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A Study on the Use of Northern Dene (Northern Athabascan) Ethnographic Collection of the National Museum of Ethnology

Research period:2024.10-2027.3

INOUE Toshiaki

Keywords

Museum Collection , Northern Dene (Athabascan) , Subarctic America , Indigenous Rights

Objectives

This inter-university research project will comprise two parts. In the first part, researchers who have conducted fieldwork on Northern Dene society will examine from multiple angles 16 material culture items collected by Robert McKennan in the 1930s that are in the National Museum of Ethnology’s holdings and 26 items (provisional number) thought to be from Dene society. The aim is to increase knowledge of said items by identifying source communities and refining information about the items. In the second part, we will ask researchers of different fields to participate who are involved in research on the rights and legal problems of indigenous people in relation to material culture and the archaeology of Northern Dene society, the Arctic, Northern Japan, and the US and Canada. The objective of the second part will be to understand the arguments and indigenous objections regarding material culture items derived from indigenous peoples and archaeological artifacts unearthed in traditional living areas of indigenous peoples, whether there is legislation to address to this, and what kind of problems are involved in this, and to gain knowledge needed for a wide range of indigenous source communities to utilize Japanese museum collections in the future.