TRURO, N.S. – What started with a printed image of an article of clothing in a Nova Scotia museum has ended in a federal bill aimed at helping Indigenous communities in Canada repatriate tangible pieces of their heritage.
Cumberland-Colchester Liberal MP Bill Casey was visiting the Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre – a museum located at the Millbrook Mi’kmaq First Nation near Truro – last year when he saw what he described as a beautifully embroidered robe in a display case.
Casey was shocked to learn the actual robe, a piece of regalia from the 1800s, was being housed in storage at a museum in Melbourne, Australia, and that the display was simply an image.
He spoke to the centre’s operations supervisor, Heather Stevens, who told him the community had been trying to get the original back for some time.
The piece of regalia was initially purchased by an artist, writer and British army officer named Samuel Huyghue from a Mi’kmaq woman in the 1840s.
Huyghue ended up living in Melbourne and willed the artifact to the Australian museum after his death.
Casey said his exchange with Stevens prompted the drafting of his private member’s bill C-391 – an act respecting a national strategy for the repatriation of Aboriginal cultural property – which passed second reading in the House of Commons unanimously on Wednesday evening.
“I checked to see if there is any federal policy or structure to help a First Nation like Millbrook repatriate artifacts to their original communities. To my surprise there was no such program, so we developed C-391 instructing the government to develop a strategy to provide help,” Casey said.
The bill aims to make easier the repatriation of artifacts by calling on the federal government, in co-operation with representatives of Indigenous communities and the provinces, to implement a comprehensive national strategy to promote and support “the return of Aboriginal cultural property, wherever situated, to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.”
Meanwhile, Australia’s ambassador to Canada got wind of the bill and connected with Casey. Eventually the pair put Stevens in touch with another young Indigenous woman on the other side of the world. Genevieve Grieves, who manages the First Peoples Department of Museums Victoria in Australia, has been in contact with Stevens over the past few months to get the ball rolling on the return of the robe.
Stevens said the people who first opened the heritage centre in 2006 sought out the artifact, but nothing ever came of their efforts.
Since being put in touch with Grieves over the winter, Stevens said she’s been providing all requested information. She said she doesn’t know what the outcome will be, or if her community will ever get the robe back, but she’s optimistic.
“The significance of (the regalia) it is that it came from here, from Mi’gmawei in Nova Scotia, and bringing it back here is just bringing back another part of our history that has been taken from us,” she said.
“It’s just going to be an exciting thing if we were to bring it back home, the recognition that us as the first community to be able to access something that should be back home is over the moon for me.”
Stevens said she doesn’t know much about the robe – who made it, or who it was intended for – but she hopes it comes back with a little more information that she can use to conduct research.
“(This bill) shows that our government is supporting the fact that what we are trying to repatriate is rightfully belonging to us,” Stevens said.
