Repatriation work from RBCM with Ahousaht

In the spring of 2019, Towagh Behr and Alissa Cartwright had the opportunity to work with the Ahousaht First Nation to repatriate important language recordings and oral history interviews from the Royal BC Museum (RBCM). The RBCM currently holds thousands of linguistic and ethnographic recordings made with First Nations across British Columbia. Many of these recordings were made by linguists and anthropologists in the 1970s and 1980s, although some were recorded as early as the 1910s. Working with Ahousaht, Towagh and Alissa identified dozens of recordings and uploaded them to Ahousaht’s CKK once they were provided by the RBCM. Ahousaht was then able to provide limited CKK access to a small group of University of Victoria students who were part of Dr. Brian Thom’s Ethnographic Mapping and Indigenous Cartographies class. The students transcribed select recordings and created spatial files for the Nuu-chah-nulth placenames mentioned by community members in the interviews. These recordings, transcripts, and Nuu-chah-nulth placenames provide an important language learning resource. Kwusen is grateful to have had the opportunity to work in partnership with Ahousaht to repatriate these important cultural materials.

If you are a community with a CKK and are interested in working with us on a similar repatriation project with RBCM, reach out to Kwusen. Kwusen can assist First Nations with CKKs in working with the museum to repatriate recordings made with community members. We are also happy to assist in the arrangement of collaborative projects that afford university students with opportunities for experiential learning and benefit Indigenous communities’ research and repatriation goals.