quillworkers and others to the NMAI to guide and possibly address any treatment needed to prepare the items for their final journey home. Once there, the Mi’kmaw community will continue to care for them. This partnership between the NMAI and the MDCC is an exemplary example of shared steward- ship, a policy implemented by the Smithsonian Insti- tution in April of this year. As McHugh said, “We recognize expertise lives
in the community, and once the items are home, we know the relationship between us will continue and evolve.” Rachel Shabica, NMAI’s supervisory registrar who has helped coordinate the project, agrees, “The MDCC have been excellent partners and we are already working on plans for our work together to continue.” When the items do voyage home, “We will be
caring for this collection as a nation,” said Tim Ber- nard, the current MDCC executive director. “We couldn’t applaud NMAI more for their commit- ment to returning these objects,” said Rosenmeier. The design for the Mi’kmawey Debert Cul-
tural Centre is well underway, and the building is expected to be completed in 2025. In addition to a place where Mi’kmaw community members can be with their ancestors’ items, the cultural center will reflect their worldview and connection to each
other and their lands. It will have four galleries with immersive exhibitions through which mem- bers of the public can experience Mi’kmaw cul- ture through storytelling, language, art, song and dance. Visitors can also learn about how historic traumas are still impacting the Mi’kmaq today and yet they remain resilient. On the center’s grounds will be multiple self-guided trails that will lead into the nearby forest. Like Kluskap Cave, the center will be a place for
all to pilgrimage, and perhaps just in time. “Knowl- edge is in community. If we didn’t act when we acted, that knowledge would have been lost in time because those knowledge holders who carried that information would not have been there to engage with us,” said Bernard. “When we have an oppor- tunity to use material that was created by ancestors and share them with the youth today, it connects them to those resources.” The Elders’ Advisory Council described its
vision of the museum as “a grandmother’s nest, where all living things are gathered and shared. We expect it to be a place where the past is relived, explored and validated.”
anne bolen is assistant managing editor of American Indian magazine.
Members of the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre’s Elders’ Advisory Council and Curatorial Group traveled to the future museum site to bless it in August 2021. Left to right: Zabrina Whitman (Glooscap First Nation), Melanie Robinson (Acadia First Nation), Barbara Sylliboy (Eskasoni First Nation), Lorraine Whitman (Glooscap First Nation), Melody Martin- Googoo (Millbrook First Nation) and Mali-Ellen Googoo (Membertou First Nation).
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
WINTER 2022
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COURTESY OF THE MI’KMAWEY DEBERT CULTURAL CENTRE
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