A homecoming celebration for a memorial totem pole after an absence of almost 100 years will resonate far beyond the Nass Valley where it is officially being welcomed home Friday.
The House of Ni鈥檌sjoohl memorial totem, on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh since 1930, returns amid a reckoning for some cultural institutions about colonial legacies.
But Indigenous, political, cultural and institutional leaders say the meaning of the totem鈥檚 journey to its ancestral Nisga鈥檃 Nation village home transcends the return of stolen artwork 鈥� it is an act of reconciliation that can open other doors.
John Giblin, keeper of global arts, cultures and design at the National Museum of Scotland, said in an interview from Hamburg, Germany, that the Edinburgh institution is committed to 鈥渆ngaging with the colonial history and the colonial legacies of our collections and our practices.鈥�
Public support in Scotland for the pole鈥檚 return to the Nass Valley was positive, said Giblin, adding the experience has developed into a fuller relationship between the Nisga鈥檃 and the museum and future collaborations are now being considered.
Hundreds of people are expected to attend the ceremony welcoming the 11-metre pole back to the Nass Valley after a journey that included a flight aboard a Canadian Armed Forces aircraft.
The timing also carries significance. It arrives one day before Canada鈥檚 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, held to honour survivors of residential schools and Indigenous children who did not come home.
鈥淢useums need to understand this as something that is not about loss or it does not have to be about loss,鈥� Giblin said of the pole鈥檚 return.
鈥淚f done well and if done in collaboration with communities, it can be about generating new understanding, new relationships.鈥�
Giblin, who was in Hamburg for a meeting of the European Ethnography Museum directors鈥� group, said he provided members with an update about the return of the Nisga鈥檃 totem.
Giblin鈥檚 attitude contrasts with a mindset that once prevailed among some in the global museum community, that 鈥渦niversal museums鈥� held artifacts in multicultural collections for the betterment of humanity as a whole.
In a 2002 document called the 鈥淒eclaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums,鈥� some of the world鈥檚 most renowned museums and galleries said that museums 鈥減rovide a valid and valuable context for objects that were long ago displaced from their original source.鈥�
It pushed back against calls for repatriation by saying that 鈥渕useums serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation.鈥�
鈥淭o narrow the focus of museums whose collections are diverse and multi-faceted would therefore be a disservice to all visitors,鈥� it said.
The declaration鈥檚 18 signatories included the Louvre in Paris, New York鈥檚 Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Prado Museum in Madrid.
But museums globally are increasingly facing pressure to return items to their rightful owners.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which also signed the 2002 declaration, is now among those looking to return artworks. It has placed a plaque on a display of rare West African works of art, including bronze helmets and swords, saying it was aware the objects were looted by British troops in 1897.
New York City passed a law in August 2022 requiring museums to acknowledge works of art as stolen from Jews by the Nazis.
The reputation of museums as places of safekeeping has also been eroded.
Last month, the director of the British Museum announced his resignation after investigations revealed the theft or disappearance of hundreds of items. Hartwig Fischer apologized for failing to take seriously enough a warning from an art historian that artifacts from its collection were being sold on eBay.
鈥淢useums as an idea where they centrally locate objects from around the world for people to view and learn about is in one way a great learning project, but in another way it also represents many of the challenges we see with the experience of colonization and the negative impacts it had on peoples鈥� cultures,鈥� said Prof. Geoffrey Bird, of the school of communication and culture at Victoria鈥檚 Royal Roads University.
The return of the memorial totem helps the Nisga鈥檃 re-establish their link with their past after the residential school experience where Canadian governments and the church sought to remove people鈥檚 Indigenous identity, he said.
The totem鈥檚 return provides the opportunity to take reconciliation to a higher level beyond repatriating a work of art, that could lead to improvements in education, infrastructure and technology, said Bird.
鈥淚 also think it is a gateway to opening the doors to addressing all these other needs in the community,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an important step toward generating awareness. These kinds of efforts have spinoff benefits.鈥�
The Nisga鈥檃 Nation and National Museums Scotland are calling the return of the pole a 鈥渞ematriation,鈥� reflecting the matrilineal nature of Nisga鈥檃 society.
The red cedar pole was taken without the nation鈥檚 consent in 1929 by an ethnographer researching Nisga鈥檃 village life, who then sold it to the Scottish museum.
A Nisga鈥檃 delegation travelled to Scotland to ask for its return in August 2022, and the museum鈥檚 board of trustees approved the plan. Amy Parent, a member of the nation and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous education and governance said last month that a previous request for the pole鈥檚 return two decades ago had been rebuffed on the grounds that the pole was too old to move.
Nisga鈥檃 Nation President Eva Clayton said the return of the memorial pole helps set the tone for reconciliation efforts by other Indigenous nations.
The Nisga鈥檃 have a history of leadership, being the first Indigenous nation to sign a modern-day treaty in B.C. in the late 1990s, and ongoing efforts to pursue reconciliation, she said.
鈥淚t is through the combination of traditional knowledge and western education that has led our nation yet again to the forefront,鈥� said Clayton.
鈥淭his is where we sit as a nation, watching all other nations, whether it be European, North American debating the costs of historical wrongs.鈥�
The return of the memorial totem could act as a catalyst that will spread worldwide as more countries, governments and institutions face requests by Indigenous people to have their artifacts returned, said Murray Rankin, B.C.鈥檚 Indigenous relations and reconciliation minister.
鈥淲hat more poignant example of that than to have after almost 100 years in the Scottish museum, the national museum, such a critically important piece of Nisga鈥檃 history returned to the Nisga鈥檃,鈥� he said.
鈥淭o me, it鈥檚 a wonderful example of the kind of changes that are afoot, long overdue changes in the direction of reconciliation.鈥�
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