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Collecting Religion: Media, Material Culture, and Museum Violence

Submitted to Program Units
1: Indigenous Religious Traditions Unit

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Adam DJ Brett, Syracuse University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

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Papers

  • Josefrayn Sanchez-Perry, Loyola University Chicago

    They are Taken from the Earth: Nahua Collecting in the Early Modern Period

    Abstract

     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.

  • Sarah Dees, Iowa State University

    Ordering Religion: Museum Classification & Cultural Evolution

    Abstract

    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.

  • Rebecca Mendoza Nunziato, Harvard University

    A Debt to Decay? Envisioning Decolonial Ethics and Indigenous Materialism in the Museum

    Abstract

    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.

  • Therese Lautua,

    ‘It’s Giving … Colonization’: Challenges to Mental Resilience, Spirituality and Storytelling for Indigenous Pacific Youth

    Abstract

    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.

Responding
Pamela Klassen, University of Toronto

Business Meeting
Yuria Celidwen, University of California, Berkeley, Presiding
Seth Schermerhorn, Hamilton College, Presiding
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Sabbath Observance

Sunday morning

Comments

My current email address is therese.lautua@auckland.ac.nz as I am based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. However in July I will start a new role at Harvard University (College Fellow in Indigenous Religion) and I do not have a staff email address etc set up for me yet. If the proposal is accepted I would like to change the contact details in the online program.

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours

Schedule Preference

Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Schedule Preference Other

Saturday 12:30 - 2:30

Tags

Indigenous Pacific
spiritual well-being
mental well-being