Chip Colwell: Why museums are returning cultural treasures
奇普 · 科威尔: 为什么博物馆要归还文物
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.
they're social and educational,
是因为它具有社会价值和教育意义,
because of the magic of objects:
是各件极具魅力的藏品:
to gaze upon our human empire of things
visits each year.
have become a battleground.
don't want to see their culture
到自己并无控制权的
which they have no control over.
本属于自己祖国的文物。
to their places of origin.
of the Parthenon Marbles,
held by the British Museum.
from museums everywhere.
to those made by Native Americans.
相比可以说是小巫见大巫。
more than one million artifacts
他们一百多万件手工艺品
of Native American skeletons.
let's start with the War Gods.
我们先来说说战神。
of the Zuni tribe in New Mexico.
began to collect them
of Picasso and Paul Klee,
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.
should be returned.
contradicts the refrain
印地安纳・琼斯说的,
not just to drive movie plots,
更是为了全社会的利益。
of museums for society.
with the Sonoran Desert's past.
the city's bland strip malls
just waiting to be discovered.
I started taking archaeology classes
even helped me set up my own laboratory
建了属于我个人的实验室,
had a dark history.
还涉及了一段黑暗的历史。
became a tool for science,
of social and racial hierarchies.
were plundered from graves,
骸骨从坟墓里挖出来,
came across white graves,
却会做成标本放到博物馆展示柜里。
as specimens on museum shelves.
boarding schools,
学校成为寄宿制,
were on the cusp of extinction.
but the labels don't matter
贴任何标签都无所谓,
that over the last century,
were taken from them.
through the US Congress,
允许美洲印第安人
Native Americans to reclaim
and human remains from museums.
怎么就变成有生命的神了,
how a piece of wood can be a living god
especially with DNA,
into the past.
Frank Norwick declared,
对全人类而言意义非凡。
that benefits all of mankind.
all of this was an enigma
want their heritage back
spend their entire lives
about living ones?
what to do next,
却不知道之后要做什么,
纳尔逊 · 曼德拉的监狱。
former prison cell on Robben Island.
a country bridge vast divides
reconciliation.
in the ruins of the past?
在曾经的废墟之上播种希望?
of Nature and Science.
many other institutions,
the legacy of museum collecting.
the skeletons in our closet,
我们与几十个部落取得了联系,
we met with dozens of tribes
these remains home.
who will receive the remains,
become undertakers,
they had never wanted unearthed.
and our Native partners
of the human remains in the collection.
hundreds of sacred objects.
that these battles are endless.
of the museum world.
需要归还的文物更是数不胜数。
more museums with more stuff.
in an American public museum
截至目前一共归还了106个。
美国法律的管辖范围之内,
beyond the reach of US law,
and outside our borders.
with a respected religious leader
受人敬重的宗教领袖一同出行,
(Octavius Seowtewa) ,来自祖尼部落,
named Octavius Seowtewa
in Europe with War Gods.
with a history of dubious care.
甚至还把鸡毛放到了战神上。
had added chicken feathers to it.
is now state property
no longer served Zunis
of the objects to the world."
祖尼人会开创危险的先例,
would establish a dangerous precedent
claimed by Greece.
帕特农神庙大理石雕塑。
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
对博物馆产生负面影响,
about one percent
500 cultural items and skeletons,
of its total collections.
with Native Americans
to share their culture with us.
与我们一同分享祖尼文化。
to visit the returned War Gods.
overlooking beautiful Zuni homeland.
俯瞰美丽的祖尼家园。
by a roofless stone building
of turquoise, cornmeal, shell,
绿松石、玉米粉、贝壳,
true purpose in the world.
the histories that we inherit.
did not pillage ancient graves
for correcting past mistakes.
the voiceless objects of our curiosity.
to fully understand others' beliefs,
places for living cultures.
turn lazy circles high above.
that their culture is not dead and gone
for the War Gods to be.
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