Chip Colwell: Why museums are returning cultural treasures
צ'יפ קולוול: למה מוזאונים מחזירים אוצרות תרבותיים
Chip Colwell is an archaeologist who tries to answer the tangled question: Who owns the past? Full bio
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and a museum curator,
back to where they came from.
להיכן שהם הגיעו ממנו.
they're social and educational,
חברתיים וחינוכיים,
because of the magic of objects:
to gaze upon our human empire of things
על האימפריה האנושית שלנו של דברים
visits each year.
have become a battleground.
מוזאונים הפכו לשדה קרב.
don't want to see their culture
את התרבות שלהן
which they have no control over.
to their places of origin.
of the Parthenon Marbles,
held by the British Museum.
בידי המוזאון הבריטי.
from museums everywhere.
ממוזאונים בכל העולם.
to those made by Native Americans.
לאלה של ילידי אמריקה.
more than one million artifacts
יותר ממיליון חפצים
of Native American skeletons.
let's start with the War Gods.
בא נתחיל באלי המלחמה.
of the Zuni tribe in New Mexico.
began to collect them
אנתרופולוגים התחילו לאסוף אותם
of Picasso and Paul Klee,
של פיקאסו ופול קלי
the modern art movement.
did exactly as it's supposed to
a little-known art form
a terrible crime of cultural violence.
is not a piece of art,
in a long ceremony.
או למכור אל מלחמה
יחזירו להם אותם
should be returned.
contradicts the refrain
not just to drive movie plots,
לא רק כדי להניע עלילה קולנועית,
of museums for society.
של המוזאונים לחברה.
with the Sonoran Desert's past.
the city's bland strip malls
האפרוריים של העיר
just waiting to be discovered.
I started taking archaeology classes
even helped me set up my own laboratory
להקים מעבדה משל עצמי
had a dark history.
יש הסטוריה אפלה.
became a tool for science,
הפכו לכלי עבור המדע,
of social and racial hierarchies.
של היררכיות חברתיות וגזעיות.
were plundered from graves,
נשדדו מקברים,
came across white graves,
as specimens on museum shelves.
כחומר לאיסוף על מדפי המוזאון.
boarding schools,
were on the cusp of extinction.
נמצאים על סף הכחדה.
but the labels don't matter
או קולוניאליזם, אבל התוויות לא משנות,
that over the last century,
were taken from them.
through the US Congress,
Native Americans to reclaim
לילידים אמריקאיים להשיב אליהם
and human remains from museums.
ושרידי אדם ממוזאונים.
how a piece of wood can be a living god
יכולה להיות אל חי
especially with DNA,
into the past.
Frank Norwick declared,
that benefits all of mankind.
לכל המין האנושי.
all of this was an enigma
want their heritage back
את המורשת שלהם חזרה
spend their entire lives
about living ones?
what to do next,
לא הייתי בטוח מה לעשות הלאה,
former prison cell on Robben Island.
של נלסון מנדלה באי רובן.
a country bridge vast divides
לגשר על תהומות עצומים
reconciliation.
in the ruins of the past?
בין הריסות העבר?
of Nature and Science.
many other institutions,
מוסדות רבים אחרים,
the legacy of museum collecting.
עם המורשת של אוספים מוזיאליים.
the skeletons in our closet,
we met with dozens of tribes
these remains home.
את השרידים האלה הביתה.
who will receive the remains,
become undertakers,
they had never wanted unearthed.
שמעולם לא רצו שיחשפו.
and our Native partners
עם שותפינו האינדיאניים
of the human remains in the collection.
hundreds of sacred objects.
that these battles are endless.
הוא אין סופי.
of the museum world.
more museums with more stuff.
in an American public museum
beyond the reach of US law,
להישג ידו של החוק האמריקאי,
and outside our borders.
with a respected religious leader
יחד עם מנהיג דתי מכובד
named Octavius Seowtewa
in Europe with War Gods.
שיש להם אלי מלחמה.
with a history of dubious care.
had added chicken feathers to it.
is now state property
הוא כיום רכוש המדינה
no longer served Zunis
בשימוש של אנשי הזוני
of the objects to the world."
"אנחנו מעניקים את כל החפצים לעולם".
would establish a dangerous precedent
יצור תקדים מסוכן
claimed by Greece.
to his people empty-handed.
the Ahayu:da so far away.
that's missing from a family dinner.
their strength is broken."
in Europe and beyond
do not represent the end of museums
את סופם של המוזאונים
about one percent
500 cultural items and skeletons,
500 פריטי תרבותיים ושלדים,
of its total collections.
99.999 אחוזים מכלל האוספים שלו.
with Native Americans
to share their culture with us.
לחלוק את התרבות שלהם אתנו.
to visit the returned War Gods.
את אלי המלחמה המושבים.
overlooking beautiful Zuni homeland.
על המולדת הזונית היפה.
by a roofless stone building
of turquoise, cornmeal, shell,
אבן טורקיז, קמח תירס, צדפים,
true purpose in the world.
של אלי המלחמה בעולם.
the histories that we inherit.
ההיסטוריות אותן אנחנו יורשים.
did not pillage ancient graves
לא שדדו קברים עתיקים
for correcting past mistakes.
לתיקון טעויות העבר.
the voiceless objects of our curiosity.
חסר הקול של הסקרנות שלנו.
to fully understand others' beliefs,
להבין את האמונות שלהם,
places for living cultures.
לתרבויות חיות.
turn lazy circles high above.
that their culture is not dead and gone
לא מתה או נעלמה
for the War Gods to be.
לאלי המלחמה.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Chip Colwell - Archaeologist, museum curatorChip Colwell is an archaeologist who tries to answer the tangled question: Who owns the past?
Why you should listen
Chip Colwell is an archaeologist and museum curator who has published 11 books that invite us to rethink how Native American history is told. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian and TIME, while his research has been highlighted in the New York Times, BBC, Forbes and elsewhere. Most recently, he wrote Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture, which The Wall Street Journal dubbed "a careful and intelligent chronicle" and won a 2018 Colorado Book Award.
In 1990, Colwell fell in love with archaeology. Still in high school, he decided to make a life for himself discovering ancient windswept ruins across the American Southwest. But in college he discovered that archaeologists have not always treated Native Americans with respect. In museums were thousands of Native American skeletons, grave goods and sacred objects -- taken with the consent of Native communities. Disheartened, he planned to leave the field he revered. But an epiphany struck that instead he should help develop a new movement in archaeology and museums based on the dignity and rights of Native Americans.
When Colwell was hired as a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, he had the chance to address the dark legacies of museum collecting. He and his colleagues began consulting with hundreds of tribes about the return of skeletons and sacred objects. In this work, Colwell realized, too, there was an important story to share that explored vital questions. Why do museums collect so many things? Why is it offensive to some that museums exhibit human remains and religious items? What are the legal rights of museums -- and the moral claims of tribes? What do we lose when artifacts go home? And what do we gain?
Chip Colwell | Speaker | TED.com