AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, centre, holds a baby cradle that was repatriated from the Vatican Museums as items are unveiled at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
A bowl and a spoon, crafted by hand by one of Linda Debassige’s late relatives, are finally back home.
The Grand Council Chief of the Anishinabek Nation said their return has been nearly seven generations in the making. Stored thousands of kilometres away in the Vatican Museums, they are now in Canada, along with dozens of other First Nations items repatriated late last year.
The carvings were among items unveiled publicly for the first time Tuesday at a ceremony hosted by the Assembly of First Nations at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau.
The smell of smudge filled the museum’s Grand Hall, while those who were gathered remained silent before the items belonging to First Nations were displayed.
The ceremony marked the culmination of decades of advocacy, said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak.
“Today is a very emotional moment for so many First Nations,” she said. “These are not simply artifacts. They’re living relatives.”
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The repatriated items include embroidered leather gloves from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta, a birch bark sap collector from the Akwesasne in Ontario, a bowl and spoon from the Mantoloking Island region, and a cradle. They were placed on a table at the front of the Grand Hall and First Nations leaders made their way around it to view the items, some placing their hands on them.
The items, the National Chief said, are considered sacred to First Nations’ spirituality and ceremonies, and they must be cared for properly. “Repatriation is generational work, and it is work of reconciliation between First Nations and the Catholic Church,” she said.
The National Chief called Tuesday’s ceremony an important moment for First Nations and the country.
She said five items – among 62 repatriated – arrived back in Canada in December, 2025, and have been stored until now. Forty-seven other items were to be shared in a private ceremony later on Tuesday led by elders.
The AFN said that appropriate protocols have to be observed and it is unclear what communities some of the remaining items belong to. The national advocacy organization intends to work with the Canadian Museum of History to establish the provenance of each item and facilitate its return to its community of origin.
A bowl and spoon from the Mantoloking Island region, bottom left, and embroidered gloves from Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, right, at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, on Tuesday.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Communities will then determine whether items are stored privately, shared publicly, or a combination of both.
Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller, who attended Tuesday’s ceremony, said it is important for people to understand what took place there.
“For an outsider, they perhaps may look at this and say ‘This is about trinkets,’” he said. “It’s the complete opposite. This is about a small step in reclaiming culture and identity that has been taken, robbed from you.”
The collection at the Vatican’s Anima Mundi museum includes more than 80,000 cultural items, according to its website. One of its catalogues, from 2015, cited an estimate that the institution held about 10,000 works from the Americas. These include an 1831 wampum belt, a West Coast sun mask, and Cree snowshoes.
Indigenous researchers have said it’s been difficult to gain access to its collection or to get an inventory of what is held.
“How do we know what they have?” said Audrey Dreaver, assistant professor of Indigenous Fine Arts at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina. She would like to see a comprehensive list of all the things they have, as well as more direct communications with communities with links to the items.
Grand Chief Leonard Lazore of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, front left, and Grand Chief Linda Debassige of Anishinabek Nation unveil a bundle of sacred items following their repatriation from the Vatican collection.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Prof. Dreaver, who is Cree, also believes Canada should introduce an Indigenous-led repatriation policy.
In April, Ms. Woodhouse Nepinak said she will have a private audience with Pope Leo XIV that will include discussion of the “essential work” of repatriating First Nations belongings still held by the Vatican.
She said negotiations for repatriation have not been easy for First Nations and it was a “very difficult process” as National Chief. For example, she said she was not able to go through the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to meet the Pope.
A delegation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis met with Pope Francis in April, 2022, in advance of a papal apology that took place on Canadian soil that July.
The National Chief said that she held Pope Francis in high regard for issuing that apology. “I know that there’s a dark history,” she said. “But I appreciated his life and his life’s work.”
The AFN said the work of reconciliation has continued under Pope Leo XIV since he was elected in May, 2025. The election process took place after Pope Francis died in April of that year.
In November, First Nations elders and leaders, along with residential school survivors, travelled to Vatican City to see the items safely packaged. The AFN said it supported First Nations youth who accompanied the items on the flight back to Canada the following month.
After they arrived, a ceremony was held to mark the return of a century-old Inuvialuit kayak, alongside a number of other Inuit items. This February, leadership from the Métis National Council also held a ceremony to unbox an ancestral item, a rare Métis dog sled, repatriated from the Vatican museum.