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An Inuit kayak, war clubs and masks were among the items handed over to Canadian bishops, who vowed to transfer them to Indigenous groups. But some have criticized the “church-to-church” restitution process.The Vatican returned 62 Indigenous artifacts to Canada on Saturday.The items included an Inuit kayak, wampum belts, war clubs and masks, many of which had been held in Vatican museums for 100 years or more.“Every single one of those artifacts are sacred items there, crucial for the healing journey for many residential school survivors,” Bobby Cameron, chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan, told Canadian public broadcaster CBC earlier this year.The Vatican handed the artifacts to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who met with Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican.“The CCCB will proceed, as soon as possible, to transfer these artifacts to the National Indigenous Organizations (NIOs). The NIOs will then ensure that the artifacts are reunited with their communities of origin,” the Canadian bishops said in a statement.How did the items end up in Rome?Catholic missionaries in Canada sent the artifacts to the Vatican during a period of cultural suppression, forced conversions and abuse within the residential school system for Indigenous children.The Inuit kayak was one of 100,000 items sent from around the world to Rome for the 1925 Vatican Missionary Exhibition held by Pope Pius XI.Other items were sent even earlier, like a wampum that was “donated” to Pope Gregory XVI in 1831.The Vatican then held onto the items. More than half of the exhibited artifacts were held at the Missionary Ethnological Museum, which later became part of the Vatican Museums in the 1970s.In 2022, the late Pope Francis made a “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada, where he offered a historic apology for the decadeslong abuse of Indigenous children at Catholic schools in the country, which he described as a “genocide.”During that trip, Indigenous communities in Canada asked the Vatican to return culturally significant items that had been taken away decades ago.Restitution process criticizedIn a statement, the Vatican said the “gifting” of the Indigenous artifacts to Canadian bishops represented “a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity.”But some Indigenous leaders in Canada have criticized the “church-to-church” restitution process.“These First Nations need to see what is actually there and we need to identify what belongs to what nation,” Cheyene Lazore, manager of the Akwesasne Rights & Research Office, told the CBClast month.“There’s a lot of items that were taken and every First Nation will be able to identify what belongs to us. Like there are specific identifiers that we will know what belongs to each community.”Meanwhile, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand welcomed the news.“This is an important step that honors the diverse cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples and supports ongoing efforts toward truth, justice, and reconciliation,” she said on social media.
