Repatriation and Reburial Information

REPATRIATION AND REBURIAL ISSUES

Black Hills Rock Art Rattlesnake

Many groups, especially indigenous peoples, have profound concerns about the ethical and respectful treatment of the dead by archaeologists, physical anthropologists and museums. The issue is complicated with concerns ranging from academic freedom to the rights of the dead. There is a continuum of opinion about these matters. If you know of additional material that should be on this web site or have constructive suggestions, please contact Larry J. Zimmerman.

NAGPRA

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990)
Text of NAGPRA from ArchNet.

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Information
The National Archaeological Database contains copies of NAGPRA, Repatriation Notices, NAGPRA Board minutes and a variety of other information surrounding the law and its regulations.

nagpra-l
Nagpra-l is a listserv for discussion of issues surrounding NAGPRA and its implementation. To subscribe, send a mail message to nagpra-l@world.std.com. The message should read subscribe nagpra-l Your Name where YOUR NAME is your real name.

Case Studies

Kenewick Skeleton Dispute
Several recent stories relate to the Kennewick skeleton dispute.
Reburial Dispute by Andrew L. Slayman gives coverage from Archaeology Magazine. Position Paper: Human Remains Should Be Reburied by Armand Minthorn, Board of Trustees member and religious leader with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation gives views of a Umtilla leader. Kennewick Man: A debate that spans over 9,000 years is a Tri-City Herald web site with several stories about the dispute. You can also read about the dispute in the Society for American Archaeology Bulletin. David Liberty, an member of, and an archaeologist for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation at the time of the discovery provides a challenging perspective in Kenniwick Man Was Not Alone !or Corps Confusion in Columbia Park.

Mohican Conflicts with Wal-Mart, NYSHPO
This web site documents conflicts over treatment of remains and sacred sites at Waterford and Leeds Flat.

African Burial Ground Archaeological Project
The recent rediscovery and excavation of an 18th century African Burial Ground at Broadway and Reade Street in lower Manhattan has sparked the interests of many. Included in the project are arrangements for reburial of the remains. This excellent web site discusses many aspects of the project. Prepared by Sherrill D. Wilson, Ph.D., Office of Public Education and Interpretation of the African Burial Ground Director & Principal Ethnohistorian.

Bones of contention
A story by Janice Winters for the Digital Misourian, the electronic version of the University of Missouri student paper. Native American protestors called for the return of 1,800 skeletal remains of Native Americans being stored on the M.U. campus. Follow up stories, Senate endorses bone reburial and Osage Nation urges care in repatriation of Native bones give additional in formation on the case.

Repatriation Standoff, Tonto National Forest
From an Archaeology (March/April 1996) magazine newsbrief, eleven tribes are vying for burial rights to more than 1,000 Native American skeletons and accompanying funerary items found in the Tonto National Forest. For another view giving the case broader context, look at the Arizona Republic article by Kathleen Ingley entitled Disturbed Indian Grave Sites Haunt State, U.S..

Huron Indian Cemetery
Additonal Materials on the Conflict
The Wyandot Nation of Kansas defends the Huron Indian Cemetery from any threats and desecration. The latest attempt at development was the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma's announcement that they have the BIA's approval to put the land next to the cemetery into trust and then turn it into a casino.

Clee's Ferry Burial Grounds, Tennessee
Discusses looting at a multi-component site along the Cumberland River in Davidson County, Tennessee, and the efforts of the Alliance for Native American Rights to protect it.

Puvungna/CSULB Case
Several pages that describe the dispute about the Puvungna sacred site at California State University-Long Beach. Also see the article by Eugene Ruyle in Anthropology Newsletter 36(9):15-16, 1995.

Reburial at the Crow Creek Site
Photographs with brief text describing the reburial of the Crow Creek Massacre victims.

Ethics Codes and Policy Statements

The Vermillion Accord on Human Remains
The first Inter-Congress (1989) of the World Archaeological Congress dealt with Archaeological Ethics and the Treatment of the Dead. Individuals from twenty countries, twenty-seven American Indian nations, indigenous people from other regions, human osteologists, archaeologists and ethicists discussed and debated respectful treatment of human remains. The result was a six clause agreement. This was later expanded in the WAC First Code of Ethics for dealing with indigenous peoples which includes concerns about human remains.

Iowa Burials Program
The state of Iowa has been a national leader in developing state law and policy on repatriation/reburial. Their program is often cited as a national model. Links on this page describe their program in great detail.

South Carolina Policy on Human Burial Remains
The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology's (SCIAA) policy on human burial remains is in agreement with the official policy statements of the Society for American Archaeology, the Society for Historical Archaeology, the American Anthropological Association, the Society of Professional Archaeologists, the National Association of State Archaeologists, federal regulations, and the statutes of South Carolina.

State Laws

Montana Burial Legislation
Lecture notes on the impact of reburial laws on Montana. Prepared for a course in Forensic Anthropology by Dr. Randy Skelton.

Arizona State Code
Arizona's law on Disturbing human remains or funerary objects; rules; violation; classification; definitions

Indiana Reburial Law
Text of Indian law dealing with reburial of human remains.

Tennessee Native American Indian Cemetery Law
Full text of Tennessee's state rules on dealing with Native American cemeteries.

Organizations

Hui Malama I Na Kupuna `O Hawai`i Nei
Hui Malama I Na Kapuna `O Hawai`i Nei (We Care For and Protect the Kupuna of Hawai`i) is an organization concerned with their Kupuna. Hui Malama (for short) was organized in December 1988 in order to achieve goals and implement philosophy espoused by their Kupuna. A major event that galvanized them into forming Hui Malama was the disinterment of 1,004 Kupuna bones at Honokahua, Maui for a hotel development. This desecration of their Kupuna bones was stopped after a 24-hour vigil on O`ahu at the State Capital. The site contains advice on working with musuems, the group's beliefs and practices, their goals and a list of museums from which remains have been or are being repatriated.

Midwest SOARRING
Save Our Ancestors' Remains & Resources Indigenous Network Group works to provide protection for human remains, burial goods and historical sites. Midwest SOARRING now has a new home at http://www.geocities.com/~soarring.

Alliance for Native American Rights
The Alliance for Native American Indian Rights, based in Nashville, Tennessee, is a non-profit, intertribal organization dedicated to preserving and protecting Native American burial grounds and other culturally significant sites. You can read contents of their newsletter.

Repatriation Office, Smithsonian Institution
The new web site includes a range of information regarding policies and documentation. There are also several images of repartriations.

Repatriation Office, Peabody Museum
A brief description of the office and its staff. The Peabody Museum has collections from almost every recognized tribe.

Bibliographies

Repatriation Bibliography
A bibliography prepared by Brian Gill, Humboldt State University

Native American Repatriation and Reburial: A Bibliography
Compiled by Barb Bocek, Stanford University Archaeologist.

Full Text Articles

Listed alphabetically by last name of author
Kenniwick Man Was Not Alone !or Corps Confusion in Columbia Park.
A “toned down” position paper by David Michael Liberty, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and an archaeologist for them at the time Kennewick skeleton was found.

SAAWeb Working Together: Hopi Oral History and Archaeology, Part I: The Role of Archaeology
By T. J. Ferguson, Kurt Dongoske, Mike Yeatts, and Leigh Jenkins, this SAA Bulletin 13(3) article considers Hopi repatriation policy and its role in promoting cooperation between the Hopi and archaeologists.

Human Remains Found in Alaska Reported to be 9,730 Years OldTerence E. Fifield reports on human remains from Prince of Wales Island in Alaska's Tongass National Forest where federal agencies, tribes, and archaeologists are cooperating on study of the remains.

The New Official Religion : The Hindmarsh Island and La Trobe Affairs
Austin Gough's Samuel Griffith Society (vol 6, 6) presentation that generally criticizes reburial, with Australian examples.

SAAWeb Court Rulings Affirm Burial Site Protection is Not a "Taking"
State Archaeologist of Iowa William Green's SAA Bulletin 13(3) article on a state supreme court test of the Iowa reburial law.

The Disposition of the Dead
Jane Hubert's 1988 paper from World Archaeological Bulletin 2.

Indian Creationists Thwart Archeologists
George Johnson's article appeared in the New York Times Science section on October 22, 1996.

White American Attitudes Concerning Burials
Randall H. McGuire's 1988 paper from the World Archaeological Bulletin.

SAAWeb Working Together on the Border
Randall H. McGuire's SAA Bulletin 13:5 paper dealing with his Sonoran research and interaction with several American Indian nations, especially the Tohono O'odham people.

Disowning the Past
A dissenting view on reubrial by Clement Meighan from Social Facts Number 3, Winter 1996.

The Reburial Controversy
A general overview and exploration of a method for resolution of the ethical dilemma, by Eric Pettifor.

World Archaeological Bulletin #6
The entire volume 6 of WAB is devoted to issues surrounding the holding of human remains in Europe. Edited by Cressida Fforde, the full text introduction by Peter J. Ucko is available as well as the table of contents for the volume.

Other

Web Sites with Similar or Related Material

The Roots of Nagpra
An interview with Steve Russell, Social and Policy Science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio about the history of NAGPRA.

NAGPRA and the Demon-Haunted World
G.A. Clark's letter to the Editor of the SAA Bulletin14(5) contends that NAGPRA is an unmitigated disaster and that "western science is the most satisfactory paradigm for describing and explaining the experiential world that humans have ever developed."

Cartoons on the treatment of human remains
A small selection of cartoons regarding attitudes toward human remains.

A Line in the Sand
This web site contains a great deal of information, opinion and source material on a range of American Indian sovereignty issues including Archaeology and Graves. Be certain to look around this web site. Much else relates to the issues of repatriation and reburial.

Video and Print Source Materials

Science or Sacrilege?
A new video produced by Nicolas Nicastro, Cornell University, examines NAGPRA and its impacts.

General

Return and Repatriation: Ethics
Paul Treanor contends that nationalist and pan-nationalist claims for the "return" or repatriation of works of art, archaeological material, or human remains have no ethical or moral basis.

Who owns the dead?
Who Owns the Dead? Science or the descendants? In a Mail & Guardian, South Africa, opinion, Professor Andrew Sillen describes the growing controversy between anthropologists and ethnic or religous groups.

North America

Bones of Contention
Transcript of a BBC TV episode of Horizon broadcast in the UK on January 23, 1995. The program has not yet been broadcast in the US. The even-handed program examines the reburial issue, looking carefully at the question of why American Indians want remains returned, the continuum of opinion about the issue among Indians and archaeologists, and some of the reasons why Indians don't trust the work of scientists.

Native Americans Find Final Resting Place
Documents the repatriation and reburial of the six Pawnee Scouts from the Army Medical Museum and Smithsonian. The article by Donna Warner appeared in the Wednesday, October 18, 1995 (vol I, no. 5) issue of The American Observer.

Pawnee Scout Repatriation
A report on repatriation of the remains of 6 Pawnee Scouts by Repatriation Office of the National Museum of Natural History.

A famous skeleton returns to the earth
From the High Country News (March, 1993) an article by Samantha Silva on reburial of a 10,000-year-old skeleton of a PaleoIndian woman whose remains were saved from the rock crusher at a Buhl, Idaho, gravel quarry and reubrial under the 1984 Idaho reburial law.

Indian Group is Creating Reburial Site by Potomac
A June 26, 1995 article in The Virginian-Pilot.

Opinions
Opinions about Native American - Archaeological Relations by Ben Goldman and Cultural Affiliation and NAGPRA by Chris Schaefer.

Indians closer to getting artifacts back from museums
From the Detroit News a general story on repatriaton By Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press. November, 1995.

Re: Skulls Returning
An opinion archived in NATIVE-L, from Lyn Dearborn.

Reburial Research at Fort Selden
From US-ICOMOS, Neville Agnew, Getty Conservation Institute, reports on experiments at Fort Selden related to the impact of reburial on artifacts.

Australia

The Forced Repatriation of Archaeological Materials
This extract is reprinted with permission from a critique by Tim Murray and Jim Allen, in Antiquity, Vol 69, Dec 1995. Further accounts will be found in J. Allen "A Short History of the Tasmanian Affair", Australian Archaeology, December 1995 and T. Murray "A Forced Repatriation of Cultural Properties to Tasmania" in M. Chanock and C. Simpson (eds) Law and Cultural Heritage, a special issue of Law In Context 1996.

Australian museums haunted by Aboriginal remains
From the RIOT-L Archives a piece by Mark Bendeich for Reuters News Service on 27 December 1995. Interviews with physical anthropologist Colin Pardoe and aboriginals Bob Weatherall and Michael Aird.

Africa

Griquas want chief's bones back
Eddie Koch on a row over the bones of a Griqua chief, dug up 30 years ago by Wits researchers. From the Mail & Guardian, South Africa.

Laying Sandile's head to rest
Jimmy Matyu reports on the hunt for ancient African bones in Britain, where two Xhosa chiefs may be buried. From the Mail & Guardian, South Africa.

Israel

Israelis Protest Search for Remains
On Novermber 27, 1995, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews prayed in Jerusalem streets to protest an archaeological dig at a 2,000-year-old Jewish cave believed to contain the remains of ancient Jewish warriors.

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