Wyoming Episcopal Church will return a tribe’s artifacts after 80 years

 By Anumita Kaur October 2024

Some of the 200 cultural items that the Wyoming Episcopal Church returned to the Northern Arapaho tribe last week. (Crystal C'Bearing)

The Wyoming Episcopal diocese has had about 200 Northern Arapaho tribal items since 1946.  On Monday, the tribe gets them back.

The Wyoming Episcopal Church is set to return about 200 cultural items to the Northern Arapaho tribe on Monday after a years-long effort by the tribe to repatriate the artifacts.

The momentous return for the Northern Arapaho comes as Indigenous activists have urged the nation to reckon with its violent history toward Native Americans. The federal government has tightened laws to return tribes’ items, cities have removed Christopher Columbus monuments, and under the Biden administration, the federal government has said the federal holiday that falls on Monday marks both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The Wyoming Episcopal Church possessed the Northern Arapaho tribe’s artifacts for nearly 80 years — ranging from children’s toys to bows and arrows to traditional dresses. Given to the church by a local store owner who bartered for the items, the state’s Episcopal leadership had been reluctant to return the artifacts for decades, but it shifted its stance as the tribe continued pressing for the items’ return and as the nation more broadly recognized past wrongs toward Native Americans.

It’s about time the items return home, said Jordan Dresser, a former chairman of the Northern Arapaho tribe and one of the community leaders who worked for the artifacts’ return. The Northern Arapaho reside in west central Wyoming on the Wind River Reservation.

“This is a huge win for us. This is for the future. This is us being able to hold on to our culture and our legacy. I get emotional about it, because I just never thought it was going to happen,” Dresser said. “Repatriation has become a big, hot topic in this country, but this is a battle that tribes have been fighting for years.”

The church said the items’ return is long overdue.

“We hope that their return is the beginning of reconciliation, healing and shared community between the Episcopal Church in Wyoming and the Northern Arapaho people,” said Megan Nickles, chair of the standing committee of the Wyoming Episcopal Church. “I would challenge other institutions around the world that hold sacred items to also return them home where they belong.”

The items will eventually be displayed in a museum — currently under renovation — on the Wind River Reservation, Dresser said, “where the Arapaho people can come learn about themselves.”

Beaded clothing items are some of the artifacts being returned. (Crystal C'Bearing)

Across the country, Native American tribes have fought for years to reclaim their human remains and sacred items from museums, universities and other entities.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, passed by Congress in 1990, requires museums and federal agencies to identify and send back sacred items to their respective cultural groups. Compliance was slow — or nonexistent — and the Interior Department issued rules this year to strengthen the law, setting a deadline of five years for federally funded entities to ensure their collections comply with the law.

Following the order, several museums across the country began covering displays of artifacts from federally recognized Native American and Native Hawaiian groups as they determined whether they could obtain consent for the exhibits or would have to return the artifacts, The Washington Post reported.

This helped create the perfect storm for the Wyoming Episcopal Church to return the Northern Arapaho artifacts in its possession. The church is not subject to that law, but it further encouraged all American institutions to reevaluate what to do with artifacts they possess, Dresser said.

The Episcopal Church in Wyoming had possessed the items since 1946. Edith May Adams, who served at St. Michael’s Mission in Ethete, Wyo., ran a small market where she amassed the items as many Native residents would trade them in for necessities, the church said in a statement. Adams later deeded the collection to the church, and the church held the items for the next 78 years.

In 2012, Dresser and other tribe members approached the church to obtain some of the items for a historical display at the Wind River Hotel and Casino. At first, they were told no, Dresser said.

“There were concerns about us having capabilities of housing them. Some had issues with it being connected to a casino,” Dresser said. “We felt like at the core of it, in our hearts, we knew how to care for these items, we just didn’t have the technical expertise for it.”

Dresser went on to obtain a master’s degree in museum studies. “Just to get that foot in the door — so at least one of our tribal members has the technical expertise,” he said, stressing that the tribe “always had the cultural expertise.”

Discussions continued, and eventually the church agreed to loan the tribe about 20 items.

“Back in 2012, we were just happy with the loan,” Dresser said. “Even though, in the back of my head, I thought these should just be ours, because they are ours.”

The conversations did not stop — tribal leaders pressed forward with discussions about the ultimate return of the items to the Northern Arapaho. The tribe’s historic preservation office made repatriation a priority, and many tribal members are also members of the Episcopal Church. “They remind the church of their obligations to our people,” Dresser said.

Twelve years later, their dream is set to be realized Monday.

The approximately 200 items range widely, Dresser said. There are beaded items and figurines, but Dresser’s favorites are the rawhide suitcases. “The earliest suitcases that our people used to put things in,” he said. “They’re just beautiful.”

The tribe and church plan to gather for a ceremony honoring the items’ return.  Now, after years of dispossession, comes the best part, Dresser said: “It’s up to us what we want to do next.”

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