National Hero, Champion of First Nations Rights, Anthropologist, Linguist, and Museum Curator. Gloria Cranmer Webster, a Kwakiutl Indian, was a recipient of the Order of Canada, the highest award in Canada. She was considered by many to be the founder of the continent-wide Repatriation Movement to reunite Native American artifacts from museums and private collectors back to the Indian tribes who made those artifacts. She was at the head of negotiations with the Canadian Museum of History to return items illegally seized. She set the example of successful repatriation for tribes all over Canada and the United States. She was a key player in the establishment of a Kwakiutl tribal museum, the U'mista Cultural Center, at Alert Bay in British Columbia. She was important in the tribal museums movement in North America and the first museum curator at U'mista. She was credited as being one of the first in North America to demand the repatriation of tribal items unethically and illegally taken by the government and was an inspiration to Indian leaders throughout Canada and the United States as she called those governments to task. She majored in anthropology at the University of British Columbia where she was the first indigenous person to be admitted to that university.
National Hero, Champion of First Nations Rights, Anthropologist, Linguist, and Museum Curator. Gloria Cranmer Webster, a Kwakiutl Indian, was a recipient of the Order of Canada, the highest award in Canada. She was considered by many to be the founder of the continent-wide Repatriation Movement to reunite Native American artifacts from museums and private collectors back to the Indian tribes who made those artifacts. She was at the head of negotiations with the Canadian Museum of History to return items illegally seized. She set the example of successful repatriation for tribes all over Canada and the United States. She was a key player in the establishment of a Kwakiutl tribal museum, the U'mista Cultural Center, at Alert Bay in British Columbia. She was important in the tribal museums movement in North America and the first museum curator at U'mista. She was credited as being one of the first in North America to demand the repatriation of tribal items unethically and illegally taken by the government and was an inspiration to Indian leaders throughout Canada and the United States as she called those governments to task. She majored in anthropology at the University of British Columbia where she was the first indigenous person to be admitted to that university.
Bio by: Sharlotte Neely Donnelly
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