Naamiwan's Drum: The Story of a Contested Repatriation of Anishinaabe Artefacts

by Maureen Matthews

Overview

Naamiwan’s Drum follows the story of a famous Ojibwe medicine man, his gifted grandson, and remarkable water drum. This drum, and forty other artefacts, were given away by a Canadian museum to an American Anishinaabe group that had no family or community connections to the collection. Many years passed before the drum was returned to the family and only about half of the artefacts were ever returned to the museum.

Maureen Matthews takes us through this astonishing set of events from multiple perspectives, exploring community and museum viewpoints, visiting the ceremonial group leader in Wisconsin, and finally looking back from the point of view of the drum. The book contains a powerful Anishinaabe interpretive perspective on repatriation and on anthropology itself. Containing fourteen beautiful colour illustrations, Naamiwan’s Drum is a compelling account of repatriation as well as a cautionary tale for museum professionals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442622449
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	01/06/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	356
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Maureen Matthews is Curator of Ethnology at the Manitoba Museum as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Manitoba.

Table of Contents

MAPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

COLOUR PLATES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2 OMISHOOSH: Visit to the Museum

Chapter 3 ANIMACY: Linguistic Considerations

Chapter 4 DEWE’IGAN: Repatriation

Chapter 5 PERSONHOOD: Wiikan and Artefact

Chapter 6 THREE FIRES MIDEWIWIN LODGE: Ojibwe Advocacy and Revitalization

Chapter 7 REPATRIATION: Cultural Rights and the Construction of Meaning

Chapter 8 NELSON OWEN: Mitigwakik Homecoming

Chapter 9 AGENCY AND ARTEFACTS: New Theoretical Approaches

Chapter 10 REPATRIATING AGENCY: An Agency Analysis of Repatriation

APPENDIX A: TIME LINE

APPENDIX B: OJIBWE LANGUAGE NOTES

APPENDIX C: OJIBWE GLOSSARY

REFERENCES CITED

END NOTES

What People are Saying About This

Janet Catherine Berlo

"Naamiwan's Drum is a highly rewarding read. Maureen Matthews tells a very compelling, well-grounded, and beautifully written story. This is a subtle, rich, and complex first-rate investigation of repatriation that raises concerns about the agency of objects, their makers and users."

Gwyneira Isaac

"Maureen Matthews' work is a major contribution to the field. It is rare to find someone who can successfully bridge linguistics, anthropological literature, museums and storytelling."

Susan Rowley

"Naamiwan's Drum advances our understanding of a number of important topics including repatriation, Anishanaabeg language use, anthropology and material cultural studies."

Editorial Reviews

'What this book does excellently is to uncover in subtle ways how objects are actors in the drama of repatriation whether one takes First Nations perspective or not.'—Max Carocci, Transmotion Journal vol 4:01:2018
'This work will no doubt become a standard by which repatriation and perhaps even cultural and community studies are judged.'—Patricia Harms, The Canadian Journal of Native Studies vol 37:02:2017
"Naamiwan's Drum is a highly rewarding read. Maureen Matthews tells a very compelling, well-grounded, and beautifully written story. This is a subtle, rich, and complex first-rate investigation of repatriation that raises concerns about the agency of objects, their makers and users."—Janet Catherine Berlo, Department of Art and Art History, University of Rochester
"Naamiwan's Drum advances our understanding of a number of important topics including repatriation, Anishanaabeg language use, anthropology and material cultural studies."—Susan Rowley, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia and Curator of Public Archaeology, Museum of Anthropology
"Maureen Matthews' work is a major contribution to the field. It is rare to find someone who can successfully bridge linguistics, anthropological literature, museums and storytelling."—Gwyneira Isaac, Curator of North American Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

From the Publisher

'What this book does excellently is to uncover in subtle ways how objects are actors in the drama of repatriation whether one takes First Nations perspective or not.'

Transmotion Journal vol 4:01:2018 - Max Carocci

'This work will no doubt become a standard by which repatriation and perhaps even cultural and community studies are judged.'

The Canadian Journal of Native Studies vol 37:02:2017 - Patricia Harms