MPR’s Matthew Holding Eagle III reports on items related to tribal life in North Dakota being returned digitally. Thousands of culturally significant photographs, wax cylinder recordings and journals recently returned to the place where they were created over a century ago among the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes in North Dakota.
The return of the collection now in the archive of the Minnesota Historical Society was done through a process called digital repatriation. It’s a new tool being used by institutions including museums to return archival quality copies of cultural materials that are not physical objects back to the tribes they belong. These materials are considered intellectual properties.
Awarded:
2023 National Native Media Award, third place in Radio / Podcast – Best Feature Story (Professional Division III) category
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CATHY WURZER: When most folks in and around Indian country hear the word repatriation, they think of material things, cultural artifacts taken from tribes being physically returned. But there's a new process called digital repatriation that's taking another approach. Matthew Holding Eagle III reports.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Dr. Twyla Baker is an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara nation in Northwest North Dakota. She is also president of the tribal college there.
TWYLA BAKER: I'm literally reading right off of the field notes.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: She's reading a journal from just after the turn of the 20th century digitally repatriated to the MHA nation through a partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society.
TWYLA BAKER: I have no wish to enter into any fight. There is a division among the Indians. Those at the mouth of the Little Missouri where they have a settlement have had a quarrel with the independence group.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Digital repatriation is being used by museums and other institutions to return intellectual properties to Indigenous nations. Tribes receive archival quality digitized copies of such things as journal notes, songs, recordings, and photographs. It can be an emotional experience. Baker recalls a day early in the planning stages when someone flipped open a huge photo book to the exact page showing Baker's grandfather, James dressed in full regalia. It brought her to tears.
TWYLA BAKER: It just literally hit home for me so hard. It was like James was saying, "Hey. Here my girl. It's time for us to go home. Come get us."
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: She says digital repatriation is the second best option to getting the actual materials back, but adds digital copies make for easier access by a broader audience. Baker credits an impromptu introduction to former Historical Society curator Ben Gessner at a Minneapolis pizzeria in 2016 for getting the process started. He remembers it well.
BEN GESSNER: And she just goes, "You're the white guy that's got all my things." And was like, "Yeah. Yes, that's me."
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: The things are the Gilbert Wilson collection. It includes thousands of photographs, wax cylinder recordings of songs, and field notes related to the Mandan and Hidatsa ways of life over a century ago.
TWYLA BAKER: And we had these conversations in terms of, what does repatriation look like? And what's it going to look like for the tribe? What type of capacity do we need? What type of tools do we need? And it was a long conversation.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: A semi-professional anthropologist, Wilson worked for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He was also a Presbyterian minister interested in converting tribal members. Gessner says at the time, most anthropologists believed Indigenous people would soon be gone, assimilated or dead.
BEN GESSNER: The idea in anthropology was like, get in, get the things, get them into museums so then at least you're preserving something about the culture.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Wilson was unique for his time. He studied the MHA community from 1907 to 1918 and was adopted by an elder named Buffalo Bird Woman. His 1916 dissertation on Hidatsa agriculture was later published as Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden. After Wilson's death in 1930, his wife split his collection between the Historical Society and the New York Museum. She also stipulated that if the materials were to be published, researchers needed permission from both institutions. That's where Kate Weeda came in. She's curator of manuscripts for the Historical Society. She says the museum had never worked on a project of this scale before.
KATE WEEDA: A team of us started working really more focused in 2019 on how to actually do that work. What steps would we need to put in place? How can we scan these materials in such a way that they can really be used?
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: It took until May of this year to complete the work. Finally, one terabyte of preservation copy, an access copy was digitally repatriated to the MHA nation. This is where I admit the story is of particular interest to me. I am a member of the MHA nation. I had asked Baker just to read a random part of one of the Wilson journals. And as she began reading about a long ago dispute, that's when I got goosebumps.
KATE WEEDA: A young man, James Holding Eagle has been quite active and is now, so the Indians say, in the employ of the North Dakota society. I did not select this passage because of the mention of Golden Eagle. Literally, that was so wild that we came across your name in this little passage.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: Right. It's like, wow. You can't deny certain things.
KATE WEEDA: It's in your face, man.
MATTHEW HOLDING EAGLE III: After hearing the passage, I felt as though part of my great grandfather was returning home too. Matthew Holding Eagle III, NPR News.