Respectful Handling and Storage of Sacred Medicine Bundles

In this session, Audrey Harrison, Conservation Technician, University of Arizona, Tucson, delivers an Inspire Talk to call attention to how medicine bundles are viewed by tribes as living entities and require extra attention from the organizations now holding them. Ethics, respectful actions, and storage solutions created to care for a collection of medicine bundles held by the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming are reviewed. This presentation discusses the criteria for storage requirements, consultations with cultural specialists and experienced conservators, and the need to associate the bundles with names of their original carriers to facilitate repatriation. This session was part of the ATALM annual conference held in Prior Lake, Minnesota, on October 8-11, 2018.