Visiting with the Ancestors: Blackfoot Shirts in Museum Spaces Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada Laura Peers and Alison K
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Visiting with the Ancestors Visiting with the Ancestors Blackfoot Shirts in Museum Spaces Laura Peers and Alison K. Brown Copyright © 2015 Laura Peers and Alison K. Brown Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-77199-037-0 (paperback) 978-1-77199-038-7 (pdf) 978-1-77199-039-4 (epub) doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771990370.01 Cover and interior design by Marvin Harder, marvinharder.com Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Visiting with the ancestors : Blackfoot shirts in museum spaces / edited by Laura Peers and Alison K. Brown. Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. 1. Siksika Indians—Museums. 2. Siksika Indians—Clothing. 3. Cultural property—Alberta. 4. Museums and community—Alberta. 5. Museums and Indians—Alberta. 6. Museums and Indians—Great Britain. I. Peers, Laura Lynn, 1963-, editor II. Brown, Alison K. (Alison Kay), 1971-, author, editor AM21.A43V58 2016 069’.50899735207123 C2015-907508-4 C2015-907509-2 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons licence, Attribution–Noncommercial–No Derivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons licence, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. Contents List of Illustrations vii Blackfoot Sacred Protocol 1 Introduction 9 one Gifts from the Sun 13 two Introducing the Blackfoot Nations 19 three The Blackfoot and the Fur Trade 27 four Blackfoot Clothing 37 fiVe Making Relations in the Past 65 six Making Relations in the Present 75 The Importance of the Blackfoot Shirts Today 83 Connecting with Community Wendy Aitkens 89 seVen Planning the Project and Raising the Funds 97 Preparing to Travel 109 Lending a Helping Hand HeAtHer richardson 111 eight Visiting the Shirts 123 “Our People Still Believe” HermAn yelloW old WomAn 148 Visiting the Blackfoot Shirts Alison FrAnk-TailFeAtHers 153 Questions About the Shirts 156 nine Community Effects 163 Preparing for Our Ancestors to Come Home RamonA Big HeAd 182 A Conversation About Blackfoot Quillwork debbie Magee Sherer And Alison k. BroWn 188 ten Why Were the Shirts Not Repatriated? 195 Continuing the Relationship 200 “They Will Matter to Us Forever” 207 Acknowledgments 211 References 215 Illustrations FIgUre 1 Shirt with painted war honours, 1893.67.1 2 Shirt with layers of paint, 1893.67.2 3 Shirt for formal occasions, 1893.67.3 4 Shirt with replaced quillwork, 1893.67.4 5 Shirt for working, 1893.67.5 6 Map of Blackfoot territory 7 Writing-on-Stone area, with Sweetpine Hills (also known as Sweetgrass Hills) in background 8 Napi’s playground 9 Encampment of the Peikann Indians, by Karl Bodmer, 1832–34 10 Petroglyph showing shirt, Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park 11 Iron Horn, Mix-ke-mote-skin-na, a Warrior, by George Catlin, 1832 12 Pieced trailer, shirt with layers of paint (1893.67.2) 13 Cloth, beads and sewing equipment, Edmonton House post inventory, 1841 14 Cloth over rosette, shirt with layers of paint (1893.67.2) 15 Cuts in hide from cutting fringe, shirt for formal occasions (1893.67.3) 16 Stamped heads, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 17 Incised line of paint, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 18 Man’s legging 19 Digitally enhanced front of shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 20 Digitally enhanced back of shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 21 Battle scene with horse, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 22 Red fingermarks, shirt with layers of paint (1893.67.2) 23 Detail of yellow and red quills, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 24 Replaced quillwork, shirt with replaced quilllwork (1893.67.4) 25 Plant fibres with quillwork, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 26 Quill and plant fibre edging of central panel, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 27 Shirt collected in 1827 by Lord Elvestone, Reiss-Engelhorn-Museeun, Mannhein, no. V AM2651a 28 Horse and human hairlock detail, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 29 Membrane wrap on hairlock, shirt with replaced quillwork (1893.67.4) 30 Damaged neck, shirt for working (1893.67.5) 31 Epidermis visible on hide, shirt for working (1893.67.5) vii doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771990370.01 32 Sir George Simpson, Governor of Rupert’s Land, by Stephen Pearce, 1857 33 Canoe Manned by Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall, by Frances Anne Hopkins, depicting herself and E. M. Hopkins, 1869 34 Tack hole, shirt with painted war honours (1893.67.1) 35 Left to Die, Frances Anne Hopkins, 1872 36 Frank Weasel Head and Andy Blackwater at Pitt Rivers Museum, 2004 37 Rufus Goodstriker and Louis Soop at Pitt Rivers Museum, 2000 38 Blackfoot shirts exhibition, Galt Museum and Archives 39 Torso mounts being prepared for display of shirts, Glenbow Museum, 2010. 40 Allan Pard with shirt and project team, Pitt Rivers Museum, 2009 41 Damaged quills on rosette, shirt with replaced quillwork (1893.67.4) 42 Cleaning soot from rosette on shirt with layers of paint (1893.67.2), showing cleaned and uncleaned sections 43 Digitally annotated condition report, back of shirt with replaced quillwork (1893.67.4) 44 Shirt in crate drawer 45 Shirts crate in transit 46 Trina Weasel Moccasin and Josh Scout-Bastien looking at shirt 47 Byron Jackson wearing replica shirt, Glenbow Museum, 2010 48 Lonny Tailfeathers and Donovan Tailfeathers wearing replica shirts, Galt Museum, 2010 49 Students from Red Crow Community College (Kainai Nation, Alberta) visiting the shirts, Glenbow Museum 50 Students and instructors from Blackfeet Community College (Browning, Montana) visiting the shirts, Glenbow Museum, 2010 51 Terran Last Gun Kipp, Frank Weasel Head, and shirt with layers of paint (1893.67.2), Glenbow Museum, 2010 52 Winston Wadsworth, Jr., with his own quillwork and shirt with replaced quillwork (1893.67.4), Glenbow Museum, 2010 53 Bull’s Back Fat, monotype by Mari King, 2010 54 Blackfoot shirts exhibition, Glenbow Museum, 2010 55 Crowshoe family members with shirts, Glenbow Museum, 2010 56 Untitled oil on canvas by Delia Cross Child, 2011 57 Shirt for formal occasions (1893.67.3), folded for ceremony, Galt Museum, 2010 58 Kainai High School students with quillwork 59 Montage, paintings made as gifts to ancestors by students at Kainai High School, 2010 60 Quilled baby garment by Debbie Magee Sherer, purchased by the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. viii doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771990370.01 Visiting with the Ancestors Blackfoot Sacred Protocol Hairlock shirts are sacred to the Blackfoot people. Sacred items are made, used and cared for by those who have acquired the ceremonial rights to them. To obtain the rights to a sacred item, an individual must go through a ceremony specific to that item. Even someone who has acquired rights to certain items must go through another ceremony to acquire the rights to hairlock shirts. The Blackfoot ceremonial leaders who helped to guide this project respectfully remind readers of this book that only those people who have had the appropriate rights transferred to them in a ceremony should make or wear hairlock shirts. 1 doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771990370.01 The Blackfoot ceremonial leaders with whom we collaborated on this project offered advice about the themes and content of this book. They also raised con- cerns that they wish to highlight and spoke about why they and others chose to participate in this project. Herman Yellow old woman: When we were starting to talk about reviving our ceremonial societies back home, one of the words I kept hearing in prayers was aaksisstoyi’ta’kssin: it’s bravery, accepting a challenge; these people took this 1 An aaksisstoyi’ta’kssin is a person who challenge, they never looked back.1 That was a prayer that I kept hearing, even persists in pursuing a goal despite challenges after transfers had taken place: a lot of our elders kept saying, mooksi aomoopiiksi: or the odds against achieving that goal. these people have taken this challenge, they never looked back. Today they’ve succeeded, by taking the guidance of us elders. There’s another word that I kept hearing in the prayers for us: aomoopiiksi. The thing about taking up this chal- lenge, taking over the stuff that we repatriated: we sat for days, we sat for nights, listening to our elders, how we were going to proceed, because it was a very difficult thing that we were going to go through. So this word, aomoopiiksi: what they were talking about was this kind of setting [that we are in now]. We don’t know what we are going to do, we don’t know what we are going to hear. We are sitting here, looking at what we want for our children, our children’s children, the generations ahead of us: that’s why we’re sitting here, for hours and hours.