Mi'kmaw beaders repair damage on 100-year-old relics

Armed with needle, thread, tweezers, magnifying glass and shish kebab sticks, two expert Mi'kmaw beaders have been tasked with preparing some century-old artifacts for their eventual return to Nova Scotia.

Just a few miles from the White House, around 500 rare Mi'kmaw artifacts have sat in the Smithsonian's collection for decades. They were gathered by anthropologists who toured Atlantic Canada during their studies of Indigenous communities in the early 1900s.

Nik Phillips of Millbrook First Nation and Jocelyn Marshall of Membertou First Nation spent a week at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., in May to assess and begin repairing beaded items that are among the artifacts slated to be repatriated to the Mi'kmawey Debert Cultural Centre in Debert, N.S.

"I started beading 20 years ago. So, you know, it was like all my blood, sweat and tears that went into my beadwork finally got me to where I was at in Washington doing that work," said Marshall. 

Phillips and Marshall initially expected only to examine the items and advise museum representatives about what repairs needed to be done. But they found themselves uniquely positioned as the only experts in Washington who had the knowledge and ability to restore the artifacts.

So they began to meticulously carry out small repairs on peaked caps, wampum belts, men's regalias, leadership regalias, moccasins, baby items and other relics. 

Phillips said they used white thread and left distinctive tails on each of the repair jobs to reflect the work they'd done.

"We were really just there to keep the story intact, not alter the story or change the story or try to put our expertise on somebody else's work."

Earlier in the year, expert basket makers and quillwork artists representing the Debert centre made similar trips to the museum.  

New discoveries deeper than surface level

The eyes of the expert Mi'kmaw beaders uncovered significant details to add to the stories of the artifacts. 

Phillips and Marshall found that each piece had a spirit bead — an out-of-place bead included intentionally as an act of humility to show that no artist is perfect — and one of the pieces included white horse hair used to lay down the beads. The style at the time had been to use guard hairs from porcupine or moose.

Close examination of the beadwork also revealed that some pieces contained work by multiple artists with different styles, and some were found to have already undergone repair work. 

In previous trips, team members from Mi'kmawey Debert were able to look through archival photographs that anthropologist Frederick Johnson took in the 1900s and match up specific items in the museum with their owners in the photographs. 

'It needs to return home'

The work to bring the artifacts home dates back to 1999 when Tim Bernard, director of Mi'kmawey Debert, began developing relationships with the museum after he learned of the significant collection of sacred Mi'kmaw items. 

Dozens of trips by teams from the centre have since led to a memorandum of understanding with the museum for the eventual repatriation of the relics. 

"It needs to return home. The collections, the stories, the people that know things about the cultural material there are in community, they're not in Washington, D.C.," said Bernard.

"This collection here is unique to us because you know the communities attached to them, and in some cases we know who the people are that own them … their descendants are still in the community."

The repair work was undertaken through the Smithsonian's Shared Stewardship and Ethical Returns Policy that was adopted in 2022.

Earlier this year, new U.S. regulations under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act came into effect that require American institutions to obtain permission from tribes to display remains and cultural objects. 

Canada currently has no federal legislation regarding the repatriation of Indigenous items.

Caitlin Mahoney, conservator with the Washington museum, says the work that's been done with the Mi'kmaq represents a level of care and partnership beyond what she's ever seen. 

"We're working out what shared stewardship agreements and projects look like here, and I couldn't think of better partners [than the Mi'kmaq] because we have such a long-standing relationship that there's trust.

"The core of our approach to care is acknowledging that the expertise lies in community and there are limits to us and our best intentions of care."

The artifacts are expected to be returned to Nova Scotia once a new Mi'kmawey Debert Cultural Centre is built. Plans call for the completion of that project in the spring of 2027. 

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