Staff Papers
National Libraries and First Nations
Recently returned from a fact-finding trip, Graeme Powell examines the policies and collection strategies of national institutions in New Zealand, Canada and the United States concerning the documentation of their indigenous cultures.
CONTENTS
In the last few years librarians and archivists in Australia have questioned the relevance of their institutions for Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Issues debated have included the desirability of either strengthening or dispersing indigenous collections, the need to enhance access to collections through special bibliographies and indexes, the provision of information services to indigenous communities, the racist or offensive nature of some subject headings used in catalogues, access to secret and sacred materials, recruitment and training of Aboriginal staff, and representation of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders on library councils and boards. These and other issues were given formal expression in a set of National Protocols for Libraries, Archives and Information Services, drafted in 1994.
Staff of the National Library have taken part in these discussions, but we have been hampered by lack of experience and expertise. In post-Mabo Australia the Library's staff accept the need to take a more active role in preserving the documentation of indigenous peoples and in providing services to those peoples. At the same time staff recognise that other collecting bodies are bound to have a closer relationship with Aboriginal communities, most of whom live vast distances from Canberra. In attempting to clarify the Library's role, staff examined the policies and responsibilities that national libraries have adopted in other countries, notably New Zealand, Canada and the United States.
The relevance of overseas experience can always be questioned and it is essential that major cultural and political differences are taken into account. In New Zealand, for instance, the Maoris make up at least 10 per cent of the population, they are highly concentrated in the North Island, they are united by a single language, they took to writing with great enthusiasm and they have always had some direct representation in Parliament and other political bodies. The situation in Hawaii is not dissimilar. In contrast, in North America and Australia the indigenous peoples form a much smaller proportion of the population, they are widely dispersed, their cultures are oral rather than literary, they have been far more divided by language, beliefs, customs and even race, and until recent times their political power was negligible. Despite these differences, there are major commonalities. In particular, in each of the countries in the last 20 years there has been agitation for the repossession of land and political self-determination, the protection of sacred sites and preservation of traditional chants, stories and artefacts, renewed interest in genealogy and tribal or community history, and a resurgence of indigenous art, music and creative writing. In March 1995 I set off on a rapid tour of 22 libraries, archives and museums in New Zealand, Canada and the United States (including Hawaii). In part, I was looking at the current practices of major institutions in collecting, processing, preserving and making available manuscripts and private archives. In addition, I tried to learn a little about their policies and practices in collecting records of indigenous peoples and in providing services to indigenous communities. This is a very large subject and to survey the whole gamut of collecting institutions would have taken many months. I was able to visit a few regional archives and university libraries, such as the Glenbow Archives and Museum in Calgary, the Newberry Library in Chicago, Yale University Library in New Haven and the Auckland City Libraries. My focus, however, was on national institutions and the greater part of my time was spent in Ottawa, Washington and Wellington.
National Museums
The oldest collections in each of the national museums are artefacts and artworks which were created by indigenous peoples and were generally collected by European travellers, missionaries, soldiers, surveyors and others in the nineteenth century. They are often spectacular and have pride of place within the museums. In the new building occupied by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the largest room, looking out across the Ottawa River towards the Parliament Buildings, is the Native Peoples Hall, in which totem poles, war canoes and other large artefacts are displayed. Similarly, the central hall of the National Museum of New Zealand houses a magnificent Maori meeting house dating from 1840, as well as canoes and other Maori artefacts. In Hawaii the foundation collections of the unofficial national museum were assembled by Bernice Bishop and other members of the Hawaiian Royal Family late last century and the Bishop Museum in Honolulu has always placed great emphasis on the cultural heritage of native Hawaiians. While these museums are located in capital cities, they have always employed ethnologists and other specialist staff who have undertaken fieldwork among remote indigenous communities. Their relationships with the communities were often complex, but many of the staff acquired a great knowledge of native beliefs and customs and an understanding of the spirituality of the objects, chants or stories that they collected. Consequently, museum curators took steps to ensure that sensitive materials were housed and made available under special conditions. Even today, most ethnologists and curators are of European descent, but the number of indigenous peoples employed by museums is slowly increasing and they often have special responsibility for negotiating with particular communities over the ownership, display and use of items and collections.
Ownership has become a major issue in museums, and museum collections have become entangled with claims for land and self-government by indigenous communities. For instance, as part of an enormous land claim, the Nishga First Nation of British Columbia has demanded the repatriation of all artefacts created by their forebears held in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. If this claim succeeds, it could be followed by another 30 such claims and ultimately the Museum could lose many of its greatest treasures. Some museums take a positive attitude to repatriation, seeing it as part of a process of decentralisation and democratisation of collections. Others strongly resist such claims. In New Zealand the Otago Museum has opposed for over ten years the demand of the Ngata Awa (clan) to repatriate an 1875 meeting house which the Museum acquired over 50 years ago. On the other hand, the National Museum of New Zealand is negotiating with many iwis (tribes) over the display of Maori artefacts in its new building (due to open in 1998) and the possibility of repatriation is openly discussed.
National Archives
In Australia the major responsibility for the regulation and welfare of Aborigines, at least until 1967, has rested with the State governments. In contrast, in New Zealand, Canada and the United States the administration of aboriginal affairs has always been the responsibility of the national governments. National or federal agencies such as the Department of Indian Affairs in Canada and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in America have been in existence for well over a century and have accumulated extensive records relating to the population, the ownership and use of land, the administration of reservations, health, native schools and other subjects. Consequently, by far the greatest concentrations of written records concerning indigenous peoples in these countries are preserved in the national archives. The bulk of these records were written by officials or agents who were of European descent, but scattered among them can be found petitions or letters in which can be heard the authentic voices of indigenous peoples.
In the last 20 years archives have experienced an enormous influx of indigenous researchers. Land records have provided the greatest attraction and indigenous claimants or their representatives, as well as the representatives of governments and tribunals, have made lengthy and intense use of a great variety of land records. The other main area of research is genealogy. Some researchers are motivated by curiosity or pride in their ancestry, others have strong economic or political reasons for seeking to establish their membership of a band, tribe or iwi. In Canada, for example, during 1985-90 nearly 70,000 people used government records in order to register under the Indian Act as status Indians. Indigenous peoples have come to value archives and now form a major user group. Archives also have symbolic value, as the repositories for the original treaties which defined settler - indigenous relations. Most Maori schoolchildren know that the Treaty of Waitangi can be seen in the National Archives in Wellington, just as the First Nations in the prairie provinces know that their original treaties are in the National Archives in Ottawa.
Indigenous peoples are poorly represented on the staffs of national archives. Nevertheless, some staff have specialised in indigenous records and also have a good deal of experience in helping indigenous researchers. Archives have devoted substantial resources to making records more accessible, by compiling guides, inventories and indexes and by large-scale microfilming projects. Each archives has a network of regional branches, the staff of which sometimes establish close links with particular communities. In the United States, for example, a large proportion of native Americans live west of the Mississippi and rather than travel to Washington they can consult federal records, or copies of records, at Fort Worth, Portland and other centres.
National Libraries
Compared with museums and archives, national libraries and other research libraries appear to have more difficulty in defining their role in relation to indigenous communities. Occupying monumental buildings in the centres of capital cities, the libraries are remote from most communities, their holdings are not known to or valued by those communities, and they have seldom offered services aimed specifically at indigenous peoples.
With the partial exception of the National Library of Canada, which has a more limited collecting policy, the national libraries all have formidable collections of books, newspapers, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, oral histories, maps and films concerning indigenous peoples. As with government records, most of this material was written or produced by non-indigenous individuals, although the National Library of New Zealand has major collections of Maori letters and other papers. The collections are especially strong in records of early contact, such as publications of missionaries or drawings of explorers and soldiers. There is possibly not quite the same strength in modern collections and the libraries seemed wary about setting up projects to document the lives and aspirations of contemporary indigenous peoples. For instance, the view was expressed that oral history projects should be initiated by local groups rather than by libraries.
Unlike museums, relevant holdings in national libraries are seldom highly visible and, unlike archives, they are usually dispersed throughout the collections. In particular, information about specific tribes, bands or iwis tends to be scattered and is not easily retrieved. Some librarians reported a growing number of academics and students in the field of native studies, but in general indigenous peoples have not been prominent among users of national libraries. The National Library of New Zealand goes further than other libraries in trying to attract indigenous users: its signs are in Maori as well as English, there is a Maori reference collection and meeting area on the ground floor, and a Maori reference team has responsibility for assisting Maori readers.
Virtually all the libraries that I visited are taking action to make their indigenous holdings more accessible. The Library of Congress is publishing a general guide, the National Archives of Canada is planning a CD-ROM, the National Library of New Zealand has produced an automated database (TAPUHI) and also a bibliography of pre-1900 Maori language publications. Other institutions, such as the Archives of Ontario and the Glenbow Archives, have issued guides which reveal very strong holdings on First Nation peoples. In some cases, indigenous staff or researchers have contributed to these guides and databases. In the 1980s the Cylinder Project of the Library of Congress brought staff of the Library into contact with many of the tribal councils on the reservations. The staff presented the councils with copies of sound recordings, dating back to 1890, which described ceremonies and rituals and in some cases preserved languages that had otherwise vanished. This was a highly unusual project and in general national libraries have few links with indigenous communities. Unlike museums, libraries have so far met with few demands for repatriation. Access conditions to secret and sacred materials, such as chants, may be based on advice from communities. Photographs are not generally restricted, but librarians are increasingly aware that reproductions may be extremely offensive and advice should be sought about appropriate use. In the area of community relations, the National Library of New Zealand is again the pacesetter. There are currently three liaison officers, based in Auckland and Hamilton, who travel among Maori communities, publicise the Library's collections and services, and support bicultural development in general library services.
My tour of libraries, archives and museums was rewarding in giving me a glimpse of the rich cultural heritage of the Maori, Hawaiian, Inuit, Canadian Indian and Native American peoples. At times the cultural differences seemed far greater than the similarities, even though many of the concerns, problems and achievements of contemporary indigenous peoples are remarkably similar. It is apparent that in the last decade libraries and other collecting institutions have become far more sensitive to the concerns of indigenous peoples and have accepted the need to make their collections more accessible, to consult with indigenous communities, and to foster the training and recruitment of indigenous peoples. Exactly how far they will go in the next few years will depend in part on political factors and ultimately there must be some divergence between the biculturalism espoused by the New Zealand government and the multiculturalism favoured by the Australian and North American governments.
Graeme Powell, Manuscript Librarian
November 1995.
