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This paper proposes an elaborate process of Native collecting based on information gathered from colonial Nahuatl-language sources and available material culture from archeological sites, in particular Teotihuacan, Tollan, and Tenochtitlan (1325-1521). The paper connects oztomecameh “disguised traders,” members of the telpochcalli “house of youth,” and calpixque “caretakers of big house.” Together they ensured that precious goods—like those the ancient left behind—arrived safely back to their city-states, where they were subsequently stored, classified, and directed to their appropriate destinations in the Nahua market economy.
This paper will focus on the methods of categorization that Cyrus Adler (1863-1940), the Smithsonian’s first curator of religion, and others at the Smithsonian used to sort religious objects from different communities and religious groups. Adler was charged with conserving objects that had some sort of religious significance. He specifically focused on monotheistic traditions, while objects relating to Indigenous traditions of the Americas, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere were not under his purview. These objects were held separately, in anthropological collections. I will be exploring the rationale for this method of classification, and the implications of museum categorization for understandings of religious hierarchies. During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, museums like the Smithsonian often distinguished between Indigenous and “world” religions based on a racialized system of cultural evolution. This led to uneven treatment of Indigenous and non-Native religious objects.
In this paper I think from and with a contested collection of thousands of Maya offerings from the sacred site of México which have been housed at Harvard’s Peabody Museum for over a century. This assemblage of materials can be understood as populated by powerful entities in relational networks both past and present. For Mesoamerican peoples these material bodies, like human and animal bodies, are imbued with life forces—they are active and essential participants in cycles of life and death, fertility, regeneration, and beyond. Yet, in coming to the museum they are treated as inanimate objects. Here, I attend to materials which “fall through the cracks” of conventional repatriation and thus will remain, for the foreseeable future, in museum storage. What are the ethical obligations of preservation or of decay to these Indigenous belongings? This paper interrogates traditional assumptions and explores alternatives for life and death in the anthropology museum.
Indigenous Pacific Island youth living in the diaspora, particularly in Aotearoa New Zealand, increasingly express difficulty in grappling with the role Christianity has played in colonization and how this impacts their self-identity and wellbeing. This paper will explore perspectives of indigenous storytelling shared on popular social media accounts and streaming platforms which celebrate pre-Christian indigenous Pacific spiritualities and practices, as well as question and criticise forms of Christianity that continue to colonize Pacific communities. Cultural and spiritual identity and a sense of belonging to place are key to the mental resiliency of Pacific youth. Further, Pacific Island youth do not necessarily have access to decolonized Christian theologies in their church communities, or know that this type of theology exists. I reflect on how authentic storytelling is key for challenging media stereotypes for indigenous Pacific youth, especially on the topic of how pre-Christian spiritualities sit alongside Christian theology in everyday life.