was very hard to find. I think this might have to do with little to no history being maintained about the tribes since the times they existed and continuing those generations throughout children to have the knowledge about their ancestors since many are criticized for belonging to Native American tribes.
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Hi Israel, thank you for sharing these thoughts! As you describe, these issues are very contentious and native communities have long been excluded from collaboration with museums. As we have learned from the readings though, repatriation and/or collaboration are integral for connecting Native communities with their cultural heritage (and we can also learn so much more if we simply foster more equitable relations). All of these questions extend into digital collections as well!