The Guardian: Manchester Museum hands back 174 objects to Indigenous Australian islanders

The Guardian: Manchester Museum hands back 174 objects to Indigenous Australian islanders. “Manchester Museum’s return of the objects is significant because repatriation projects normally revolve around sacred or ceremonial items…. In this case, Manchester is returning everyday objects with a more mundane backstory. They include dolls made from shells, baskets, fishing spears, boomerangs, armbands and a map made from turtle shells, all being sent back to the Anindilyakwa community, who live on an archipelago in the Gulf of Carpentaria, off the northern coast of Australia.”

OPI: On Bruno Pereira’s birthday, Opi, Coiab and Opan launch a platform to monitor isolated indigenous peoples

OPI: On Bruno Pereira’s birthday, Opi, Coiab and Opan launch a platform to monitor isolated indigenous peoples. (Everything with regards to this article has been machine-translated from Portuguese.) “The tool gathers information from public databases and field surveys of the Observatory’s networks. Combined, this information makes it possible to analyze the living conditions and territories of these groups. The initiative is a collaboration between [Observatory of Isolated Indigenous Peoples and of Recent Contact] and the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab) and Operation Amazônia Nativa (Opan).”

New York Times: War Against the Children

New York Times: ‘War Against the Children’. (This link is to a gift article; you should not encounter a paywall.) “The Native American boarding school system was vast and entrenched, ranging from small shacks in remote Alaskan outposts to refurbished military barracks in the Deep South to large institutions up and down both the West and East coasts. Until recently, incomplete records and scant federal attention kept even the number of schools — let alone more details about how they functioned — unknown. The 523 schools represented here comprise the most comprehensive accounting to date of institutions involved in the system.”

Mexico News Daily: The Herculean task of digitizing Mexico’s vast Indigenous history

Mexico News Daily: The Herculean task of digitizing Mexico’s vast Indigenous history. “The challenge of the 21st century is how to convert over a century of audio, video, text and more into digital formats before it is too late. In the thick of this for Mexico’s National Institute of Indigenous People (INPI) is head archivist Octavio Murillo Álvarez de la Cadena and his staff, who say that their work is particularly important because ‘Indigenous peoples have been historically marginalized,’ not to mention that many Indigenous cultures are threatened with disappearing or complete assimilation.”

National Indigenous Times: New website launched to drive national Truth-telling

National Indigenous Times (Australia): New website launched to drive national Truth-telling. “Towards Truth is a partnership between the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the UNSW Indigenous Law Centre (ILC), with significant support from pro bono partners across the legal field. The website compiles laws and policies that have impacted First Nations people from 1788 until today, as well as government documents, reports, media articles and case studies that show their practical effects.”

Telegraph India: Independent filmmaker sets up digital archive on Adivasis named after Father Stan Swamy

Telegraph India: Independent filmmaker sets up digital archive on Adivasis named after Father Stan Swamy. “The Stan Swamy Archive of Adivasi Narratives is available on YouTube as a repository of videos on the tribal way of life, their culture, interviews with achievers and common people from the community and the problems the Adivasis face, including displacement from agrarian land because of government projects.”

NFSA Player: Streaming Now (National Film and Sound Archive of Australia)

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia: NFSA Player: Streaming Now. “Compelling drama, feature films, music and performance titles will come together this NAIDOC Week on the NFSA’s new digital streaming platform NFSA Player, launching today across Australia. The Buwindja Collection of 17 titles will be available to audiences via NFSA Player, a transactional streaming and video-on-demand platform giving Australia access to a selection of curated content reflecting this year’s NAIDOC Week theme of For Our Elders.”

University of Illinois: Illinois researchers, Native American tribes working together to curate, increase access to oral histories

University of Illinois: Illinois researchers, Native American tribes working together to curate, increase access to oral histories. “Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are working with Native American tribes to connect them with ethnographic materials and oral histories collected from tribal members and to make the materials accessible online.”

Muscogee Nation: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation to Debut New Digital Archive

Muscogee Nation: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation to Debut New Digital Archive. “The Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Library and Archives will go live with a new digital archive on June 14th, 2023. The digital archive will be available to Mvskoke citizens and the public and will feature a wide variety of historical documents and resources pertaining to Mvskoke history, culture, and language…”

UNESCO: UNESCO supports the launch of a MOOC of initiation to Dongba script, “the last living pictographic script in the world”

UNESCO: UNESCO supports the launch of a MOOC of initiation to Dongba script, “the last living pictographic script in the world”. “The Naxi community numbers around 300,000 people living in Northern Yunnan in south-west China. The Dongba script used by the Naxi is considered the last living pictographic script in the world and is at risk of disappearing, as only a very small number of people can actually use the language. Dongba pictograms have a strong cultural role for the Naxi and are a manifestation of the beliefs of the Naxi people: a form of shamanism based on the cult of nature, associated with popular beliefs and Tibetan cultural influences.”

ProPublica: Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art Displaying Objects That Belong to Native American Tribes?

ProPublica: Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art Displaying Objects That Belong to Native American Tribes?. “Only a small percentage of works donated by Charles and Valerie Diker have clear ownership histories. Experts say this could mean objects are stolen or fake. Meanwhile, the Met has been slow to ask tribes for information about the items.”