arts Article Trusting You Will See This as We Do: The Hidatsa Water Buster (Midi Badi) Clan Negotiates the Return of a Medicine Bundle from the Museum of the American Indian in 1938 Jennifer Shannon Department of Anthropology and Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA;
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-303-492-6276 Received: 21 August 2019; Accepted: 19 November 2019; Published: 26 November 2019 Abstract: An often cited 1938 repatriation from the Museum of the American Indian in New York City to the members of the Water Buster or Midi Badi clan of the Hidatsa tribe in North Dakota is revisited. Rather than focusing on this event as a “first” in repatriation history or using it as a character assessment of the director of the museum, this account highlights the clan’s agency and resistance through an examination of their negotiation for the return of a sacred bundle and the objects they selected to provide in exchange. Through this example, we see how tribes have had to make hard choices in hard times, and how repatriation is a form of resistance and redress that contributes to the future of a community’s wellbeing in the face of a history of religious and colonial oppression. Keywords: repatriation; cultural patrimony; Native Americans; museums; Hidatsa; Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation; Three Affiliated Tribes; National Museum of the American Indian; Museum of the American Indian; George Gustav Heye Trusting that you will see this in the same light as we do and decide to co-operate with us for the return of the Sacred Bundle.