Will an Inuit Kayak Return Home from the Vatican?

 

Ten days from now a delegation from the Assembly of First Nations delegation will meet with Pope Francis in Rome seeking an apology. on Indigenous land, for the Catholic Church’s role in residential schools. Francis has said that he will visit Canada for an apology which Indigenous peoples feel is required to advance reconciliation. 

This past week, likely in anticipation of this visit, the Vatican shared photos of a collection of 200 artifacts from Arctic Canada which are roughly 100 years old. In 1924, Gabriel Joseph Élie Breynat, the French-born Roman Catholic bishop of the Mackenzie region of Arctic Canada, received a request from Pope Pius XI to send objects for a world exposition. Missionaries from the different continents were instructed to collect religious and non-religious objects made by Indigenous peoples and send them to Rome.

Amongst the Canadian objects is a sealskin kayak, fragile yet enduring, a marvellous reminder of the ingenuity of Inuit peoples. It is one of only six which are known to still exist. Almost immediately there was a call by Inuit leaders for this kayak to be returned. There has also been criticism that the exhibit, first shown to journalists, is another tone-deaf example of perpetuated colonization and cultural theft. 

I heard a moving interview this week by Matt Galloway of CBC's The Current with Indigenous historians and knowledge keepers who are working to repatriate objects which were taken, often brutally, by settlers and representatives of colonial powers, including missionaries. They view these not as artifacts from the past but as the possessions of their ancestors and their living communities. They have also negotiated the respectful return of the remains of Indigenous individuals, which when we consider it, was a particularly barbaric and ghoulish form of theft. Why were Indigenous peoples regarded as "savages" when European invaders were literally body snatchers? 

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-dec-3-2021-1.6272173/these-pieces-are-part-of-us-repatriating-belongings-and-remains-stolen-from-indigenous-peoples-1.6272889

Ruth and I feel deeply indebted to Indigenous peoples for the invention of the canoe and the kayak because we enjoy both activities. As we paddle I am often aware that the waterways we travel have a meaningful history for First Nations. 

We'll see what happens with the kayak at the Vatican, with its powerful symbolism.