Indigenous leaders waited on the snowy tarmac at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport Saturday as the precious cargo was unloaded from an Air Canada jet.

The boxes contained more than 60 precious cultural artifacts, including a rare Inuit sealskin kayak, which were taken from First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities more than a century ago and have been held in the Vatican museums and vaults ever since.

The emotional homecoming, shown in footage by CNN-affiliate CBC News, represents the culmination of a tireless three-year campaign by Indigenous leaders, which was endorsed by Pope Francis before he died, on the heels of his historic apology for abuses committed at Canada’s church-run residential schools.

The repatriation of the artifacts also comes as museums around the world have increasingly returned items in their collections that were stolen or potentially acquired unethically to their countries of origin.

First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak hailed the return of the artifacts as an “important and emotional moment for many First Nations across the country” during a press conference Saturday.

But she acknowledged that the long project of reconciliation continues.

“We’ve come a long way, and we have a long way to go.”

Origins questioned

There is no public inventory of the goods being repatriated, which represent a small portion of the thousands of colonial-era Indigenous objects in the Vatican.

But among the 62 artifacts is an Inuvialuit sealskin kayak from the western Arctic, which was the last to come off the plane in its own cargo box, CBC reported.

The artifacts were first brought to Rome to be displayed at the 1925 Vatican Mission Exposition, a 13-month long exhibit promoting the Church’s influence around the world that drew millions of visitors.

The Vatican has long claimed the items were gifted to Pope Pius XI, who led the Church from 1922, but this has been contested by Indigenous people in Canada.

The church’s collection of Indigenous artifacts was compiled at a time when the identity of Canada’s Indigenous people was being erased, through legislation which banned cultural practices and compulsory attendance at church-run residential schools designed to “kill the Indian in the child.”

Given this context, “it’s highly contestable that this was the meaningful ‘gifting’ of items,” Cody Groat, Assistant Professor of History and Indigenous Studies at Canada’s Western University, told CNN in an email Monday.

Calls to repatriate the artifacts began gaining steam in 2022, when a group of First Nations, Inuit and Métis delegates visited Rome for long-awaited talks with Francis about historical abuses at residential schools. That trip was followed by Francis’s “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada in which he apologized for “the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.”

The late pontiff pledged to return the relics, but their fate would end up in the hands of his successor, Pope Leo.

The homecoming

The Holy See and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops first announced last month that the items, along with their documentation, would be “gifted” by Pope Leo back to Indigenous communities, calling it “the conclusion of the journey initiated by Pope Francis.”

Groat said it is “promising to see (Leo) taking such meaningful action so early in his Papacy, hopefully setting the stage for renewed relationships between the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples both in Canada and globally.”

The artifacts will now be examined at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, near Ottawa, before Indigenous leaders will find new homes for them, CBC reported.

“We are looking forward to being able to unbox the items in the coming days and to have Inuit leadership and Inuit experts understand exactly where these items come from in each of our communities and to share that knowledge not only with Canadian Inuit but also with Canada as a whole,” Natan Obed, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said at a press conference.

The return of the artifacts is deeply meaningful for many Indigenous peoples in Canada, who view the objects as “cultural ancestors with a sentience or life of their own,” Groat said.

“These cultural ancestors are now able to rejoin our communities and help with the continuity and revitalization of our cultural practices.” (CNN)

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