Provinces of Meaning: Determining Cultural Affiliation under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-293
Author(s):  
Jerry Williams
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Cultural Affiliation

The native American graves protection and repatriation act in its first decade

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAR Nafziger ◽  
RJ Dobkins
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
Cultural Patrimony ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law

The global effort to protect indigenous heritage relies on national legislation. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of the United States provides one model for accomplishing a broad agenda of protective measures. NAGPRA confirms indigenous ownership of cultural items excavated or discovered on federal and tribal lands, criminalizes trafficking in indigenous human remains and cultural items, and establishes a process of repatriation of material to native groups. In implementing the law, questions related to cultural affiliation, culturally unidentifiable material, the status of native groups not recognized by the federal government, and the scope of a group's cultural patrimony have been particularly troublesome. A case study of the repatriation process highlights issues in implementing NAGPRA and benefits in fostering consultation and collaboration among native groups, museums, and federal agencies. Finally, the article considers the controversies that have come before a statutory review committee and the federal courts during NAGPRA's first decade. This experience demonstrates the limitations of formal dispute resolution as a means of developing and implementing the law.

Ancient History in the New World: Integrating Oral Traditions and the Archaeological Record in Deep Time

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger C. Echo-Hawk
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
New World ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Source Of Information

AbstractOral traditions provide a viable source of information about historical settings dating back far in time—a fact that has gained increasing recognition in North America, although archaeologists and other scholars typically give minimal attention to this data. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) lists oral traditions as a source of evidence that must be considered by museum and federal agency officials in making findings of cultural affiliation between ancient and modern Native American communities. This paper sets forth the NAGPRA standards and presents an analytical framework under which scholars can proceed with evaluation of historicity in verbal records of the ancient past. The author focuses on an Arikara narrative and argues that it presents a summary of human history in the New World from initial settlement up to the founding of the Arikara homeland in North Dakota. Oral records and the archaeological record describe a shared past and should be viewed as natural partners in post-NAGPRA America. In conceptual terms, scholarship on the past should revisit the bibliocentric assumptions of “prehistory,” and pursue, instead, the study of “ancient American history”-an approach that treats oral documents as respectable siblings of written documents.

scholarly journals Artifact Repatriation and Collection Documentation

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan E. McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Data Base ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
East Texas ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Archaeological Data

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) became law in November 1990, giving Native Americans control over the disposition of human remains and certain artifacts with which they have "cultural affiliation". For East Texas, most Native American burials are unquestionably affiliated with the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma. Implementation of NAGPRA will affect the archaeological data base for East Texas. Repatriation of human remains and associated artifacts to the Caddo Tribe will be required of most curation facilities with collections from this region. Under NAGPRA, future excavation and analysis of human remains and associated artifacts will become increasingly difficult for Federally-sponsored projects.

Complex Legal Legacies: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Scientific Study, and Kennewick Man

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan B. Bruning
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
The Law

Debates over disposition options for an inadvertently discovered set of early Holocene human remains known as Kennewick Man have fueled discussions about the scientific, cultural, and ethical implications of the anthropological study of human remains. A high-profile lawsuit over Kennewick Man has led to the most extensive judicial analysis to date of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the primary law affecting access to, and the ultimate disposition of, ancient human remains found in the United States. However, despite years of litigation, some key questions remain unanswered. The judicial decisions in Kennewick address important questions about determining Native American status and assessing cultural affiliation under the law. However, the court opinions fail to address the role of scientific study within NAGPRA's confines. This article examines NAGPRA and concludes that two provisions in the law expressly permit the scientific study of human remains if certain conditions are met. Significantly, Kennewick Man might have qualified for study under NAGPRA even if found to be Native American and culturally affiliated with the claimant tribes, which would have enabled study to proceed from the outset while the parties debated the issues of Native American status and potential cultural affiliation.

Cultural affiliation is not enough: the repatriation of Ainu human remains

Polar Record ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naohiro Nakamura
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Legal Case ◽  
The Us ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
The University

ABSTRACTThe challenges faced by indigenous peoples in repatriation negotiations vary across the globe. In 2012, three Ainu individuals launched a legal case against Hokkaido University, demanding the return of the human remains of nine individuals and a formal apology for having conducted intentional excavations of Ainu graveyards, stolen the remains and infringed upon their rights to perform ceremonies of worship. This action marked the first of such legal cases in Japan. The Ainu experienced both legal and ethical challenges during negotiations with the university; for example, while the claimants applied the Ainu concept kotan as a legal argument for collective ownership of the remains, Hokkaido University claimed the lack of assumption of rights relating to worship under the Civil Code of Japan. There has been significant progress recently on repatriation, mainly due to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in the US, and several meaningful recommendations have been made to ease the repatriation process. However, such recommendations are often case specific and variations in the experiences of indigenous peoples from country to country have not been widely documented. This article discusses the challenges faced by the Ainu in repatriation negotiations in Japan, with a particular focus on the difficulties of applying indigenous customs and philosophies within legal frameworks.

Archaeological Cultures and Cultural Affiliation: Hopi and Zuni Perspectives in the American Southwest

1997 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 600-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt E. Dongoske ◽  
Michael Yeatts ◽  
Roger Anyon ◽  
T. J. Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
Archaeological Cultures

Archaeologists and Native Americans apply different concepts to classify ancient groups of people who lived in the past. This is a topic of current interest because many archaeologists in the United States are now having to determine the cultural affiliation of the materials they study to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The Hopi and Zuni tribes in the American Southwest are used as case examples to examine how and why archaeological and tribal views of cultural affiliation are divergent. We suggest anthropological perspectives of culture need to be reintegrated into archaeological theory in collaboration with Native Americans in order to interpret the past in a manner that is both useful and interesting to the multiple audiences interested in our work.

scholarly journals The Concept of “Cultural Affiliation” in NAGPRA: Its Potential and Limits in the Global Protection of Indigenous Cultural Property Rights

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Kuprecht
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
United Nations Declaration

AbstractIn the debate about indigenous cultural property, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of the United States has developed and implemented an unorthodox concept of “cultural affiliation.” The act entitles Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to claim repatriation of their cultural property—comprising human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony—upon the establishment of a specific shared group identity and a cultural affiliation to an object. The concept of cultural affiliation in the act replaces proof of ownership, or proof that an object was stolen or illicitly removed. It thereby amends traditional standards saturated in notions of property and ownership that have perpetuated since Roman law and allows the evolution of a control regime over cultural property that takes into account the cultural aspects of the objects. On an international level, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) of 2007 stipulates a similar emancipation of indigenous peoples' cultural property claims from notions of property and ownership. This article explores NAGPRA's cultural affiliation concept as it stands between private property and human rights law and brings into focus the concept's elements that go beyond traditional property law. It ultimately looks at the potential and limits of the concept from an international perspective as a standard for other countries that consider implementation of UNDRIP's provisions on indigenous, tangible, movable cultural property.

Fostering the Literacy of indigenous Elementary School-Age Children

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Frome Loeb ◽  
Kathy Redbird
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Reading Curriculum ◽  
Authentic Materials ◽  
Elementary School Age ◽  
Values And Beliefs

Abstract Purpose: In this article, we describe the existing literacy research with school-age children who are indigenous. The lack of data for this group of children requires speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to use expert opinion from indigenous and non-indigenous people to develop culturally sensitive methods for fostering literacy skills. Method: We describe two available curricula developed by indigenous people that are available, which use authentic materials and embed indigenous stories into the learning environment: The Indian Reading Series and the Northwest Native American Reading Curriculum. We also discuss the importance of using cooperative learning, multisensory instruction, and increased holistic emphasis to create a more culturally sensitive implementation of services. We provide an example of a literacy-based language facilitation that was developed for an indigenous tribe in Kansas. Conclusion: SLPs can provide services to indigenous children that foster literacy skills through storytelling using authentic materials as well as activities and methods that are consistent with the client's values and beliefs.

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