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News: Hereditary Chief Demands

APTN National News
By Jessica MacKeage
APTN National News

APTN National News

Represents the Aboriginal and First Nations news force.

Namgis First Nations protesting.

Namgis First Nations protesting.

First Nations claim that they are connected to the items in the museum, and that they are not ancient history.

Age Appropriate

9

9

Presentation Effectiveness

5

Engagement

Citizenship

10

10

Perspective

Range

SCORE

9

Respect

52 / 60 =

A

A

This article is appropriate to the unit as the students will be debating who gets to keep artifacts and why. This gives the students a different perspective and ties into other units of grade four social, as the First Nations are learned about as well. A different perspective is shown because this article talks about how artefacts were stolen and how this can be dealt with in today’s society. Today this is quite a common issue between the First Nation people and museums. This article demonstrates how the First Nations people are not happy about what the museums are doing; however, the First Nations and the museums have come to a compromise. This relates to the skills and processes of the Program of Studies 4.S.5 where demonstration of the ability to deal constructively with diversity and disagreement are looked at and considering the needs and points of view of others are looked at as well. Not only is this demonstrated in the news article, it is an expectation that students will learn how to do this in their debate.

This article could be used as an extra extension activity for students later in social studies when the First Nations are learned about. Students could research and find items from the First Nations people that have been stolen and placed in museums and give the history behind it.

Fontaine, T. (2014, July 14). Hereditary chief demands Ottawa museum return artifacts or show bill of sale. APTN National News. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://aptn.ca/news/2014/07/29/hereditary-chief-demands-ottawa-museum-return-artifacts-show-bill-sale/

This newsarticle is about the Namgis First Nation in British Columbia, Canada. The Namgis are upset that the ceremonial items are in storage at the Canadian Museum of History. Some of the Namgis First Nation people went to the museum and has a ceremony outside it to tell Canadians and the museum that the items on display aren’t just ancient history. The First Nations claim that they are still connected to these items and are upset that the items are being hidden away. It is believed that the items are being hid away in the museum because it was stolen or coerced from the First Nations during the Potlatch prohibition.  Only a fraction are on display, the rest are archived or on loan to other museums according to the museum but the First Nations believe that the items should either be on display all the time or returned to them.

"Hereditary chief demands Ottawa museum return artifacts or show bill of sale"

Click here for link to article.

© 2015 by Justin Hume

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