AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

Repatriation is an important aspect of cultural restitution for Indigenous peoples and centers on the building and maintaining of relationships between communities and institutions. Each repatriation has a unique story to share with far-reaching impacts that span communities and generations. By exploring these stories, we learn how repatriation brings diverse people together to share knowledge and experiences, enriching our lives and work. Together with colleagues and potlatchers from the Haíłzaqv Nation, we share our story of returning the Captain Carpenter Chief’s Seat to its rightful home in Bella Bella, British Columbia, Canada. The name of the nation, Haíłzaqv, means “to speak and act correctly,” and this has been at the core of storytelling of the Chief’s Seat. This journey took many years and a diverse range of people including the Haíłzaqv knowledge holders and cross-departmental staff at Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM). After Charles Newcombe purchased the Seat in 1911, it was disassembled into four panels by an unidentified conservator at RBCM in 1976. Aside from one occasion where it was briefly assembled by museum staff for exhibit, the Seat would have remained disassembled and disconnected from its family in the silent storage of RBCM for over 113 years. The family could only access the Chief’s Seat through published photographs. Led by the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department (HIRMD) and in collaboration with RBCM staff, this Haíłzaqv treasure traveled home to Bella Bella, was reassembled by Jack Wilson, the great-great grandson of Chief Captain Carpenter (Dúqvay̓ḷá), with the help of Ian Reid and Max Johnson Sr., and reactivated at the Family Feast on July 25, 2024. This story of the Seat’s journey home demonstrates how Indigenous-led approaches to conservation and repatriation encourage us to reflect on our museum practices and develop hands-on, critical approaches towards building meaningful relationships in the space of Indigenized allyship. The repatriation of the Seat incorporated knowledge-sharing through two ceremonies: Repatriation Blessing Ceremony at Wawadit'ła in Victoria and the Family Feast at Gvúkva’aus in Bella Bella. Members from the Haíłzaqv Nation and the Indigenous Collections and Repatriation (ICAR) and Conservation Departments from RBCM were invited to witness the active, multisensory storytelling of the Seat through acts of participation, songs, dances and gift-giving at these ceremonies. Ceremonies of Náwálakv (supernatural power) were reintroduced back to the Chief’s Seat. Through this journey, we worked together with grace and respect and, above all, care for one another as living beings. With the Seat being back in the care of the family and community, its story will continue to evolve dynamically in the way it was intended to be used in potlatches. In providing this story, we hope to share acts of care taken/provided and lessons learnt in the repatriation of the Carpenter Chief’s Seat to open spaces for collaborative storytelling. As Ian Reid spoke, “[t]his [Chief’s Seat] contains all of the universe, and we must never forget that," and he was right. We were brought together in the network of stories around the Carpenter Chief’s Seat.