Alison K. Brown

Narrative Objects is concerned with the conversations that arise when artists, scholars, and museum practitioners come together with historic objects. Its focus is a unique mammoth ivory model of yhyakh – the annual celebration of the Sakha people in the Russian Far East – which has been in the collection of the British Museum since 1867. Almost 150 years later, the model was loaned to the National Arts Museum of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) for exhibition and public engagement. As Sakha people revisit past histories and reconstitute cultural knowledge following decades of Soviet rule, this book considers narratives generated by the return of the model which speak to wider concerns in anthropology, material culture studies, and history about how knowledge is both suppressed and engaged with. The book also explores how art can be a focus for cultural pride, how skilled practices are entwined with oral histories, and how historic objects can contribute to wider processes of cultural revival. The chapters draw on fieldwork and museum and archival research in Sakha Sire, Paris and London. Narrative Objects is particularly relevant to scholars of anthropology and museum studies as well as those with an interest in the subarctic and post-Soviet states.

Model of a Summer Camp is an intriguing object with a range of stories to tell. Originating in the Sakha (Yakutia) region of far northeastern Russia, it depicts a yhyakh celebration – a festival of huge cultural importance to the region. This concise book takes a detailed look at the object, revealing the intricacies of the yhyakh and the model’s fascinating journey from Siberia to the British Museum. The recent resurgence of interest around the model is also explored, where creative responses and research have enriched our understanding of its stories. This book gives readers the opportunity to learn about a unique object in the British Museum’s Collection and the rich heritage of Sakha (Yakutia).

In the pages of this beautifully illustrated volume is the story of aneffort to build a bridge between museums and source communities inhopes of establishing stronger, more sustaining relationships betweenthe two and spurring change in prevailing museum policies. Theexperience of negotiating the tension between a museum'sinstitutional protocol described by both the authors and by Blackfootcontributors to the volume was transformative. Museums seek to preserveobjects for posterity. However, the emotional and spiritual power ofobjects does not vanish with the death of those who created them. ForBlackfoot people today, these shirts are a living presence, one thatevokes a sense of continuity and inspires pride in Blackfoot culturalheritage.

When the Franklin Motor Expedition set out across the Canadian Prairies to collect First Nations artifacts, brutal assimilation policies threatened to decimate these cultures and extensive programs of ethnographic salvage were in place. Despite having only three members, the expedition amassed the largest single collection of Prairie heritage items currently held in a British museum. In this book, Alison K. Brown draws together the multiple narratives that make up this encounter, consulting descendants of the collectors and members of the affected First Nations and reviewing both expedition images and the artifacts themselves. In doing so, she explores the context within which the collection was made as well as the complex relationships between museums, anthropologists, and First Nations. Accessibly written and vigorously researched, First Nations, Museums, Narrations raises timely questions about the role of collections in the twenty-first century and considers the way forward for indigenous peoples and the museums that house their cultural treasures.

When the Franklin Motor Expedition set out across the Canadian Prairies to collect First Nations artifacts, brutal assimilation policies threatened to decimate these cultures and extensive programs of ethnographic salvage were in place. Despite having only three members, the expedition amassed the largest single collection of Prairie heritage items currently held in a British museum. In this book, Alison K. Brown draws together the multiple narratives that make up this encounter, consulting descendants of the collectors and members of the affected First Nations and reviewing both expedition images and the artifacts themselves. In doing so, she explores the context within which the collection was made as well as the complex relationships between museums, anthropologists, and First Nations. Accessibly written and vigorously researched, First Nations, Museums, Narrations raises timely questions about the role of collections in the twenty-first century and considers the way forward for indigenous peoples and the museums that house their cultural treasures.