Repatriation and Representation: National Museum of Australia

By Melaina Leung

 

This last section focuses on repatriation and collections management efforts at the National Museum of Australia, in collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. These communities make up the continent’s 350+ language groups that each have their own cultures, beliefs, and histories.

 

The National Museum of Australia’s History

Located on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, the National Museum of Australia opened in 2001 after nearly a century of efforts culminating in the passing of the National Museum of Australia Act in 1980.¹ According to this piece of legislation, the National Historical Collection maintained by the museum is focused on three themes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, Australian history and society since 1788, and the interaction of people with the Australian environment.²

The museum aims to present Australia’s cultures and history to the world while simultaneously bringing the world’s cultures to Australia.³ To further achieve this end, NMA recently developed a “Master Plan to 2030” that envisions a museum that is twice its current size with both real and virtual interactive galleries.⁴ Access additionally would be increased so that the Australian public would be able to visit travelling exhibits, participate in Defining Moments school programs, and view the museum’s content online. There would also be public access to the museum’s storage and conservation facilities, along with working relationships with Tourism Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other national institutions.

Anthropology at the National Museum of Australia

In total, the National Museum of Australia contains more than 210,000 objects in its collections, which were acquired from other government agencies, purchase, donation, and on commission.⁵ Items in the National Historical Collection are sorted into the following categories on the museum’s website: Agriculture, Arts, Colonial, Environment, Exploration, Gold, Household and Domestic, Indigenous, Industry and Work, Migration, Science and Technology, Sport, Transport, and Women. Some highlights within the Indigenous category include: personal items from famous Aboriginal rights activist Joe McGinness, Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklaces, art pieces from the design company Balarinji, Mornington Island headdresses, and Sugu Mawa (Octopus Mask) artwork by Alick Tipoti.⁶

Significantly, the National Museum of Australia’s relatively recent founding means that it was not explicitly founded as a “colonial” museum. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that the museum still comes from a legacy of colonization and colonial practices at previous museums. Moreover, continuing policy and action should be cognizant of Indigenous values. How the National Museum of Australia continues to grapple with this legacy can be observed in its current approaches to repatriation and collections management.

Repatriation Efforts at the National Museum of Australia⁷

Since its founding in 1980, the National Museum of Australia has been dedicated to returning Indigenous remains and has returned the remains of over 1,000 individuals. However, this responsibility was formalized in 2001 with the creation of a repatriation unit at the museum, which actually resulted from a misreading of official legislation. According to the Australian Government, NMA is to act as a repository for remains only if the affiliated community cannot be identified. This confusion, combined with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission contracting the museum for help with the overseas repatriation of remains, led to the practice that the National Museum of Australia would be a repository for all remains. Unfortunately, when the commission was later disassembled, many of its functions were incorporated into other government units where Indigenous peoples had less independent control.

However, Indigenous advocacy has still played a large role in revolutionizing the attitudes of Australian museums towards repatriation and representation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have long fought to be regarded as equals who are experts in their own culture and partners in museum research, and this work still continues today. Under the Australian Government’s Policy on Indigenous Repatriation, repatriation is seen as a practice that addresses past injustices and empowers Indigenous communities so that they can continue their cultural customs and share the world views of contemporary community members.

Three major organizational groups that the museum have extensively worked with are as follows. Importantly, all relationships required face-to-face consultation and discussion on the homelands of the groups involved. First, NMA collaborated with the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority in South Australia to repatriate overseas remains from the University of Edinburgh’s anatomy department. The Ngarrindjeri were the victims of grave robbing and body shopping, but more than 300 individuals were returned in 2003 after reunification and provenancing at the National Museum of Australia. The second organization is the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre in Fitzroy Crossing of Western Australia. The museum has returned a number of remains and secret sacred objects to the 30 Aboriginal Cultural groups represented by KALACC. NMA has also consulted extensively with the centre. Lastly, with the Gur a Baraharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council, the museum initially offered its previous experience as a resource, rather than repatriate Torres Islander collections due to the National Museum of Australia having very few collections. Instead, the museum has assisted in temporarily housing repatriated remains from overseas.

Ultimately, for the National Museum of Australia, in comparison to representation via museum exhibits, repatriation is perceived as harder yet perhaps also more fulfilling: it requires intensive self-reflection and the assessment of one’s own values and beliefs. It further questions the values long held by institutions and their staff, and it evokes deep emotions and responsibilities in Indigenous Peoples. Finally, the museum recognizes that it must continually be proactive in its own efforts and open to thoughtfully critiquing the approaches and practices of other institutions.

Collections Management at the National Museum of Australia⁸

Another major effort at the National Museum of Australia is the museum’s collections management of Indigenous objects. Similar to repatriation, collections management requires close, mutually beneficial relationships with the communities involved. Because of the need to consult widely on best practices, the institutional representation of Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples also improves as a result.

For NMA, the legislation behind its founding dictated that the museum has a responsibility to maintain a “Gallery of Aboriginal Australia” (formally the “Gallery of First Australians”). There are several factors that determine what goes into this gallery and is kept in the museum’s Indigenous collections. First, the National Museum of Australia unconditionally repatriates ancestral remains and secret/sacred objects. Secular objects are returned on a case-by-case basis and thus can be put on display. The museum additionally does not buy secret/sacred items or objects of sensitive significance and even at times discourages their purchase or display at other institutions.

Another factor is an object’s significance or sensitivity, which is ranked along a spectrum: secular, sacred - public, sacred - ceremonial (public), sacred - sorcery objects, and secret/sacred (restricted). Secular objects are objects of everyday use, typically of economic or technological use. Sacred - public objects are items that are thought of some sort of sacred aspect but are allowed to be viewed publicly. Sacred - ceremonial are objects that tend to have exquisite designs and are limited to being used in ceremonies. However, they can be viewed by the public. Sacred - sorcery objects are items that are considered sensitive due to their use in sorcery. They thus can be considered dangerous to the holder and individuals around the holder due to their powers and potential use. Nevertheless, this also does not necessarily restrict them from public viewing. Finally, secret/sacred (restricted) objects are restricted from view, or even kept from other individuals’ knowledge, due to their use in restricted ceremonies. This could mean that they must not be viewed (or known) by the uninitiated or anyone from the opposite sex. These are no longer put on display by the National Museum of Australia or other federal or state institutions.

Although the museum uses these five levels of sensitivity to categorize the objects in its collections, according to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander beliefs, all objects tend to be considered sacred because they are created by the activities of sacred ancestral beings. They accordingly contain some spiritual energies of their creators.

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Footnotes

1. National Museum of Australia Website: About - History of our Museum
2. National Museum of Australia Website: About - Our collection
3. National Museum of Australia Website: About - Vision, mission and values
4. National Museum of Australia Website: Master Plan
5. National Museum of Australia Website: Explore - Collection
6. National Museum of Australia Website: Explore - Collection - Indigenous
7. “And The Walls Came Tumbling Down” by Michael Pickering, pgs 918-926 of The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation: Return, Reconcile, Renew, edited by Cressida Fforde, C. Timothy McKeown, and Honor Keeler. Routledge, 2020.
8. “Up close and personal. The management of sensitive Indigenous objects at the National Museum of Australia” by Michael Pickering, pgs 273-290 of Nicht nur Raubkunst! Sensible Dinge in Museen und universitären Sammlungen, edited by Anna-Maria Brandstetter and Vera Hierholzer. V&R Unipress Mainz University Press, 2018.

Repatriation and Representation: Field Museum

 

By Melaina Leung

 

In the next section, I will discuss a new representation effort at the United States’ Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois that aims to amplify Native American voices after a long history of tension with Indigenous communities over the museum’s collections and disciplinary approaches.

The Field Museum’s History

The Field Museum was first created as a repository for the collected objects and artifacts showcased at the 1983 World’s Columbian Exposition.¹ Interestingly, the idea first came from Frederick Ward Putnam whose suggestion to do so appeared in The Chicago Tribune. Initially founded as the Columbian Museum of Chicago, the museum was renamed as the Field Columbian Museum after business tycoon Marshall Field donated $1 million. Known as an avid supporter of cultural and educational initiatives in Chicago, Field provided the funding after being persuaded by Edward E. Ayer, a collector of American Indian artifacts and local businessman who later became the museum’s first president.²

The Field Columbian Museum opened in Jackson Park’s Palace of Fine Arts on June 2, 1894.³ The Museum once again changed its name on November 10, 1905, this time to the Field Museum of Natural History to honor Marshall Field and emphasize the institution’s multidisciplinary focus on anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology. That same year began the search for a new location due to the Palace of Fine Arts’ deteriorating state. Though the museum moved out, this building was restored during the 1930’s and is now home to the Museum of Science and Industry. After six years of construction, the Field Museum’s current location in Grant Park opened in 1921. The museum has since been incorporated into downtown Chicago’s Museum Campus, which includes the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium.

Anthropology at the Field Museum

The Field boasts almost 40 million specimens and artifacts in its collections, but only 1% of these are on display to the public at any time.⁴ 1.5 million objects make up the museum’s collections focusing on human cultures, which are organized into the following subfields: Africa, Archaeological Science, Asia, Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Europe and the Near East, Mesoamerica and Central America, North America, The Pacific, and South America.⁵ From that, the items from the anthropology collection that are documented online number 237,652.⁶ Permanent anthropological exhibitions at the museum include Inside Ancient Egypt, the Cyrus Tang Hall of China, the Robert R. McCormick Halls of the Ancient Americas, the Regenstein Halls of the Pacific, and Africa.⁷

The museum’s anthropology collection was built up through acquisition trips and donations and purchases from other institutions. The initial collection was very much informed by Franz Boas’ concept of “salvage anthropology,” which emphasized the need to collect and save as many records and artifacts possible of the Native American cultures that were supposedly “dying out.” The cultures of Indigenous peoples were to be studied before they “disappeared.”

Representation at the Field Museum

Because of this focus on “salvage anthropology,” American Indians were seen as relics of the past and as the early “uncivilized” stages of human social development. Consequently, it was accepted that Native human remains and cultural objects be displayed along geologic specimens and taxidermied animals. The past representation of Native Americans at the Field thus was highly problematic, but like many other museums reckoning with their colonialist histories, the Field currently is revising their definition of “representation.” Traditionally, this meant that white American museum staff would have power over organizing and displaying Indigenous objects, and therefore, museum visitors would only learn about these cultures from outsider perspectives.

The present museum representation movement instead advocates that Indigenous peoples tell their own stories and histories. Native peoples should have the power to properly convey their perspectives on their own cultures and educate others about these viewpoints. On the part of museums, this means amplifying Indigenous voices and promoting the inclusion of community members. One example of how this has manifested into actual practice at the Field Museum is its current exhibit, Apsáalooke Women and Warriors.

Apsáalooke Women and Warriors at the Field Museum

Running from now until July 18, 2021, Apsáalooke Women and Warriors is the first major large-scale exhibition at the Field Museum to be curated by a Native American scholar, Nina Sanders.⁸ The Apsáalooke Nation, or the Crow, are an American Indian people of the Northern Plains. The exhibit highlights this community’s history, values, and beliefs, as well as its horsemanship, matriarchal structure, art, and tradition of “counting coup,” or performing acts of bravery.⁹

The exhibit is designed to be walked through in a clockwise direction, a movement symbolizing renewal and that mimics the Apsáalooke’s journey to self-actualization. This journey is split up into five sections: emergence and creation, journey (literal and spiritual), people (worldview, important figures, matriarchal structure, artistry, courtship), bravery and success, and conclusion (celebration).¹⁰ All labels are in both English and Spanish, while select ones are also in Apsáalooke.

In terms of its actual displays, Apsáalooke Women and Warriors features a variety of contemporary and historical objects. From the museum’s collections are seven war shields that have never before been on display, war shirts, elk tooth dresses, cradleboards, horse regalia, bags, and other historical cultural items. On the other hand, a tipi, beadwork, video animations, paintings, photographs, clothing, and music make up the 22 contemporary contributions from 18 Apsáalooke artists and collaborators. 

The combination of both the historical and the modern-day is strongly linked to a major theme of the exhibit: challenging widely-accepted misconceptions of Native Americans. For example, one such stereotype is that the Apsáalooke and other American Indian communities belong to history, rather than here and now in the present-day.¹¹ Other topics explored are the egalitarian nature of Apsáalooke society and LGBTQ identities. For the former, the exhibit examines gender roles and how women were valued as mothers, keepers of culture, and central supports for both the family and larger community. For the latter, the exhibition discusses the three genders: bía (woman), bachee(í) (men), and batee (two-spirited), along with showcasing the life of a batee individual, Finds Them and Kills Them/Ohchiish.

Finally, in addition to the main exhibition at the Field, a companion show that ran from March 13 to August 21, 2020 was held at the University of Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.¹² While this second component of Apsáalooke Women and Warriors was unfortunately closed early due to the coronavirus pandemic, its opening was still celebrated with a parade led by dancers, drummers, elders, and participants on horseback, a gift exchange known as ammaakee/giveaway, and a private reception.¹³ Additionally, a virtual tour and list of gallery highlights were posted online.¹⁴ The last part of the curatorial project came on March 27: a book of the same name was published by the Neubauer Collegium and distributed by the University of Chicago Press.¹⁵

The Field Museum’s Other Representation and Collaboration Efforts¹⁶

While Apsáalooke Women and Warriors is a major step towards the museum’s goal of better representing indigenous stories and history, there have already been a number of other significant efforts that should also be acknowledged. For example, smaller exhibitions at the Field, 2013-2014’s Bunky Echo-Hawk: Modern Warrior and 2016-2019’s Drawing on Tradition: Kanza Artist Chris Pappan, had already introduced collaboration with Native co-curators and helped pave the way for this exhibit.

Bunky Echo-Hawk: Modern Warrior was co-curated by Bunky Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee and Yakama artist and activist, who selected the Pawnee objects and informational labels that were displayed alongside his own artworks featuring pop culture references and Native American imagery.¹⁷ Like in Apsáalooke Women and Warriors, the juxtaposition of historical and contemporary challenges stereotypes and emphasizes current social issues faced by Indigenous communities. However, two major differences are the exhibit’s focus on the Pawnee and Yakama, along with a larger emphasis on the resilience of Native cultural identity over time.¹⁸

Drawing on Tradition: Kanza Artist Chris Pappan was co-curated by Chris Pappan, a Chicago-based artist of Osage, Kaw, Cheyenne River Sioux, and European heritage.¹⁹ In this exhibition, the artist used several different mediums to engage with and question the frameworks in which the museum’s Native North American Hall represented American Indians in colonialist ways. The types of artwork include video, music, paintings, drawings, and transparencies of photographs and Plains ledger art, which all re-contextualize the already-present exhibits by including contemporary indigenous perspectives and underscore the limits of existing representation by the Field.

In addition to these smaller exhibits, the Field Museum held a land acknowledgement ceremony on October 26, 2018, which recognized that the museum resides on the traditional homeland of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi.²⁰ An expanded land acknowledgement can be found on the museum’s website.²¹ Finally, that same year, the Field initiated its long-awaited renovation of the museum’s Native North American Hall, which will be completed in 2021.²² This major overhaul is being done in collaboration with American Indian Center of Chicago and under the guidance of an advisory committee.²³ To better reflect contemporary issues and histories from Native American perspectives, the hall will feature rotational exhibitions co-curated by Indigenous scholars and community members. The number of Native staff at the museum will also be increased.

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Footnotes

1. Field Museum Website: History
2. Field Museum Website: History - Founders & Advocates
3. Field Museum Website: History - Timeline
4. Field Museum Website: Research & Collections
5. Field Museum Website: Research & Collections - Culture
6. Field Museum Website: Anthropological Collections
7. Field Museum Website: Museum Exhibitions
8. Field Museum Website: "Apsáalooke Women and Warriors" Exhibition Page
9. Field Museum Press Release: "Newest Field Museum exhibition will highlight Native American women and warriors" (October 14, 2019)
10. "Apsáalooke Women and Warriors" Traveling Exhibition Prospectus
11. "Apsáalooke exhibition at Field Museum avoids stereotypes, shows 'Native Americans are still here.'" by Jade Yan, Chicago Sun-Times (August 11, 2020)
12. University of Chicago News: "Exhibition upends traditional representations of Native American cultures" by David Chrisinger (March 5, 2020)
    
13. Neubauer Collegium Website: "Apsáalooke Women and Warriors" - Parade and Exhibition Opening
14. Neubauer Collegium Website: "Apsáalooke Women and Warriors" - In the Gallery
15. The Seminary Co-op Website: Apsáalooke Women and Warriors Book Description
16. Field Museum Blog Post: "Making Room for Native American Voices" by Alaka Wali (November 8,2018)
17. Field Museum Blog Post: "Beyond the Labels: Bunky Echo-Hawk Modern Warrior" by Alaka Wali (September 19, 2013)
18. "Contemporary artist Bunky Echo-Hawk blends pop culture and Native American imagery" by Lee Jian Chung, WBEZ (October 3, 2013)
19. "An Artist Addresses the Field Museum's Problematic Native American Hall" by Allison C. Meier, Chicago Magazine (January 8, 2019)
20. "Field Museum Begins 3-Year Renovation of Naive American Hall" by Alex Ruppenthal and Marc Vitali, WTTW (November 1, 2018)
21. Field Museum Website: Land Acknowledgement
22. Field Museum Press Release: "Field Museum to renovate Native North America Hall, to open 2021" (October 29, 2018)
23. "The Field Museum's Native North American Hall starts to ask who it represents" by Josh Rios, Chicago Reader (December 7, 2018)