The Museums Association of Saskatchewan (MAS) Repatriation Portal is a project that endeavours to provide access to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nations cultural heritage belongings/artefacts currently held in museums and collections for the purpose of facilitating repatriation of belongings and records in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) articles (specifically Articles 11, 12, and 31) and best practices for museums. This is an ongoing project, which means that the belongings and information recorded on this site will continue to change and grow.

The primary focus of this project is to help First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nations and Communities in Saskatchewan in locating their cultural heritage belongings held in museums.

Any museum may contribute to this if they have First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nations cultural heritage belongings/artefacts originating from the Indigenous Nations and Communities of Saskatchewan. Any museum in Saskatchewan holding Indigenous cultural heritage belongings from Indigenous Peoples beyond Saskatchewan may share information in this project to further support UNDRIP and global repatriation efforts.
 

More Information
 

Danyluk, Stephanie and MacKenzie, Rebecca. Moved to Action: Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums. 2022. (https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/TRC_2022/Report-CMA-MovedToAction.pdf)

The Canadian Museums Association’s (CMA) Moved to Action: Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums, discusses at length the “Historical Considerations” (pages 10-32) around how First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nations’ belongings came to be in the hands of museums. It is an invaluable resource to better understand the significance of how Canadian museums acquired Indigenous cultural heritage.

Museums Association of Saskatchewan. “Appendix B: Indigenous Standards.” In Standards for Saskatchewan Museums. 123-127. 2022. (full Standards: https://saskmuseums.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Standards-for-Saskatchewan-Museums-2022-Sixth-Edition.pdf; just Appendix B: https://saskmuseums.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/APPENDIX-B-Standards-for-Saskatchewan-Museums-2022-Sixth-Edition.pdf)

Sacred and culturally sensitive belongings are priorities for repatriation efforts. Acknowledging that these can be fairly broad terms, MAS has a brief list of examples of First Nations and Michif/Métis belongings that can be used as a bit of a guide. It is important to respect that the museum or collector does not determine what is or is not sacred or culturally sensitive, this is determined by the Originating Community.

United Nations. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 13 September 2007. (https://social.desa.un.osasrg/sites/default/files/migrated/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf)

UNDRIP Article 11 (pages 11-12)

1.   Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.

2.   States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

UNDRIP Article 12 (page 12)

1.   Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains.

2.   States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.

UNDRIP Article 31 (pages 22-23)

1.    Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the 23 right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.

2.    In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights

Notes on some terms used
Some of the terms used throughout this site may either be commonplace or unknown to users. As this work is done in support of UNDRIP and focuses on museological best practices the terms used have been chosen to reflect this and endeavours to support efforts and repair harms caused by colonialism and the perpetuation of colonial practices through museum practices. These definitions are not intended to be exclusive in such a way that it might preclude any suitable items from repatriation.

Belongings/artefacts
“Belongings” was initially adopted following the guidance from the Canadian Museums Association’s Moved to Action report, which explained the preference for “belongings” over the more common term “artefact(s)” as artefact(s) has been typically applied in a way that has frequently minimized the special connection it has to specific people, and stripping the spiritual elements from it, reducing it to an inanimate impersonal object(s), while “belongings” endeavours to redress this imbalance through the open acknowledgement of these belongings as kin.

However, “belongings” is not as commonly used outside of museum professional circles yet, and “artefact(s)” is a term with which the public is more familiar. While preference is given to using “belongings”, in an effort to ensure the public understands what this is referring to, the term “belongings/artefacts” has been used in several occurrences.

Cultural Heritage
“Cultural heritage includes artefacts, monuments, a group of buildings and sites, museums that have a diversity of values including symbolic, historic, artistic, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological, scientific and social significance. It includes tangible heritage (movable, immobile and underwater), intangible cultural heritage (ICH) embedded into cultural, and natural heritage artefacts, sites or monuments. The definition excludes ICH related to other cultural domains such as festivals, celebration etc. It covers industrial heritage and cave paintings.” From UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics (https://uis.unesco.org/en/glossary-term/cultural-heritage)

Harmful Legacies
The academic fields of archaeology, anthropology, and ideas about biological evolution were born during a time period of intense colonization and imperialism. Those ideas at that time were wedded to their social and historical context, and a zeitgeist that sought to establish an inherent hierarchy of peoples, in an attempt to explain the apparent differences between the peoples of the world, and justify exploitation. Embedded in the writings and thinking from that time is the incorrect notion that some peoples were inherently superior to others. This notion was used to sanction unspeakable amounts of violence and oppression throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. As we today try to reckon with that difficult history we have inherited, and blaze a path toward a more equitable future, where the dignity of all people is respected, we must contend with the fact that some of those harmful historical notions were enshrined in museum curation and interpretation practices, and perpetuated in the narratives that museums portrayed.

Repatriation of Indigenous artefacts/belongings is one way to address some of the lingering harms from that time period, but it is, by necessity, a sensitive topic, and we do not undertake it lightly. The documentation that museums have for the items within their collections often contains terminology that are inaccurate, inappropriate, or mistaken, by the light of our modern thinking. To the extent that such language might be repeated here, it is done solely with the intention of describing the item, such as it is known by the relevant documentation, and to highlight the historical connection an item has to particular people, in as far as such documentation can demonstrate, to help reunite the item with those people or their descendants. We must admit that such documentation is necessarily nested within the social and historical context at that time it was written, and to reproduce the details in such documentation we risk reproducing the inaccurate or inappropriate notions that are associated with them. We do not intend to perpetuate any of the historic harms that such terminology may entail, and we welcome input to help enhance the accuracy and respectful truth of the descriptions that accompany each item.

Further, we are, in some cases, faced with a severely limited level of documented information about an item. Any details expressed are represented as truthfully as they are known to be by the Museums Association of Saskatchewan, but the possibility exists of error within that information. We can only humbly apologize for any difficult feelings these inaccuracies may induce, and invite your help to correct any such errors.

Indigenous Rights Holders
From Moved to Action,

“Indigenous rights refers to practices, traditions and customs that distinguish the unique culture of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Nations. Indigenous rights holders are Indigenous peoples who hold title to Indigenous rights.

Indigenous rights are inherent, collective rights that have been held since time immemorial and flow and from legal and social orders created by each Indigenous Nation. These rights are maintained and protected in many ways, including in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act.” (pg. 120).

Indigenous/Indigenous Peoples
Within a Canadian context, “Indigenous” has been used as a collective term applied to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nations/Peoples. It is a term also used to collectively refer to peoples globally subjected to colonization.

References:
2007. “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” United Nations. https://social.desa.un.org/sites/default/files/migrated/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf

2009. “Cultural Heritage.” UNESCO Institute for Statistics. https://uis.unesco.org/en/glossary-term/cultural-heritage

2018. “Native Land Digital.” Native Land Digital. https://native-land.ca/

2022. “Moved to Action: Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums.” Canadian Museums Association (CMA). https://museums.ca/uploaded/web/TRC_2022/Report-CMA-MovedToAction.pdf

2022. “Standards for Saskatchewan Museums.” Museums Association of Saskatchewan (MAS). https://saskmuseums.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Standards-for-Saskatchewan-Museums-2022-Sixth-Edition.pdf