By India Young, Princeton University Art Museum, USA Digital Repatriation is an emerging effort from museums to conceptually return belongings, largely removed during colonial nation-building programs. It utilizes the tools of technology to make visible the deepest recesses of museum collections. The Princeton University Art Museum has begun one such undertaking to make a collection of Northwest Coast Indigenous belongings publicly available. To center digital repatriation, in what could otherwise be a cataloging project, Princeton is working to create meaningful engagement with Northwest Coast communities so that communities themselves determine how their belongings are represented within physical and digital spaces. This talk focuses on the relationship between naming and claiming. Princeton’s online resource will name Indigenous belongings in their own language. To determine names, Princeton is creating a forum for Indigenous speakers and learners to collaborate and decide how objects should be titled. Naming is at the heart of concepts of truth, sovereignty, and belonging. Princeton’s Indigenous naming project will conceptually return belongings, and also make visible the colonial implications that tie removals of belongings to histories of language loss and language revitalization.

1. Naming and Claiming:
Indigenous Language and
Digital Repatriation
India Young
Princeton University Art Museum
iy@princeton.edu

2. Tlingit, Yakutat
K’aakanéi (bowl) for eex (grease)
in the form of a seal
before 1886
Cedar
h. 6.3 cm., l. 20.2 cm., w. 17.0 cm.
PU 5229
WHERE THE PROJECT BEGAN

3. QUESTIONS
What are the obligaWons and best pracWces for an insWtuWon?
Who does a collecWons database serve?
What does the most simple record convey?
What can be known in the absence of informaWon? How does the known contribute to redress?
How can the unknown become visible? Can absences of knowledge contribute to redress?
How does the insWtuWon return cultural and intellectual property and authority online?
Where are the dangers of repeaWng colonial constructs?

4. TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
ReconciliaWon requires construcWve acWon on addressing the ongoing legacies of colonialism that have had
destrucWve impacts on Aboriginal peoples’ educaWon, cultures, and languages, health, child welfare,
administraWon of jusWce, and economic opportuniWes and prosperity.
CALLS TO ACTIONS
Towards reconciliaWon in museums, archives, and churches, the TRC calls upon the federal government,
the Canadian Museums AssociaWon, the Library and Archives of Canada, and the Canadian AssociaWon of
Archivists to comply with the United NaWons DeclaraWon on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to establish
commemoraWon projects on the theme of reconciliaWon, and to ensure that records are available for
public access.

5. UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION
ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
ArWcle 11.2. States shall provide redress through effecWve mechanisms, which may include resWtuWon, developed in
conjuncWon with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property
taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violaWon of their laws, tradiWons, and customs.
ArWcle 12.2 States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriaWon of ceremonial objects and human remains in
their possession through fair, transparent and effecWve mechanisms developed in conjuncWon with indigenous
peoples concerned.
ArWcle 13.1 Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generaWons their
histories, languages, oral tradiWons, philosophies, wriWng systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their
own names for communiWes, places, and persons.
ArWcle 31.1 Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect, and develop their cultural heritage,
tradiWonal knowledge and tradiWonal cultural expression… They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and
develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, tradiWonal knowledge, and tradiWonal cultural
expression.

6. LINDA TUHIWAI SMITH’S DECOLONIAL METHODOLOGIES
“Name the word, name the world” – Paulo Freire
NAMING means renaming the world using the original indigenous names. It is about retaining as much
control over meaning as possible. By naming the world people name their realiWes. For communiWes there
are realiWes which can only be found in the indigenous language; the concepts which are self-evident in
the indigenous language can never be captured by another language.
CLAIMING In a sense colonialism has reduced indigenous peoples to making claims and asserWons about
rights and dues. It is an approach that has a certain noisiness to it. Indigenous peoples, however, have
transformed claiming. [Claimed histories] teach both non-indigenous audiences and new generaWons of
indigenous peoples an official account of their collecWve story. It may be that in Wme the histories will
have to be rewrijen around other prioriWes.
RESTORING Ÿ RETURNING Ÿ NETWORKING Ÿ SHARING Ÿ CONNECTING Ÿ TESTIMONIES Ÿ STORY TELLING Ÿ
CELEBRATING SURVIVAL Ÿ REMEMBERING Ÿ INDIGENIZING Ÿ INTERVENING Ÿ REVITALIZING Ÿ READING Ÿ
WRITING Ÿ REPRESENTING Ÿ GENDERING Ÿ ENVISIONING Ÿ REFRAMING Ÿ DEMOCRATIZING Ÿ
NEGOTIATING Ÿ DISCOVERING Ÿ PROTECTING

7. Northern Northwest Coast
probably Haida
Feast dish
Before 1882
Cedar
h. 9.5 cm., l. 43.5 cm., w. 22.5 cm
PU 5225
Lent by the Department of Geology and Geosciences, Princeton University
Naming people and places
Naming belongings
Establishing dates
Exercising ownership