B.C. allocates $2 million for First Nations repatriation efforts

The provincial government has earmarked $2 million to help return First Nations artifacts from museums around the world to British Columbia.

The funding announcement follows an earlier commitment by Premier Christy Clark on June 21, or National Aboriginal Day.

Clark said that "returning cherished cultural belongings and ancestral remains is crucial for the preservation and continuation of First Nations cultures and traditions".

The Royal B.C. Museum will act as a gathering point for returning objects, although the initiative will be led and guided by First Nations partners.

Tracey Herbert, CEO for the First People's Cultural Council, will be working closely with the museum to develop a new First Nations department and repatriation program.

Herbert said many First Nations communities have been undergoing their own repatriation initiatives, but this program will systematically catalogue what is missing, how it was taken and where it currently is.

"We hope to do it in a more organized way and to support each other within our communities with our ideas and expertise on repatriation." 

Stolen artifacts

Herbert said many of the items were taken without permission, confiscated from potlatch ceremonies or stolen from graves.

Others, like ancestral remains, require special ceremony and care.

"The return of those objects is just another way of us taking our power back and enjoying our own culture and heritage in B.C.," she said.

Hebert said not every community might want its artifacts back, either because it would prefer the museum to store it properly or it is satisfied with the prestige of having some of its pieces in the best museums in the world.

"It's really about giving communities a choice and the information they need to make decisions about ... how they want to care-take their own heritage."     

• Archaeologist says returning First Nations heritage a big, expensive job

With files from On the Island

To hear the interview, click on the link labelled B.C. government designates $2M to help with First Nations repatratiation efforts