Vatican Museums Will Repatriate Objects to Canada’s First Nations

ROME, ITALY—According to a CBC News report, several cultural objects held by the Vatican Museums will be handed over to bishops of the Canadian Catholic Church for return to Indigenous peoples of Canada through a “church-to-church” donation model. Sacred objects were historically taken from Canada’s First Nations communities as part of forced conversion, cultural suppression, and the residential school system. Between 1885 and 1951, objects were also taken under Canada’s federal potlatch ban, which outlawed traditional ceremonies, explained art historian Gloria Bell of McGill University. Collections of cultural objects were eventually shipped to Rome in 1925 for an exhibit centered on regions where Roman Catholic missionaries had been sent, and many of the objects remained in the Vatican’s permanent collections. The items to be returned include a rare Inuvialuit kayak made of a driftwood frame covered in sealskin from the Western Arctic, a face mask from Haida Gwaii, beaded skin moccasins, etchings on birch bark, and an ivory and sealskin sculpture of a dog sled. “Every single one of those artifacts are sacred items, crucial for the healing journey for many residential school survivors,” said Bobby Cameron, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief. He has repeatedly asked the Vatican to return pipes, ceremonial regalia, and other sacred objects taken by missionaries. To read about a Spanish Catholic cleric who attempted to destroy Maya religion in sixteenth-century Mexico, go to "Acts of Faith."