Naamiwan's Drum: The Story of a Contested Repatriation of Anishinaabe Artefacts - Softcover

Matthews, Maureen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144262826X ISBN 13: 9781442628267

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2016

Synopsis

Naamiwan’s Drum follows the story of a famous Ojibwe medicine man, his gifted grandson, and remarkable water drum. This drum, and forty other artefacts, were given away by a Canadian museum to an American Anishinaabe group that had no family or community connections to the collection. Many years passed before the drum was returned to the family and only about half of the artefacts were ever returned to the museum.

Maureen Matthews takes us through this astonishing set of events from multiple perspectives, exploring community and museum viewpoints, visiting the ceremonial group leader in Wisconsin, and finally looking back from the point of view of the drum. The book contains a powerful Anishinaabe interpretive perspective on repatriation and on anthropology itself. Containing fourteen beautiful colour illustrations, Naamiwan’s Drum is a compelling account of repatriation as well as a cautionary tale for museum professionals.

About this title

About the Author

Maureen Matthews is Curator of Ethnology at the Manitoba Museum as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Manitoba.

Review

"Naamiwan’s Drum is a highly rewarding read. Maureen Matthews tells a very compelling, well-grounded, and beautifully written story. This is a subtle, rich, and complex first-rate investigation of repatriation that raises concerns about the agency of objects, their makers and users."

(Janet Catherine Berlo, Department of Art and Art History, University of Rochester)

"Naamiwan’s Drum advances our understanding of a number of important topics including repatriation, Anishanaabeg language use, anthropology and material cultural studies."

(Susan Rowley, Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia and Curator of Public Archaeology, Museum of Anthropology)

"Maureen Matthews’ work is a major contribution to the field. It is rare to find someone who can successfully bridge linguistics, anthropological literature, museums and storytelling."

(Gwyneira Isaac, Curator of North American Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 144262826X
• ISBN 13: 9781442628267
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 356