[Episcopal News Service] Northern Arapaho, Eastern Shoshone and Episcopal leaders in Wyoming celebrated the Oct. 14 return of some 200 tribal items that had been in the diocese’s possession for about 80 years.
The 200 or so items that were returned to the Wind River Reservation include a variety of handmade goods, such as these vest and shoes. Photo: Episcopal Church in Wyoming
The handmade items had been given to the Episcopal Church in Wyoming by Edith May Adams, a deaconess who ran a mission store on the Wind River Reservation from 1938-1946. She received the items in lieu of payment from Indigenous families there. The Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone share the reservation, located southeast of Yellowstone National Park.
Tribal leaders, after spending years seeking the items’ return from the diocese, received them back in ceremonies timed to Indigenous Peoples Day.
In the morning, boxes containing the items were loaded into a trailer outside the diocesan offices in Casper. They then were escorted by a caravan of vehicles for the two-hour drive to St. Michael’s Circle on the diocese’s mission campus in Ethete. There, diocesan leaders officially signed over possession of the items, and tribal leaders held a “coming home” ceremony.
The collection, mostly Arapaho items and some Shoshone, ranges from ceremonial headdresses and handcrafted women’s dresses to children’s toys and medicine bags. The items’ return coincided with a broader movement across the United States to pressure museums and other institutions to return certain Indigenous artifacts to the tribes where they originated. Proponents say repatriation of tribal items can help counter the centuries of attempted extermination and forced assimilation of Indigenous tribes by the dominant white society.
Tribal leaders have not suggested Adams took the items in her collection unethically, though through her store she ministered to tribal members already dealing with generational poverty who were seeking supplies at a time of widespread economic deprivation. Episcopal and tribal leaders have suggested some may simply have had no other choice than to trade away cherished family items.
“It was an honor to share in the joy and fulfillment of this celebration and to acknowledge this small step toward reconciliation,” the Rev. Meg Nickles, president of the diocese’s standing committee, told Episcopal News Service in a written statement after the ceremonies. At the same time, she said, the diocese “carried the weight of shame and sorrow within our hearts” for such a delayed repatriation of the items.
Now, with the items back in the possession of the tribes, leaders there are discussing possible options for displaying some of the items publicly in a cultural exhibit.