Objects as Knowledgeable Elders: Lessons From the Reindeer Calf Halter Mȯnggui

ABSTRACT This article presents ongoing research that reconnects a historical ethnographic collection housed in a European museum with the descendants of its source communities in the transnational Inner Asian region, specifically among the Tozhu and Tukha reindeer herders of the Tyva Republic and Mongolia. Framed through Indigenous research methodologies and grounded in the author's personal linguistic and cultural ties, the study explores how museum objects—once detached from their living context—are being reactivated as sources of memory, identity, and intergenerational knowledge. Focusing on the reindeer calf halter mȯnggu̇i (also written in ethnographic sources as munguĭ, monguĭ ), the article illustrates how material culture functions not only as ethnographic evidence but also as a relational conduit that fosters language revitalization, ecological knowledge transmission, and cultural continuity across borders. By attending to the entanglements between language, landscape, and material practices, this research argues for the transformative potential of collaborative museum work in supporting Indigenous futures.