Swiss Museum Returns Sacred Objects to Canada's First Nations

MONTREAL, CANADA—The Canadian Press reports that the Geneva Museum of Ethnography has repatriated two sacred objects to the Haudenosaunee Confederation, which includes the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Tuscarora, and Seneca peoples. The medicine mask and turtle rattle had been held in Switzerland for nearly 200 years. The mask was spotted in the museum’s collection by Tuscarora Brennan Ferguson, a member of the Haudenosaunee external relations committee, which then wrote to the museum and requested its return. “We expressed our wishes, and they worked with us completely,” Ferguson commented. To read more about repatriation of sacred objects, go to "Redeeming Archaeology."