Soon after Christopher Columbus was unduly lauded as discoverer of the Americas, the enlightened intellectual community of Europe and the new Euro-American claimants of this continent became obsessed with learning from where the indigenous savages of this hemisphere originated. The motley, uncivilized race of near-humans running amok over this vast resource-laden land of plenty were quite unlike the sophisticated peoples of the developed European nations. Were these strange red men indeed the lost tribe of Israel? ...isolated on this continent? ...not of sufficient intellect to realize they were living on a land of unlimited wealth and prosperity? Surely these savages could not claim title to the land, for they roamed hither and yon, failed to erect fences or boundaries designating their sovereign territories, and did not so much as domesticate livestock. Obviously these people were under-evolved and positioned not far ahead of animals on the taxonomic scale. European and, later, Euro-American governments set about eliminating and removing the troublesome natives, followed by the Christian missionaries' commencement of taming and civilizing the heathens. Shortly thereafter, scholars and scientists of the Western schools diligently sought to ascertain the origins of the Americas' first inhabitants.American Indians have been subjects of study ever since anthropologists and archaeologists first disembarked from the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. (I believe I must credit Vine Deloria, Jr. as having alluded to anthropologists arriving with Columbus, but the exact source escapes me.) Many Indian activist groups and ethics-minded, non-Indian concernees claim that five hundred years of being the brunt of scholarly study is about enough. Many state and federal legislators have agreed.
The Anthropology Department of the University of Nebraska was recently caught with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar - or of maintaining an illegal charnel house, if you will. The_ Daily Nebraskan Online_ reported "that UNL's anthropology department has been illegally housing American Indian remains, including several bones found in a drawer with Taco Bell wrappers." The article continued to say that "[i]f these allegations are true, UNL is in violation of the Native American Grave Protection Act of 1990, which says all remains held by federally funded institutions were supposed to be returned to their tribes by 1995." A senior anthropology student at the University of Nebraska stated her belief that "the remains of at least five American Indians have been housed in Bessey Hall." Horrified, the student then asked the reporter, "How would you feel if you found out your grandma's bones were sitting in a drawer? (See link at bottom of this page.)
An _Indian Country Today_ (September14-21, 1998) reporter stated that "[l]eaders from 15 Great Plains tribes met with University of Nebraska in Lincoln officials, asking the University to return 1,702 ancestral remains currently stored at the University." The university's vice chancellor for research and NAGPRA (Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act) coordinator claimed that the remains belonged to the Ponca, Pawnee, Omaha, and two Alaskan tribes. In addition, the university held the remains of 673 other individuals that had not been associated with any particular tribe. Investigations revealed that many of the human bones had been improperly stored and that "an estimated 20,000 bones have been lost. Some or all of the missing bones were incinerated." Apparently, in the mid-1960s, a trunk-load of human remains was burned in an incinerator used to dispose of diseased animals and animal parts and deposited in a field. Pemina Yellow Bird, representing the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota, reprimanded the university with: "Get out of the business of robbing our graves and stealing our ancestors." The 101st Congress of the United States enacted Public Law # 101-601 on November 16, 1990, entitled the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). In summary, the NAGPRA law requires that:
...federal agencies and all museums that have possession or control over holdings or collections of Native American human remains and associated funerary objects are to compile an inventory of such items. The inventories must be completed in consultation with tribal governments and Native Hawaiian organization officials and traditional religious leaders within a five-year period from the act's enactment. Museums must supply documentation of existing records for the 'purpose of determining the geographical origin, cultural affiliation, and basic facts surrounding [the] acquisition and accession of Native American human remains and associated funerary objects.' Those museums that fail to comply with the act may be subject to civil penalties. If a cultural affiliation of Native American human remains and associated funerary objects is established with a particular tribe, then, upon request of a known lineal descendant of the Native American or the tribe, the federal agency or museum must expeditiously return such items and associated funerary objects. (Phelan, _New England Law Review_ Fall 1993)In the complete text of the NAGPRA statute, "[m]useum means any institution or State or local government agency (including any institution of higher learning) that has possession of, or control over, human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony and receives federal funds." This definition would clearly include the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and indicate its violation of federal law. Gerard Harbison of UNL's chemistry department yelled "Foul!" and said this issue raises serious questions about academic freedom. Harbison admits that occasionally archaeological excavations have been carried out in "an insensitive and clumsy way, both needlessly antagonizing Indian peoples and yielding sloppy scientific results." Harbison states that "[i]deologically based attacks on scholarship are as unacceptable from ethnic or racial activists as they are from totalitarian governments." The chemist attacked Vine Deloria, Jr. for his rejection of the "entire scientific description" of the Bering land bridge theory because it "conflicts with Indian creation myths." (Reference to any Judeo-Christian "creation myths" were absent.)
Anthropologists and archaeologists argue that to understand the present they must study the past. Anthropological researchers will claim that they are preserving Indian culture by exhuming and studying dead people buried by their families who, doubtless, never expected their loved ones to be dug up at a future date and analyzed by alien scientists. Along with the removal and study of human remains, whatever personal effects or grave goods that were interred with the individual have been, likewise, salvaged, put on display as curious cultural novelties, or sold at a hefty prices to collectors.
Western science argues that by reburying the bones of these early American inhabitants - bones that have been stored in countless boxes and drawers in hundreds of institutions for many decades - medical science will be prevented from the invaluable research of past disease patterns and diets. A viable argument, but then do archaeologists and osteopathologists regularly share research? One can be hard-pressed to learn exactly what scientific breakthroughs have occurred via skeletal studies of Native American remains found in drawers shared with Taco Bell refuse. The implementation of NAGPRA will not deprive archaeologists of their chosen vocation, though it may cramp their style somewhat. The issue of the repatriation of human remains and funerary objects has many arguments and views. Perhaps one of the most important views in this issue should be that of the descendants of those whose remains are being excavated, studied, tucked away in boxes or drawers, or unceremoniously incinerated. In an essay on the reburial issue, Dr. Larry Zimmerman wrote:
Anthropologists stating that the past is gone, extinct, or lost with reburial send a strong message to Indians that Indians themselves are extinct. Acceptance of the past as anthropologists view it would actually destroy the present for Indians. If the past is the present, excavated human remains are not devoid of personality and must be respected as a living person should be. Anthropologists dealing with the remains using any other approach to the past are actually showing disrespect to the person that is the remains and to contemporary Indians. If anthropologists expect Indians to accept anthropological views of time and the past, Indians, to paraphrase Ong [Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 1982], would have to die to continue living. This is what Deloria meant in _God Is Red_ when he stated, '[t]he tragedy of America's Indians ... is that they no longer exist, except in the pages of books.' (Biolsi, Thomas and Larry J. Zimmerman. _Indians and Anthropologists: Vine Deloria, Jr. and the Critique of Anthropology_. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997)Instead of collecting the remains of the ancestors of living people and hoarding them away in contemporary university "charnel houses" or museums, the community of scholars who choose to study America's first peoples could begin relying more on the stories and writings of descendants and the scores of literature readily available. Compromise may not be an immediate option, but the scientific community must acquire greater respect toward those offended by their actions.
The argument of sacrosanctity presented by several Indian nations is persuasive and demands observance. Ancient traditional beliefs maintain that death and burial are but one leg of the journey to the spirit world and a reunion with the Mother Earth. Archaeologists claim adherence to a code of ethic responsibility in defining the past through study of diet, demographics, trade and grave goods, and diseases. Science seeks advancement of medical and biological research via the accumulation of pre-historic and historic artifacts and specimens, or in other words, human remains.
The repatriation issue has taken on more of a political air than a moral one. Science resents federal legislation dictating its affairs and mode of conduct. But matters threatening the religious integrity of any group are not historically devoid of congressional intervention. A nation cannot legislate a universal change of heart or a new moral philosophy, but it can enact laws protecting the religious and spiritual beliefs and rights of people. Maybe it is time for science to draw upon the rapidly advancing technologies and look to consilience or unified knowledge through related fields of study.
The Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act is sure to be challenged, attacked, and debated for a long time. It is often said that white ethnocentric political consortia disdain the notion that American Indians originated on this continent. Science aids in dispelling that notion by hypothesizing that Indians simply immigrated to America earlier than did the European colonists. This immigration theory perpetuates the cultural genocide practiced by early colonizers and Christian missionaries. Scientists are entirely within their rights to hold to whatever theories of immigration, migration, evolution, or creation myth they choose. They are not within their rights, however, to ignore and deny the religious beliefs and practices of any culture. Collecting the remains and funerary items of people who died and were buried in this country is illegal. Walter Echo-Hawk, in _Human Rights_ (Winter 1989-90), explained that "[f]rom a spiritual standpoint, it's important the dead not be robbed. That belief is held by almost all Americans. Most people today bury their dead with a variety of burial offerings - clothing, a crucifix, rosaries, Bibles, all kinds of different objects, including a transistor radio tuned to a certain station."
It is interesting that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln would be guilty of such a blatant violation. In 1989, the Nebraska legislature created law that required all state-sponsored museums to return "tribally identifiable skeletal remains" to the appropriate tribes for reburial (Deloria, in _NARF_ Fall 1989). While the university was building a football dynasty, UNL's anthropology department dropped the ball. Gerard Harbison criticizes his Chancellor and Academic Senate for having been "closer to craven capitulation to activist demands than to any kind of defense of research and scholarship. The Chancellor has in effect disowned and apologized for fifty years of research within the anthropology department." (See link at bottom of this page). One would suspect that because of such a gross violation of the law, the university stood to lose substantial federal funding if its administration did not profusely apologize and immediately rectify the situation.
Has not the fight over who is right and who is wrong diminished the importance of the heart of the issue? Much like Washington politics, the reburial debate provokes entertaining, though often, spiteful diatribes from players on both sides. On one side, Harbison takes a jab at repatriation by referring to the "cherished myths in contemporary Indian identity politics." Could not one likewise accuse anthropologists of playing the political game with the "Kennewick-man-is-caucasian" ploy? Somebody must be doing something right on the pro-reburial side, for Harbison used the word "activist" eleven times, seemingly in a pejorative sense. What's wrong with seatbelt laws? Ralph Nader was often labeled a radical activist in his consumer rights campaigns.
Several scientists have apparently had their reputations and careers destroyed by NAGPRA-like legislation according to Clement Meighan, Professor Emeritus, UCLA Department of Anthropology. In a paper titled "Disowning the Past", Dr. Meighan premises his arguments against repatriation by inferring that NAGPRA is religion-based and that "in the United States, undefined 'Indian religion' is the law of the land." (See link at the bottom of this page.) The article is an annoying read, full of what might be seen as exaggerated tales of lost reputations, bankruptcy, and other tragedies befallen upon scholars whose lives have been impacted by NAGPRA. I assume that other religions, as opposed to "Indian religion", must be defined. While reading Dr. Meighan's article, some thoughts shared by Dr. Charles A. Eastman came to mind. In _The Soul of the Indian_, Dr. Eastman (Ohiyesa) claimed "that there is no such thing as 'Christian civilization.' I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same."
Anthropologists and archaeologists lament over what they perceive as threatening their "academic freedom" and label NAGPRA "bad law." American Indians and their non-Indian allies reservedly rejoice over enactment of this "good law." I say "reservedly" because Indian nations have been handed many promises on paper before, and to what end? Nonetheless, NAGPRA is a small victory for the First Nations of the Americas. Many federal and state institutions have complied with NAGPRA's requirements. The return of the dead and other objects of patrimony have been satisfying and, perhaps, may have kindled some reconciliatory trends. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln chose not to comply with the new law and is enduring the consequences.
It is likely that many other institutions of higher learning likewise have skeletons in their closets - literally. Some will have to be exposed before they will comply with NAGPRA. New and restrictive policies may be difficult for many old-school scholars to swallow. Carrying out unfunded mandates can be costly to smaller museums and schools. But NAGPRA is law - good, bad, or otherwise - and it is being enforced.
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln has apologized for the past actions of its researchers' and students' handling of American Indian remains. The school has promised to construct a memorial on the campus where incinerated remains were dumped and are returning the 1700+ Indian remains to their respective nations. Though inspired from outside pressure, hopefully these responsive actions will spawn academic reminders of what early anthropologists recognized and recorded long ago - that American Indians had a strong sense of family, ancestral spirit, and homeland - and still do.
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