The Vatican returned 62 indigenous artifacts to Canada on Saturday.
The objects included an Inuit kayak, wampum belts, war clubs, and masks, many of which had been held in Vatican museums for 100 years or more.
“Every one of those artifacts there are sacred objects that are important to the healing journey for many residential school survivors,” said Bobby Cameron, head of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan. Earlier this year, Canadian public broadcaster C.B.C.,
The Vatican handed the artifacts over to the Canadian Catholic Bishops Conference, who met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican.
“The CCCB will move as quickly as possible to transfer these artifacts to National Indigenous Organizations (NIOs). NIOs will ensure that the artifacts are reunited with their original communities,” the Canadian bishops said in a statement.
How did the objects reach Rome?
Catholic missionaries in Canada sent artifacts to the Vatican during a period of cultural oppression, forced conversion, and abuse within the residential school system for Indigenous children.
The Inuit kayak was one of 100,000 objects sent from around the world to Rome for the Vatican Missionary Exhibition organized by Pope Pius XI in 1925.
Other items had been sent earlier, such as a wampum that was “donated” to Pope Gregory XVI in 1831.
After this the Vatican kept the items with itself. More than half of the displayed artifacts were housed in the Missionary Ethnographic Museum, which later became part of the Vatican Museums in the 1970s.
In 2022, the late Pope Francis made a “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, where he made a historic apology for the decades of mistreatment of Indigenous children in the country’s Catholic schools, which he described as “genocide”.
During that visit, indigenous communities in Canada asked the Vatican to return culturally significant objects that had been taken away decades earlier.
Restoration process criticized
In a statement, the Vatican said the “gift” of Indigenous artefacts to the Canadian bishops represents “a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity”.
But some Indigenous leaders in Canada have criticized the “church-to-church” restoration process.
“These First Nations need to see what’s actually there and we need to recognize what belongs to which nation,” said Cheyenne Lazor, manager of the Akwesasne Rights and Research Office. cbcLast month.
“There’s a lot of things that were taken and each First Nation will be able to identify what’s ours. Like there are unique identifiers that we’ll be able to know what belongs to each community.”
Meanwhile, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand welcomed the news.
“This is an important step that respects the diverse cultural heritage of indigenous peoples and supports ongoing efforts toward truth, justice and reconciliation,” he said on social media.
Edited by: Shawn Sinico