Our Ancestors Say No

Our Ancestors Say No Tibetan-led campaign calling for the return of looted sacred objects to our communities. Tibetan objects belong with Tibetans; support us now!

www.ourancestorssayno.com/return-the-shrine-room

https://tinyurl.com/yckdf4br

03/04/2025

Tibetan histories are woven with ancestral intervention, protection, and foresight.
🐚🏹🐚

Elder Nyinyi la shares one such story, describing the Chinese occupiers’ failed attempts to raze the ancient Sakya Monastery:

“When they came to destroy the great monastery, a few of our monks remained inside and barricaded the door with logs. Even after 3-4 days, the Chinese were not able to cause any structural damage...however, they stole most of the valuable objects. They took almost everything, loaded it onto a truck and headed for the Yarlung (Brahmaputra) River. The protective deities of Sakya refused to let the truck get away and sank it in the river.”

“Our people knew that the Chinese were pillaging precious objects that cannot be bought with all the money in the world. We believed that the lu (naga, guardian serpents) sank the truck so that the Chinese could not steal the gold, silver, copper, and pearls that had adorned the monastery. It was very fortunate.”

❤️‍🔥 As we continue fighting for return, we take guidance from a pantheon of protectors whose long memory outlives the brief, fleeting violence of colonialism. ❤️‍🔥

Video: Tibet Oral History Project
https://www.youtube.com/tohproject

བོད་རྒྱལ་ལོ་ ༢༡༥༢ ཤིང་སྦྲུལ་ལོའི་གནམ་ལོ་གསར་ཚེས་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ།As we observe this new year, we express our grief ...
03/01/2025

བོད་རྒྱལ་ལོ་ ༢༡༥༢ ཤིང་སྦྲུལ་ལོའི་གནམ་ལོ་གསར་ཚེས་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ།

As we observe this new year, we express our grief at the ongoing losses as well as the recent tragedies our community has experienced.

We are sending our prayers for an auspicious new year to our community across the world, and especially, always, to the plateau that calls us all home. May you enjoy celebrations with loved ones and if you are far from home, know that the love of community travels with you everywhere.

Tashi Delek and Losar Sang for a year of transformation, bravery, knowing when to hibernate, and knowing when to strike 🐍

We continue to offer prayers to our relatives in Tibet in the face of this tragedy. 🙏🏽📿Tibetan perspectives are always m...
02/26/2025

We continue to offer prayers to our relatives in Tibet in the face of this tragedy. 🙏🏽📿

Tibetan perspectives are always marginalized if not missing in conversations about Tibet and Tibetans, and the recent Dingri earthquake is no exception. This is no accident, as direct propaganda in Chinese state media and western news sources reinforcing their narratives obscure the true impact and causes of this disaster while creating a narrative to justify China’s occupation of Tibet.

The only true disaster response is decolonization and land back. ⚔️

On the 49th day since the earthquake in Dingri, Tibet, we offer prayers to our relatives in Tibet in the face of this tr...
02/25/2025

On the 49th day since the earthquake in Dingri, Tibet, we offer prayers to our relatives in Tibet in the face of this tragedy. 🙏🏽📿

Tibetan perspectives are always marginalized if not missing in conversations about Tibet and Tibetans, and the recent Dingri earthquake is no exception. This is no accident, as direct propaganda in Chinese state media and western news sources reinforcing their narratives obscure the true impact and causes of this disaster while creating a narrative to justify China’s occupation of Tibet.

Tibet is one of the most tightly controlled places in the world. Accurate information is already notoriously hard to come by and shared at great personal risk by Tibetans inside Tibet.

As usual, the best disaster responses and most accurate information came from Tibetans themselves, who have acted with courage and deep love in the face of yet another tragedy. We hope that the information shared here center Tibetan people and challenge colonial portrayals of Tibet especially at a time when discourses about the Chinese state have taken a disturbing turn.

Like the recent fires in Los Angeles, California, colonization will always cause and worsen disasters. Just as we will continue to monitor Chinese propaganda about this disaster, we are also closely watching western colonial institutions who are looking to capitalize on another Tibetan tragedy as they always do. Past disasters led to looting of sacred items from monasteries and nunneries which end up imprisoned in museums, in the hands of “art dealers,” and torn from their communities.

The only true disaster response is decolonization and land back. ⚔️

Oral history & storytelling weave the colorful tapestry of Tibetan life. 🌾🟦⬜️🟥🟩🟨🌾Our ancestors practiced many forms of l...
01/20/2025

Oral history & storytelling weave the colorful tapestry of Tibetan life. 🌾🟦⬜️🟥🟩🟨🌾

Our ancestors practiced many forms of local, land-based storytelling including ལྷ་མོ་ lhamo (operatic plays), གླུ་ (folk songs), ceremonial songs, and more. For Tibetans, oral storytelling is an ancestral practice of preserving our cultures & lineages. 🐚🤲🏽

Our elders’ stories remind us where we come from, teaching us how to live good lives while respecting the land, the people, and the waters. By telling stories, we create spaces of collective memory, learning, and prayer. 🙏🏽🌼

In the western academy & “professional” world, the written word is seen as more credible than orature. In these worlds, we often encounter histories written by colonizers, who claim authority to dictate what knowledge is and isn’t valuable. 💢

The erasure of Indigenous storytelling started in the halls of academia and continues still. Entire conferences convened on our knowledges, with token community members present. Entire papers, journals, and careers built off the uncited stories of our elders. 🔻

The academy is determined to “discover” us, fold us into their colonial project.

🪷 How can we refuse institutional violence and instead hold our ancestors closer to us? 🪷

Community members want genuine repatriation, not a mid rebrand Rubin Museum of Art❗️Have a message about repatriation or...
12/30/2024

Community members want genuine repatriation, not a mid rebrand Rubin Museum of Art❗️

Have a message about repatriation or museums you want to share? Send it to us anonymously or add a comment on our website! 📣📣

SIGN THE PETITION! 📝DEMAND THE Rubin Museum of Art & Brooklyn Museum RETURN THE TIBETAN SHRINE ROOM! 🐚As Tibetans organi...
12/27/2024

SIGN THE PETITION! 📝
DEMAND THE Rubin Museum of Art & Brooklyn Museum RETURN THE TIBETAN SHRINE ROOM! 🐚

As Tibetans organizing to hold the Rubin Museum accountable for decades of violent exploitation of our sacred ancestral objects, we strongly oppose the museum further displacing the Tibetan Shrine Room to the Brooklyn Museum for the next 6 years. The Shrine Room must be returned into the proper care of the Tibetan community.

🪷 NYC HAS THE LARGEST TIBETAN COMMUNITY ON TURTLE ISLAND 🪷
There are many Tibetan-led institutions, organizations, and community centers that can take care of our sacred objects, as our ancestors have done since time immemorial. 🤲🏽
Instead, the Rubin has passed off our sacred objects to a museum that brutalizes protestors and houses its own robust collection of stolen Tibetan objects. We expect no less of colonial institutions that extract from our communities and expect us to be grateful for scraps. ⚔️

The Tibetan object relatives you encounter in many museums were carried out of our homelands on our grandparents’ backs when they fled the Chinese occupation in the 1950s.

🌟 OUR ANCESTORS ARE OUR NORTH STARS 🌟
They are the compasses that point us toward what is right. As we organize in service of liberation, we bring all of our relatives, including those held captive in the museum, with us. 🌾

Sign the petition at:
www.ourancestorssayno.com/return-the-shrine-room

The Rubin Museum of Art claims to have never knowingly acquired looted objects. We question the truth of this statement,...
10/25/2024

The Rubin Museum of Art claims to have never knowingly acquired looted objects. We question the truth of this statement, given the museum's proven involvement with art thieves like Doris & Nancy Wiener.

The Wieners have admitted to falsifying provenance records for countless objects from Tibet & South Asia.

The Rubin's full catalog isn't publicly available. How many objects from the thieving Wieners could be in Rubin's collection, away from the public eye? What of the many other sacred objects auctioned off to private "collectors" and museums?

Check out coverage of our protest last week at Rubin Museum’s exclusive gala, where tickets went for up to $50k 🙄 When m...
10/04/2024

Check out coverage of our protest last week at Rubin Museum’s exclusive gala, where tickets went for up to $50k 🙄 When museum staff members roll their eyes at altars and sacred rituals, may they feel the heat of ancestral wrath. ❤️‍🔥

Join us tomorrow, Oct 4 at 5PM to call on the Rubin to return our sacred objects, including the Tibetan shrine room. There is no “going global” for a museum that capitalizes off of Indigenous suffering. 🏹

https://tinyurl.com/yckdf4br

10/04/2024

མཆོད་པ། - OFFERING | by Yuthok & Gangkar Wangmo

Our friend and collaborator share this video of their Ashang’s daily prayers and how he cares for the sacred objects in his choesham. 🪷📿🙏🏽

For so many Tibetans and Himalayans, this routine is a fixture of daily life, a living practice to ground us in our values and faith rooted in our traditions and our land, even when we are far from both. 🏔️🌾 🟥🟩🟦🟨⬜️

It is even more special because this time of day is one many of us shared with our elders.

How many days have our object relatives in museums been met with silence where there should be prayers? Been outside the care of their communities? How long are we supposed to wait until they are returned? How many days is enough?

We already know that the Rubin and other museums do not consider themselves accountable to the Tibetan and Himalayan communities whose wisdom they profit from. What remains to be seen is how they choose to move forward.

Will they continue to tokenize us and give us scraps of what was already ours? Or will they truly reckon with the responsibility that they now have and begin to make things right?

On Sept 27, Tibetans and our allies protested outside the Rubin Museum to demand that stolen objects be returned to Tibe...
10/04/2024

On Sept 27, Tibetans and our allies protested outside the Rubin Museum to demand that stolen objects be returned to Tibetan & Himalayan communities. While we made traditional offerings of incense, barley, white scarves, and flowers, the Rubin's donors and affiliates indulged in an exclusive, extravagant gala celebrating the fraught legacy of a museum profiting off Tibetan suffering.

Upon arriving at the Rubin, we were greeted by a team of security guards, museum staff, and blackout windows. Unfortunately, we did not receive as warm a welcome as gala attendees with tickets starting at $1,500. 👎👎

However, Tibetans have never let a closed door stop us. Every time we do this - share our grief and pain and rage at the continued exploitation of our people and sacred deities - we are met with anger, condescension, ignorance, and worse. ❌🙏🏽🏔️

We are told that Tibetans should settle gratefully for the scraps of wealth looted from what our grandparents carried out of Tibet when we lost everything...that we should cooperate with our captors while our hearts break and our ancestors weep. 🪷

Like our deities and our ancestors teach us, we pray to cut through ignorance. With the blessing of our sacred protectors, we bear witness and protest in spite of all that we have lost. ⚔️

Tibetan and Himalayan communities are HERE, in this city, making lives. We stock your shelves at Whole Foods, care for your children, clean your homes, work as nurses, provide your produce at the farmers market. We are artists, musicians, singers, teachers, writers, and so much more. Our community has vast wisdom and expertise. We can care for our relatives here and now. 🏙️🏔️

We and our sacred object relatives may be far from our land, but we share a karmic connection through many lifetimes. And we will never give up on them. 🏔️💫🌌☸️🪷

GIVE THE SACRED OBJECTS BACK!
OUR ANCESTORS SAY NO ❌🏔️

DID YOU KNOW?The Rubin Museum prohibits khata and offerings for our sacred objects🚫We reject this gatekeeping of our obj...
10/04/2024

DID YOU KNOW?

The Rubin Museum prohibits khata and offerings for our sacred objects🚫We reject this gatekeeping of our object relatives! 🔒

WE CALL ON ALL SUPPORTERS TO BRING KHATA & OFFERINGS TOMORROW 🌻🌸🌾

in love & fortitude, our ancestors say no❤️‍🔥

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