B.C. reports offer ‘road map’ for repatriation of Indigenous historical items

A pair of reports out of British Columbia are detailing the complex, expensive and under resourced process of repatriating Indigenous historical items or remains back to their homes. 

A pair of reports out of British Columbia are detailing the complex, expensive and under resourced process of repatriating Indigenous historical items or remains back to their homes.

The studies, developed in partnership between the First Peoples’ Cultural Council and K’yuu Enterprise Corporation, call for changes including the creation of a centralized body to facilitate the work, a repatriation accreditation program for museums and other institutions, and “substantial” funding and support from the provincial and federal government.

Gretchen Fox, an anthropologist and the council’s acting heritage manager, said the growing interest in the moral and ethical requirement for repatriation shows resources are needed to set out steps that could be used in B.C. and in other provinces and territories.

“There was a need for a way forward, or a road map — what’s involved in repatriation, what’s the history of it,” she said.

“To have a really good understanding and documentation of what’s been lost, where these ancestors and belongings are held today, and what kind of work specifically is involved in locating them.”

Researchers with the K’yuu Enterprise Corporation did a survey and found more than 2,500 B.C. First Nation human remains and upwards of 100,000 belongings are known to be held in 229 institutions — including museums and universities — around the world.

Fox said the survey had only a 50 per cent response rate.

“So, we know that the numbers are much higher, and those numbers are just for ancestors and belongings that are associated with B.C. First Nations,” she said.