Reply by Bruce Trigger  

to Julia Harrison's article `"The spirit sings" and the future of anthropology'

Vol. 4, No. 6, December 1988, pp. 6-9
(c) Royal Anthropological Institute

Bruce G. Trigger is professor of anthropology at McGill University, Montreal.

Julia Harrison has presented the Glenbow Museum's side of the controversy surrounding The Spirit Sings exhibition, but certainly not the full story. The broader the issue of how academics respond to ethnic inequality and exploitation in Canadian society has not been addressed. Nor has the question of who is to decide what is in the best interests of Native People: they themselves or paternalistic Euro-Canadians?

As Honorary Curator of Ethnology at McGill University's McCord Museum I received a request not to loan material for The Spirit Sings. The request was issued not by the hard-pressed Lubicon Indians alone, but with the support of official organizations representing almost all Indian and Metis groups across Canada at the federal, provincial and band levels.

I have long believed that museums hold native artefacts in trust for Native People; this heritage is not something that can be regarded as alienated from Native people (although that is precisely how the original collectors usually viewed their acquisitions). I therefore, rejected the argument, which was put to me by some museum officials, that to support the boycott was to mix politics and culture, while to make the loan was to defend our academic freedom. In my opinion, what was at stake was whether the McCord aligned itself on this issue with Native People or with governments, corporate wealth, and the glamour of the Winter Olympics. Nor do I believe that museums can accept money from corporate sponsors and pretend to maintain their academic freedom. How many exhibitions do we see that portray corporate sponsors in a critical light? The sufferings that have been inflicted on the Lubicon people by the Alberta and federal Canadian governments and by the oil companies that exploit their land have brought international shame upon Canada and are a warning to all of us about how ruthless governments and big business can become when they are not held to account by a vigilant public.

The valiant resistance of Chief Ominayak and his people have made them nothing less than the conscience of our country and a warning of the future that awaits the rest of the country if we stand by and do nothing. I therefore requested that the McCord demonstrate its sympathy with all Native People by withdrawing its material from this Shell Oil-sponsored exhibition. When the Board of Governors of the museum refused to do this, I resigned my curatorship. In my letter I observed that `It is a national disgrace that almost 500 years after the first Europeans explored the shores of Canada, the descendants of its first inhabitants should remain more marginal to our national life, more politically powerless, and more impoverished than any other ethnic group. Native People cannot be expected to stand forever at the end of the line; their interests to be considered when everyone else's have been satisfied. It is also unacceptable that attempts should be made to continue to subject these people to a paternalistic regime in which non-Native Canadians decide what is in the best interests of Native People'.

The controversy that has followed has taught me much about the kind of country in which I live. Far more vital issues are at stake than the question of academic freedom and how university anthropologists and museum curators should treat one another. In recent years Canadian museums have made substantial progress in involving Native People in their activities, albeit often still in a rather patronizing way (`The Celebration allowed [sic] native peoples to present...'). The failure, not only of the Glenbow Museum but of other major museums across Canada, to take seriously the request by the representatives of most of the Native People in Canada for a boycott has been a grave setback to this reapprochement. Harrison might have discussed in more detail why the Glenbow's later efforts to meet with local band councils failed; clearly, more is involved than finding mutually agreeable meeting times. Curators must now decide whether they will retreat into their bunkers or play a responsible role by trying to do what is in their power to redress the negative consequences of 500 years of European domination. Academic freedom will have real meaning in the setting of publicly-financed museums only when it does not clash with the equally important freedom of Native People to manage their own cultural heritage. The enthusiasm with which Native People are establishing their own museums across Canada, often with minimal public financing, refutes any suggestion that they are not interested in doing this. How the present Euro-Canadian museum community responds to the challenge to stop treating the Native heritage stored in their museums as their personal possessions will reveal the kind of people they really are.

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