LABOUR PARTY president Michael D Higgins has said he is confident that a Native American birch-bark canoe owned by NUI Galway will be handed over to Canada.
A Native American community appealed last month for permanent repatriation of the 180-year-old craft, which it says was built by its ancestors and represents a “powerful symbol” of their way of life. Some say it is the oldest intact birch-bark canoe.
The “Grandfather Akwiten” canoe spent almost two centuries in Ireland, and was sent temporarily to Canada two years ago by NUIG for conservation and subsequent exhibition.
“I am confident that the canoe will remain in Canada and will be available to the Maliseet community, but NUIG has to ensure adequate curatorial arrangements are put in place for the craft,” Mr Higgins told The Irish Times.
Mr Higgins said that as a former arts minister he has to ensure that international loans of certain artefacts are subject to national and EU regulation under the 1997 National Cultural Institutions Act and the European Community cultural goods licensing system.
The canoe was one of three built by the Maliseet people for British lieutenant-governor Sir Howard Douglas, who arrived in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1824.
It subsequently passed into the hands of Lieut Stepney St George, who was then serving with the British imperial forces in Canada. He transported it back home to Headford Castle, Co Galway.
In 1852, it was donated to what was then known as Queen’s University in Galway by a subsequent tenant of Headford Castle, Edward Lombard Hunt.
It hung from the roof of NUIG’s Quadrangle building for many decades. However, Chief Candice Paul of St Mary’s First Nation Wolastokwiyik (Maliseet) community of New Brunswick says it suffered more than 150 years of “isolation and neglect” and “served primarily as a home for pigeons until it was “rescued” by Dr Kathryn Moore of NUIG.
NUIG says it is “fully committed” to assessment of the “complex factors relevant to the canoe’s future” and will “work to achieve appropriate short-term and long-term solutions”.