The Episcopal Church in Wyoming returned more than 200 cultural and sacred items to the Northern Arapaho Tribe during a ceremony in Ethete on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They’d been in the church’s possession for almost 80 years.
A couple hundred people and students from Wyoming Indian Schools gathered in a grassy field on Oct. 14 at St. Michael’s Circle in Ethete for the “Coming Home - Noe'heeckoohut Hiisi'” celebration. The afternoon included prayers, a cedaring, drumming, words from Northern Arapaho elders and leaders, and a liturgy of lament and healing from the Episcopal Church.
Northern Arapaho elder Marian Scott said it was very historical to have the collection back with the tribe.
“I am just so proud that they are back home and they're going to stay here with us now,” she said.
Scott had turned eighty the day before the celebration. She was part of a group that went to Casper earlier in the year to see the items, which were previously being stored at the church’s diocesan office.
“Every time we opened a box and we seen those things that were in there, I could actually feel those people who they belonged to. And it was very, very emotional,” she said. “It still is because they're here now. They're back home.”
The items, which range from children’s toys to traditional dresses, were previously part of the Edith May Adams collection. Adams served as a deaconess of the church at St. Michael’s Mission in Ethete from 1938 to 1946, after which she deeded the items to the church.
Crystal C. Bearing is the director of the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office, which has been instrumental in the repatriation process. At the ceremony, she said bringing the items back home took a whole community.
“All the people before me, the directors, the elders committee, everybody who has pushed this forward for all these years, all these decades, all the work they have done has led to this moment,” she said. “It was not just me alone or our office, but it was all those people before us that have pushed this for all this whole time.”
Bearing added that the Episcopal Church in Wyoming held a service of lament in Casper right before the return.
“I got very emotional last night during that time, to just hear a group of people say the wrongs that they've done to us and that they apologized,” she said.
In 2012, Northern Arapaho member Jordan Dresser and other tribal members approached the Episcoal Church about putting items from the collection into a museum that was in the works at the Wind River Hotel and Casino. The church started to loan a small number of the items back to the tribe, but did not give the collection back in full.
Dresser went on to co-produce the film What Was Ours, which explored the complicated issue of tribal ownership of their own material history. He is also a former chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council.
After the collection was legally signed over to the tribe, Dresser described the feeling as coming “full circle.”
“My heart's really full and I feel lucky to have been a part of this journey, but also to see it complete,” he said. “It's something I never thought would happen, but I think institutions, including museums across the world, are finally seeing that these items belong to our people and that's who they should go to.”
As for the future? The next step is to build a new home for the items on the reservation.
“I'm just excited for what's the next possibility, which is creating a museum where we tell who we are as Arapaho people,” said Dresser.
Tune in to Open Spaces Friday, Oct. 25 and Sunday, Oct. 27 to learn more about how these items were ultimately returned to the Northern Arapaho Tribe and what's next for the collection.
