and was also a major sponsor of The Spirit Sings. The paradoxical sponsorship acted

as a catalyst for a major public protest during the exhibit opening and the associated

First Nations arts festival. Media coverage expanded across Canada and internationally

as the issue gained public sympathy (Cooper 2008). Respected associations including

the Canadian Ethnology Society and the Smithsonian Institution supported First Nations

resistance to the exhibit. The problems embedded in The Spirit Sings, according to

protesters, were as follows:

     The museum borrowed First Nations artifacts without informing or involving
     First Nations people. The museum used money from sources involved in
     disputes with First Nations. The exhibition ignored contemporary issues.
     Non-First Nations people were employed to curate the exhibition, and the
     museum pleaded political neutrality, failing to see the role it had played in
     supporting one side while repressing the other (Ames in Cooper 2008, 22).

Native protests brought to light the political nature of exhibiting culture and the need to

provide platforms for self-representation. The Glenbow museum failed to recognize that

a museum can own objects, but they do not own the culture those objects represent.

The First Nations groups believed that they should have had a stake in the display of

their own cultural heritage. The case of The Spirit Sings also reveals that museum

exhibitions which have been developed without careful consideration are not neutral

displays, but instead can become highly contentious political battlefields.

      This widespread opposition to the Glenbow Museum's approach identified the

exhibit as a "watershed for North American Indian/ museum relationships" (Cooper

2008, 27). The Spirit Sings initiated debate and reflection on museum practice, which

eventually led the Canadian Museum Association Council to partner with the Assembly

of First Nations. These entities produced the 1992 report, Turning the Page: Forging

New Partnerships between Museums and the First Peoples, which established protocol