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Private Collections 

We know there are many "dealers' who purchase Îethka belongings. Some of these are art dealers, some are wealthy collectors, and some are shop owners or pawn shops. There is a big variety in the value these collectors assign to Îethka belongings. In museums there are some protections for belongings. They can't be sold or given away without going through a special process. In private collections there are no rules. Below are some considerations about Îethka belongings in private collections. 

Pawn Shops 

We know there are both new and old Îethka belongings living in pawn shops. There's also families that are able to help others with pawns, and end up with a lot of belongings. We know that as long as Îethka people need money, their things will end up in pawn shops. We wonder about ways to change this, or to keep pawns local. Do museums have a responsibility to help change the economic systems that Îethka live under? Could they? Could there be a local pawn shop connected to a museum? With temporary displays? We don't know. 

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The Craft Stores 

There was a store in Mînîthnî where people could buy supplies and also sell the things they've made. Catharine Whyte of the Whyte museum was involved in supporting it. Over the years there have been more local places where people sell the things they make, like the old restaurant, gas bars, the snack bar, Nakoda Lodge, and Smitty's. People have been traveling to Banff to sell the things they've made at the Trading Post for many years. The Trading Post used to be owned by Norman Luxton, and many of the things he collected became part of the Luxton Museum (now called the Buffalo Nations Museum) and the Glenbow Museum. Today things from the Trading Post still end up in Museums. In 2003 museum worker Laura Peers donated things she bought at the Trading Post to the Pitt Rivers Museum. 

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Family Heirlooms 

We know that when a collection is handed down through family members information can be lost. Descendants don't always care as much for the collections, and may want to get rid of them. Sometimes they want to sell them, and sometimes they just want to see them go to the right place. Our group has been given one belonging like this. It is a bow and arrow made by Tatânga Mâni and given to family friends of his. We are wondering what to do with this, and talking about it with people who are related to Tatânga Mâni. When other Indigenous communities have opened their own museums people often turn to these when they have belongings to return.

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Art Dealers

There have been times when people collected Indigenous belongings and sold them at art auctions. This is less common now. People around the world collected and bought Indigenous belongings because they thought Indigenous people would stop making their traditional items. Sometimes these are still bought and sold, but usually buyers are looking for very old belongings. The people who became dealers in these belongings had ideas about what belonging came from what group. Art dealers, like anthropologists, impacted how western people see and understand Indigenous material culture.  

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Collecting Routes 

When people of the past collected Îethka belongings and moved them far away, they had all sorts of motivations and interests. Some wanted souvenirs of their travels, some wanted to make money, some felt they needed to make records of Indigenous peoples lives. When we are trying to find belongings in museums it's not always clear what community a belonging is from. But we can talk to Elders and knowledge keepers, and we can look for sales records. Some of these are in archives, and others we can guess about based on where the buyer lived. Our research group is building a list of the people who collected many things, and moved them around. Hopefully this will confirm when things came from the Îethka communities. 

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So much is out there... 

We have spoken to collectors who say that they think that if museums hold 40% of the Îethka belongings that are out in the world, collectors hold about 60%. This means that there is probably more belongings in private collections than there are in museums. We wonder if museum belongings are more stable than private collections, and if that means Îethka should focus on getting private collections back first? What might that look like? Where would they go? 

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