The Council for Museum Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association [AAA] has jointly awarded the 2011 Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology to Dr. Laura Peers (Curator of the Americas, Pitt Rivers Museum and Reader in Material Anthropology, University of Oxford), Dr. Alison K. Brown (Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen), and Ms. Heather Richardson (Head of Conservation, Pitt Rivers Museum), for their collaborative “Blackfoot Shirts Project” which brings together historic collections in the United Kingdom with Blackfoot people in Canada and the United States.  

Building on relationships developed first by Brown during her doctoral research in the late 1990s and then during a photographic history project with the Kainai First Nation, Peers, Brown and Richardson developed a project to lend five historic hairlock shirts from the Pitt Rivers Museum collection to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and the Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge, both of which are located in traditional Blackfoot territory.

“The Galt Museum & Archives was proud to be a part of the historic Blackfoot Shirts project which brought such significant cultural pieces back to Blackfoot Territory for study and display,” says Curator Wendy Aitkens, who was the Galt’s representative on the project. “Partnering in an international collaboration that included three museums, two universities and members of all four Blackfoot communities was an important part of the success of this innovative museum project.”  

 Dr. Alison Brown received the award on behalf of her colleagues at the AAA 10th Annual Meeting held in Montreal November 16-20, 2011.

 The five shirts are nearly 200 years old. They were collected in 1841 by Sir George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and given to his secretary, Edward Hopkins. They have been in the Pitt Rivers Museum since 1893 but prior to the project only a handful of Blackfoot people had seen them. As most surviving Blackfoot clothing from this period is now in museums in Europe, Blackfoot people are keen to access these materials so they can learn about the skills and techniques used by their ancestors.

 The shirts are made from elk and deer hide and are adorned with porcupine quill embroidery, hide fringe, and strands of horse and human hair. The quillwork designs are related to sacred stories of the Blackfoot people and one shirt has also been painted with the war deeds of its owner.

 Information on upcoming Galt Museum & Archives exhibits, other programs and events is available at www.galtmuseum.com.

For reference, the Blackfoot Shirts exhibit media kit, with photographs and
background information, is available at www.galtmuseum.com/media-archives.htm