Inuit leader says Vatican Museums open to repatriating Indigenous artifacts

Many of the Indigenous delegates meeting the Pope this week finished a private tour of the Vatican Museums yesterday disappointed, but the leader of the Inuit delegation says he was told by the curator of the Ethnological Museum that the Vatican is open to returning precious cultural belongings it has in its possession.

Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), met with Father Nicola Mapelli for a couple of hours at Obed's request after touring the museums, including the Sistine Chapel and some of the Indigenous cultural items from Canada in a new Anima Mundi exhibit that is not open to the public yet. 

"The curator was quite open to any scenario that we proposed, including repatriation," Obed said.

"Nothing is off the table, as they have said to us."

The delegates saw just a portion of the Vatican's collection of Indigenous pieces, including a rare kayak about a century old from Inuvialuit in the Western Arctic.

ITK board member Duane Smith, who is also the chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, last year called on the Vatican to return the kayak to Inuit. Smith declined to join this month's delegation to Rome.

During Obed's conversation with Mapelli, the curator spoke about how the Vatican Museums worked with a number of different Indigenous Peoples, most recently in Australia, to decide what's best for the pieces that the Vatican has in its holdings, Obed said.

The backstory of how the kayak got to the Vatican is still a mystery. 

The Vatican says it was part of a 1925 exhibition of tens of thousands of Indigenous cultural artifacts sent in by church missionaries from around the world, but the question of who made it, which community it came from and whether it was gifted is still unclear. 

Obed doesn't know all the details but was told it was part of a call for examples of cultural expression against fascism, nazism and racism in the early 20th century. 

"The kayak is beautiful," Obed said. "It is a wonderful expression of our culture and craftsmanship, and it was really nice to see it."

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Mapelli has some records that show the kayak came from Edmonton before it went to Vatican City by boat across the Atlantic Ocean and didn't show any visible signs of wear once it arrived. 

Obed said further conversations need to take place on what happens next to the kayak and other cultural pieces, which includes connecting Mapelli with Smith.