The Ethnographic Museum of Geneva returns sacred objects to the Iroquois communities

2023-02-08T09:21:00.320Z

While African countries are interested in the decolonization of museums in Western countries, Native American peoples, too, are joining the dance. They are looking to recover some...

The Ethnographic Museum of Geneva returns sacred objects to the Iroquois communities

Geneva City Councilor Sami Kanaan (left) and Director of the Geneva Museum of Ethnography Carine Ayele Durand return sacred objects to Haudenosaunee Confederacy representatives Clayton Logan and Brennen Ferguson, during a ceremony in the Swiss city, on February 7, 2023. © Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone, via AP

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

While African countries are interested in the decolonization of museums in Western countries, Native American peoples, too, are joining the dance.

They seek to recover part of their heritage taken away by the settlers and disseminated in collections around the world.

Example in Switzerland, where the city of Geneva returned Tuesday, February 7 to the Iroquois people two sacred objects exhibited at the ethnographic museum of the city.

With our correspondent in Geneva,

Jérémie Lanche

Brennen Ferguson is one of the representatives of the Iroquois nation, also called Haudenosaunee.

Last summer, on a visit to Geneva, he was surprised to discover that a sacred mask and rattle were exhibited in the ethnography museum: “

We have managed to keep our traditional ceremonies alive within the community.
Some are very old and this kind of medicinal mask plays a very important role in our ritual.
They have healing power.
In return, we have an obligation with respect to the mask.

The

restitution of these objects

, after 200 years spent in Switzerland, was done in record time.

There are objects that are considered sacred and the peoples who ask for these restitutions believe that they have a responsibility vis-à-vis these objects that museums cannot fill

, explains the director of the ethnography museum, Carine Ayele Durand

.
Afterwards, we proactively launched a project in 2020 to identify as many sensitive objects as possible and to contact communities to ask them if they would allow us to continue exhibiting them.

A law in the United States requires institutions that hold these sacred works to return them to Native American communities, also called

“
First Nations
” in Canada

But it is not always applied, regret the Haudenosaunee.

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To read also:
How the restitution of works of art to Africa began and what remains to be done

The Ethnographic Museum of Geneva returns sacred objects to the Iroquois communities

The Ethnographic Museum of Geneva returns sacred objects to the Iroquois communities

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