The Indigenous Program at MOA was developed by six Indigenous partners: the Musqueam Indian Band, the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, the Haida Gwaii Museum, the U’mista Cultural Society, the Nlaka’pamux Nation, the Coqualeetza Cultural Society, and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. The program provides training opportunities for Indigenous people working in museums or Indigenous people who would like to do this kind of work. Funding for the Indigenous Internship Program is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Our latest series of MOA Stories feature the fascinating research conducted by members of the Fall 2023 cohort during their internship.
Not Quite Indiana Jones
By Roderick Louis (Tsleil-Waututh)
Hello! I come from a Nation in the Lower Mainland called Tsleil-Waututh. I have had the great opportunity to be part of the Indigenous Internship Program at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), working under Sarah Holland and with different staff members at the museum and in the Lab of Archaeology.
Three years ago, I started to get interested in archaeology. At first it was just a cheque that came in, but as I progressed in the field, I started to enjoy the little things, like being in the dirt doing hands-on work or travelling from one site to another. It almost started to feel like Indiana Jones, in the sense of the excitement I felt in finding belongings day in and day out.
I entered the field and hit the ground running. My interest in archaeology continued to grow as I started to see a gap in the profession regarding First Nations representation and care for belongings. We continue to operate in archaeology to be there and present during the excavations—but when the day comes to an end, the belongings don’t come with us but rather to a colonial institution like Simon Fraser University (SFU) or the University of British Columbia (UBC), where they will be cared for and labelled as “artifacts of Coastal First Nation?” At first, I was angry and disappointed, but I did come to terms with the situation and adapt to the facts. I chose to get up and do something about it. That made me switch my pace and focus on bettering my own knowledge of conservation, learning how to preserve and protect the belongings we daylight. (Daylighting is when you remove the sediment around a belonging in the ground, exposing it to light.)
Once I arrived at MOA, I had the opportunity to follow my interests towards conservation and curatorial work. I wanted to further my abilities in these two respected fields to use when I would head back to Tsleil-Waututh and help develop our community’s own archaeological repository. What I really enjoyed was the whole behind-the-scenes work of a conservator. We got to learn many different techniques to further the lifespan of a cultural belonging: like what can or cannot be frozen during the quarantine phase, or getting down into the specific material to construct a box for storage purposes.
I have learned how to mitigate deterioration agents that cause belongings and artifacts to decay. Also, I found out about preventive methods to use before anything can happen to the collection in the first place. It can be as simple as putting a dust cover on to prevent dust, or checking the collections for their temperature and relative humidity to make sure the belonging doesn’t start decaying due to environmental properties. The traits of deterioration are so subtle that having these small details in order will make the difference for whether the belonging survives or slowly whither away unnoticed.
In what I have experienced, it seems like off-gassing is a problem that needs to be taken care of before the belonging is isolated and put into storage or display. Off-gassing is when an item has a certain chemical that is released from paint, adhesives, and generally when the item or belonging starts to decay. The method to cancel out the gasses is adding silica gel packs into the collection to offset potentially hazardous gasses that come off the material over its lifespan. Another is to use acid-free building materials to hold the belonging in a case while being stored. These are only two of many methods to look out for, putting this into perspective of how detail-oriented everyone here at MOA has to be for the sake of our culture.
The local archaeology network is very interesting, to say the least. Archaeology here in the lower mainland has changed greatly over the last 20 to 30 years, making a power change from a completely colonialized practice to more First Nations control over our own belongings. Today’s archaeological practice has evolved into an interestingly progressive way of operating with First Nations, making the field almost centered around Indigenous heritage and increasing Indigenous control over that heritage.
UBC is in partnership with Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh has a partnership with SFU. Although these partnerships may or may not be written agreements, they are influenced by law to uphold proper care of First Nations properties. The increase of repatriated belongings is a good sign of hopefully improving relationships between colonial and Indigenous organizations and peoples.
The archaeological practices used in earlier days had close to no ethics when it came to belongings being taken from the sites where they were put to rest. Once you take a belonging out of the ground and disregard recording or documenting the location, you lose a lot of the historical information about the piece forever. Where it was located in the ground is a trait to be documented in itself, because everything from the material type, depth, location, and what else is in the excavation are important to the questions we ask ourselves before determining whether it is a belonging or just a regular rock. Without this kind of documentation, the beginning of an ancestral object’s story is taken away.
Many people believe that Indiana jones is a great reference to archaeology, but in fact the film uses “archaeology” in name only. If it does relate to anything in our field it might just be to earlier practices of the 1950s to 2000s, as a digger like Indiana Jones would only search for belongings to call his own and disregard the true value of the site. Don’t be like Mr. Jones! Archaeology should be taken on with the upmost respect towards the belongings that come out, towards the people who practice in the field, and towards the ancestors whose homes and lives comprise the field we practice in. Let’s not take it for granted.
I believe that having a repository was a great move for my nation. Instead of completely relying on colonial institutions to receive belongings, we can choose to keep culturally sensitive materials to conserve ourselves. it is important to be able to show the community what our ancestors used to forge out of the materials we can find all around us to this day. It also brings a lot more, like the comfort of having these belongings in our possession and the right to decide whether to put them to rest or keep them as teaching moments for the younger generation. These are the goals that come with repatriation.
Moving forward in this whole decolonializing world, I hope what I have learned about conservation at MOA will prove useful to Tsleil-Waututh as I continue to progress up the ranks, furthering my learning and career. I am excited to work with my colleagues as we develop our own repository through an Indigenous lens—and hopefully turn the tables of possession!