Protection of First Nations Cultural Heritage : Laws, Policy, and Reform

Catherine E. Bell; Robert K. Paterson

The editors and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission of Sotheby’s and the Carey family to use the photograph of the mask. [...] Without consent from our First Nation, and in clear breach of the treaty and federal statutory re- gime, the Department of Indian Affairs sold the burial ground in 1903 to the surrounding township of Sarawak, on the condition that the township undertake to remove all the burials to a nearby cemetery. [...] In keeping with its namesake, the Mookakin Foundation was established in 1998 to promote and preserve the spiritual doctrines and observances of the Blood Tribe, promote and preserve their unique language and history, encourage an appreciation by the general public of Blackfoot culture, encourage and actively pursue repatriations of objects and articles that facilitate spiritual doctrines and obse [...] Traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, ac- cording to their own traditions, extended into Saskatchewan and the United Acknowledgments xvii States, including “southward from the North Saskatchewan River to the Yellowstone River and eastward from the Rocky Mountains to the Cypress Hills and Great Sand Hills of present-day Saskatchewan.”2 U’mista Cultural Society The mandate of the U’m [...] As the primary concern of the U’mista Cultural Society at the time was to address problems First Nations may encounter in preventing exports of significant cultural items out of Canada, emphasis shifted to examine in greater detail how the Cultural Property Export and Import Act and its administration might better serve the needs of First Nations.7 Some of the results of that work are discussed in