[CPProt.net] British Museum - Canada: Treasures recovered after decades-long struggle

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Treasures recovered after decades-long struggle
 
Times Colonist 
Saturday, November 05, 2005
 
ALERT BAY - On Andrea Sanborn's first attempt to persuade the British Museum
to let go of her people's ceremonial mask, she showed up with an empty
Adidas bag.

"What's that for?" asked the museum boffins. "I've come for the mask," she
said, straight-faced.

Not only did she go home empty-handed on that trip, but they wouldn't even
let her see the artifact, which was buried in deep storage, down in the
basement with the spare mummies and winter tires.

Eight years later, relations with the renowned London institution have
improved dramatically. Sanborn finally saw her dream realized this week when
the museum brought the mask to Alert Bay's U'mista Cultural Centre, where
she is executive director. The event put a punctuation mark on efforts to
recover treasures the Kwakwaka'wakw of northern Vancouver Island thought
they had lost forever.

It's a story that goes back to 1921, when 45 natives were arrested for
taking part in a then-illegal potlatch ceremony on remote Village Island.
Half of them were jailed, but the rest were freed on the condition that
their tribes give up their potlatch paraphernalia. Almost 200 masks, rattles
and other items were surrendered, ending up in museums and private
collections across Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

What followed was a long, dogged effort by the Kwakwaka'wakw to recover the
lost artifacts, which were integral, they argued, to their culture's
survival. This week's ceremony, held in conjunction with the 25th
anniversary of the U'mista centre, marked the success of that campaign.
Almost all the seized pieces have been found and returned, and are on
display in Alert Bay and at the Kwakiutl Museum on Quadra Island.

Included will be the transformation mask -- a figure that opens up to reveal
another face underneath -- now on long-term loan from the British Museum.

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