From Cara Krmpotich
In late August, a team of Indigenous curators and heritage professionals reconnected with Great Lakes relatives who have been away from their home territories for some 260 years. The collection has been known as the Farquharson Collection, and was visited in Scotland and written about by Ruth Phillips and Dale Idiens back in 1994. These relatives made their way to the Scottish Highlands between 1758 and 1783, spending centuries within the Farquharson family homes at Invercauld House and later at Braemar Castle. In the early 2000s, they were sold to a private collector in America who recently sought a buyer. The Toledo Museum of Art acquired and received the collection in 2024. Eager to facilitate reconnections between the collection and Indigenous nations of the Great Lakes, the Museum is planning an exhibition, a public talk, and other opportunities to reintegrate these relatives into the lively cultural sphere of the Great Lakes.
At the invitation of consulting curator Johanna Minich and colleagues at the Toledo Museum of Art, GRASAC organized an initial reunion in cooperation with Michael Galban, Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site & Curator, Seneca Art and Culture Center. Galban, along with Ansley Jemison, Tonia Galban, Grandell “Bird” Logan, Lotunt Honyust, Mikinaak Migwans and Talon Silverhorn spent the morning visiting with the relatives: a model canoe set complete with a family, sail, blanket, snowshoe, and wampum; a long sash; a pair of garter pendants; a quilled headband; a woven bag; a quill-wrapped pipe; a quilled knife sheath; pairs of moccasins; and embroidered birchbark crafts.
In the afternoon, Toledo Museum of Art staff & GRASAC Co-Directors Heidi Bohaker and Cara Krmpotich joined the team to hear the group’s thoughts on the pieces and the people who made, used, and traded them. The team used words like “virtuosic,” “masterpieces,” even “a major flex!” to describe the beautifully crafted pieces. The consensus was that these relatives largely reflect a “St Lawrence Basin style,” with most pieces resisting easy attributions to a single culture or origin. The group discussed the mobility within Indigenous life in the mid-18th century—a ready flow of people, ideas, styles and fashions, materials and goods, throughout the Great Lakes and beyond.
The Toledo Museum of Art will build upon the day’s discussions as they prepare the upcoming exhibition titled “Return to Turtle Island: Indigenous Nation Building in the 18th Century.” Ansley Jemison video-recorded the session to join the archive at the Seneca Art and Culture Center, and we also were joined by Laura Peers in a recorded Zoom session shared with the Toledo Museum of Art and Seneca Art and Culture Center.
GRASAC continues to collaborate with Toledo Museum of Art staff to support their public talk and programming related to the exhibition, and to host the next GRASAC Research Gathering on site at the Museum, May 30-31, 2025. Save the date and stay tuned for more details to come!
