Books
Anderson, Jane, and Haidy Geismar ed. The Routledge Companion to Cultural Property. Routledge, 2017.
Case studies are used to look at how the understanding of ‘cultural property’ varies around the world and how multi-disciplinary perspectives from anthropology, archaeology, law, indigenous studies, history, and policy-making, are influencing the current and future care of cultural heritage as well as legal property status.
Clavir, Miriam. Preserving What Is Valued: Museums, Conservation, and First Nations. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002.
Like Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Miriam Clavir draws from the situations of First Nations in Canada and Maori in New Zealand in their current museum practices to show how, in many ways, they are precedent setting in their attempts at true collaboration in the care of cultural heritage. A large focus of the book is exploring what ‘preservation’ and ‘conservation’ even mean, and how an understanding can be reached between indigenous groups and museums, even when their definitions vary (and, significantly, how even the process of having to define terms in Western language and understanding can subvert the intended indigenous meaning).
Dorge, Valerie, and F. Carey Howlett ed. Painted Wood: History and Conservation. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 1998.
This document is one of a series of guidelines produced by the Getty Institute focusing on different materials found within cultural heritage. Though pitched at art history and conservation professionals, the information on historic use of hazardous pesticides on wood is helpful for thinking about wooden objects eligible for repatriation.
Sullivan, Lance. Stewards of the Sacred. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums in cooperation with the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 2004.
This book contains a series of essays that emerged from the ‘Stewards of the Sacred’ conference held in 2001, along with perspectives from a number of globally varied museum professionals on the shifting nature of care of their indigenous items and the direction this is taking, in some cases, towards museums as ‘custodians’ rather than ‘owners’. Visit the Shifting Discourses of Care page for a broader review of this resource.
Sully, Dean. Decolonizing Conservation: Caring for Maori Meeting Houses Outside New Zealand. University College, London: Left Coast Press, 2007.
There are three Maori meeting houses residing outside of their homeland, Aotearoa New Zealand. This book is an exploration of how those buildings ended up so far from home and what their conservation has looked like in the intervening years under the care of non-indigenous groups. It concludes with the significant (in terms of collaboration and open-mindedness) changes that have recently been implemented, including reconnecting the meeting houses with their tribal descendants, and teaching Western-protocol-trained conservators how to care for them in culturally appropriate and symbolically meaningful ways.
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, second ed. London: Zed Press, 2012.
This book presents counter-narratives to Western ideas of research into indigenous groups, their culture and objects, specifically in the context of power structures, survival struggles, and oppression. Tuhiwai Smith uses the dual framework of traditional Maori knowledge, and Western epistemology to present the specific colonial situation of New Zealand as a basis for ideas that are very relevant and applicable to other indigenous groups. Even her questioning of engrained Western research terminology was thought-provoking and somewhat novel to me.
Journals
Hawks, Catharine. (2001). “Historical survey of the sources of contamination of ethnographic materials in museum collections”. Collection Forum, 16 (2001).
This resource put into historical context the development of synthetic organic chemicals in the nineteenth century, and how the long-term toxicity of many compounds was not understood at that time. It would be a helpful resource for information on specific chemicals and the approximate dates that some institutions introduced them for treating objects. The information and dates mostly apply to Smithsonian collections.
Lythberg, Billie, Jennifer Newell, and Wayne Ngata. “Houses of stories: the whale rider at the American Museum of Natural History.” Museum & Society, 13 (2) (March 2015): pp. 195-220.
Lythberg, Billie, and Wayne Ngata. “Te Aitanga a Hauiti and Paikea; New Histories of Pacific Whaling.” RCC Perspectives, No. 5, (2019), pp. 105- 112.
Lythberg, Billie. “Multiple Dialogues: Interpreting Ethnographic Collections in the Twenty-First Century: Papers from the Annual Conference of the Museum Ethnographers Group Held at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, 16–17 April 2012.” Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 26 (2013), pp. 181-186.
These three publications are my main sources of information on Paikea the ancestor, Paikea the carving, and the recent activities of his descendants to reconnect with his physical form in the American Museum of Natural History. These are co-written by Wayne Ngata, who is New Zealand based, and his insights into the iwi (tribal) feelings about Paikea and the importance of him for understanding identity and pride in their whakapapa (lineage) are vital to understanding how and why Paikea matters.
Websites
National Humanities Alliance. “Preserving Cultural Heritage in the Upper Midwest”. https://nehforall.org/projects/preserving-cultural-heritage-upper-midwest
The Conversation. “Museums are returning indigenous human remains but progress on repatriating objects is slow”. https://theconversation.com/museums-are-returning-indigenous-human-remains-but-progress-on-repatriating-objects-is-slow-67378
ArtNet News. “It’s Not Just Art That Indigenous People Are Fighting to Reclaim From Museums. They Want Their Ancestors’ Remains Back, Too”. https://news.artnet.com/market/its-not-just-art-that-indigenous-peoples-want-back-from-museums-they-want-their-ancestors-human-remains-too-1397737
Accessed 21 April 2021
These three websites are an excellent resource for gauging the climate of care protocols for culturally sensitive collections in the United States. Similar discussions are happening at the institutions discussed here as in those that Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Stewards of the Sacred refer to. This is helpful background information for getting the sense that many cultural institutions, large and small, are grappling with sensitive issues in similar ways. It seems that in general, similar questions are being asked of collections with indigenous items, such as how culturally appropriate care is defined and what this care should look like.
American Museum of Natural History. “Collections Database”. Accessed 14 April 2021. Collections Database | Anthropology (amnh.org)
Paikea’s museum catalog entry is found here. The AMNH database is not very user friendly unfortunately, and even using the search terms “paikea”, “robley”, “tekoteko” or “carving” does not return Paikea’s listing.
American Institute of Conservation. “Glossary of Terms”. Accessed 28 April 2021. https://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/BPG_Glossary_of_Terms
American Institute for Conservation & Foundation for Advancement In Conservation. Conservation Terminology. Accessed 28 April 2021. https://www.culturalheritage.org/about-conservation/what-is-conservation/definitions
Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material. “Visual Glossary”. Accessed 28 April 2021. https://aiccm.org.au/visual-glossary/
These three sources have lists of glossary definitions of conservation terms. The glossary on this website was drawn from these, though they all house a lot of other conservation information which I have not delved into, but may also be of use in the future to further build up this website as a resource.
Khan Academy. “Paikea at the American Museum of Natural History”. Accessed April 21, 2021. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-for-teachers/xeaa3470a:teaching-with-images/xeaa3470a:go-deeper-museums/a/paikea-at-the-american-museum-of-natural-history
This was the source from which I drew the photos I used in the Paikea essay
National Park Service. “Conserv-O-Gram: Hazardous Materials In Your Collection.” No 2/10 (August 1998) https://www.nps.gov/Museum/publications/conserveogram/02-10.pdf
(Other Conserv-O-Grams can be found here): https://www.nps.gov/Museum/publications/conserveogram/cons_toc.html)
There are numerous ‘Conserv-O-Grams’ produced by the National Park Service relating to different aspects of caring for collections. The hazardous materials document is very specific about what to look for on objects and what this could mean in terms of toxic materials residue, across a range of materials found in museum collections. It very helpfully explains why an item would have been treated a particular way in the past and whether it is a practice currently still in use. It is written in more casual language than, for example, technical conservation reports, and for this reason would be a great resource for those outside the museum field. Though published in 1998, the information on historical treatments is still highly relevant. I can imagine this being the kind of resource a community might look to when receiving back a repatriated item.
The document’s opening statement below highlights how accessible the text is pitched to be, “The mission of many museums includes the mandate to collect and preserve artifacts. However, some of the objects and artifacts institutions are bound to preserve and protect from harm have the potential, if not handled properly, to harm us. Although it can seem frightening and overwhelming and an issue just easier to ignore, an institution can substantially reduce its risk to staff, volunteers, and visitors if it becomes informed about potential hazards. The information below, although in no way exhaustive, can help you begin to assess the risks and hazards associated with objects in your collection.”
The School for Advanced Research (SAR). “Guidelines for Museum and Community Collaboration”. Accessed 28 April 2021. https://guidelinesforcollaboration.info/
These guidelines are split into two documents; one for non-Native museum professionals and the other for Native communities. They are intended to work in tandem as a resource for suggested practice for collaborative work and collections care. The website has a number of helpful case studies of what these guidelines look like in practice and they are usefully divided into categories like ‘museum loans’ or ‘collaborative conservation’.
Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. “Taonga Māori protocol.” Accessed Aprol 21, 2021. https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/how-care-for-wooden-objects-and-taonga-maori
This source was helpful in comparing what the New Zealand protocol is for sacred objects versus overseas. Te Papa Tongarewa suggested consulting with an iwi tribal representative for advice on how to properly care for and display items and specific suggestions are not provided. This makes sense in the context of each tribe having different protocols but I did expect New Zealand’s national museum to have some suggestions that are more broadly applicable. My future research will look into this further.