A delegation from British Columbia’s Nisg’a First Nation will travel to Scotland on Monday to begin talks with the country’s national museum about the repatriation of a memorial totem stolen in 1929.
“This will be the first time in living memory that members of the House of Nis’sjoohl will be able to see the memorial stake for themselves,” said Nation Leader Earl Stephens in a statement. “This visit will be deeply moving for all of us.”
The totem had been stolen by ethnologist Marius Barbeau, who later sold it to the Scottish Museum. He got his hands on it when the Aboriginal community was away from the village during the annual hunting season, the First Nation said.
“The totem is a priceless asset that our distinguished hereditary chiefs have rightly called a cultural treasure. It tells of the relationship of our house to the land and to our people. Taking it away from us means removing part of our cultural identity and an integral part of our nation’s history,” said Amy Parent, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Education and Governance at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
For Ms Parent it would therefore be a step towards reconciliation as the UK voted in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Over 300 treasures were returned to the First Nation by the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Royal BC in September 2010.
But so far only one totem has been successfully repatriated from a European museum.
The totem will be part of a research project to study the production and transmission of knowledge in the returned Nisga’a carving tradition.