At first glance, the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) historical collections are obviously laid out according to continents in an East-West dichotomy, but with the addition of new exhibitions, one particular exhibit space caught my attention. On the map, the gallery is titled Africa, the Americas & Asia-Pacific (hereafter known as the AAA gallery). The gallery was dedicated to telling the story of the indigenous cultures of the world, such as those in Africa, the Philippines, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, and Papua New Guinea. Because the gallery featured indigenous peoples of other regions, I decided to compare this to the “Canada, First Peoples’” gallery, which was created through a consultation with individual aboriginal groups. However, comparing
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Rather than “religion,” many of the ROM’s panels for the AAA gallery and the First Peoples’ gallery instead use the words “spirit,” “ritual,” and “cosmology.” The ceremony has also been taken out of these objects, just like in the transformation of the Yup’ik mask exhibition in Fienup-Riordan’s article. In the First Peoples’ gallery, there are objects such as “drum and drum beater, Cree,” where the drum is described to be “part of the divination process where hunting knowledge is gathered.” At the same time, in the AAA gallery, there is a display with Vanuatu masks, with the description first talking about how men and women in Vanuatu society moved up the ranks by performing rituals, but then concludes in describing “these brightly-painted masks are associated with the Nalawan graded society of southern Malekula Island, and depict various mythological figures.” By not only not showing the use of this drum and these masks in actual ceremonial practice, but also indirectly (if not at all) associating these objects with a deeper spiritual context, the ROM has taken these obviously religious objects out of a ritualized context, just like how Fineup-Riordan wrote that at the Seattle Art Museum, they “did not make the traditional distinction between art and culture but presented [the Yup’ik] masks simultaneously in context and lighted as works of great art.” Ultimately, as Crispin Paine would argue, these objects became “sacralised” as they entered the museum space, acquiring “a new meaning, a new value, a new personality.” In the ROM, these items have undoubtedly taken up new meaning as representing the society and “culture” more than the beliefs. He also writes that “all religious objects in museums, especially in the West, struggle with the inability of many of their visitors to understand or empathize with religion at all,”
Rather than “religion,” many of the ROM’s panels for the AAA gallery and the First Peoples’ gallery instead use the words “spirit,” “ritual,” and “cosmology.” The ceremony has also been taken out of these objects, just like in the transformation of the Yup’ik mask exhibition in Fienup-Riordan’s article. In the First Peoples’ gallery, there are objects such as “drum and drum beater, Cree,” where the drum is described to be “part of the divination process where hunting knowledge is gathered.” At the same time, in the AAA gallery, there is a display with Vanuatu masks, with the description first talking about how men and women in Vanuatu society moved up the ranks by performing rituals, but then concludes in describing “these brightly-painted masks are associated with the Nalawan graded society of southern Malekula Island, and depict various mythological figures.” By not only not showing the use of this drum and these masks in actual ceremonial practice, but also indirectly (if not at all) associating these objects with a deeper spiritual context, the ROM has taken these obviously religious objects out of a ritualized context, just like how Fineup-Riordan wrote that at the Seattle Art Museum, they “did not make the traditional distinction between art and culture but presented [the Yup’ik] masks simultaneously in context and lighted as works of great art.” Ultimately, as Crispin Paine would argue, these objects became “sacralised” as they entered the museum space, acquiring “a new meaning, a new value, a new personality.” In the ROM, these items have undoubtedly taken up new meaning as representing the society and “culture” more than the beliefs. He also writes that “all religious objects in museums, especially in the West, struggle with the inability of many of their visitors to understand or empathize with religion at all,”