Protecting Native American Human Remains, Burial Grounds, and Sacred Places: Panel Discussion

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Riding In ◽  
Cal Seciwa ◽  
Suzan Shown Harjo ◽  
Walter R. Echo-Hawk ◽  
Rebecca Tsosie
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Burial Grounds

Repatriation and Erasing the Past

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Weiss ◽  
James W. Springer
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Impact Research ◽  
Indian Law ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
The Way

Engaging a longstanding controversy important to archaeologists and indigenous communities, Repatriation and Erasing the Past takes a critical look at laws that mandate the return of human remains from museums and laboratories to ancestral burial grounds. Anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss and attorney James Springer offer scientific and legal perspectives on the way repatriation laws impact research. Weiss discusses how anthropologists draw conclusions about past peoples through their study of skeletons and mummies and argues that continued curation of human remains is important. Springer reviews American Indian law and how it helped to shape laws such as NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). He provides detailed analyses of cases including the Kennewick Man and the Havasupai genetics lawsuits. Together, Weiss and Springer critique repatriation laws and support the view that anthropologists should prioritize scientific research over other perspectives.

To Bury the Ancestors: A View of Nagpra

1994 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Stoffle ◽  
Michael Evans
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Cultural Patrimony ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Indian Tribes ◽  
The Law

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) became law on November 16, 1990. The law addresses the rights of lineal descendants and members of American Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian groups with respect to human remains and cultural items with which they are affiliated. NAGPRA is concerned with the human remains of Native American ancestors, material goods still associated with these bodies, material goods once associated with these bodies but now separated, objects of importance to ongoing religious practice, and objects of cultural patrimony. NAGPRA sets into motion a process of identification, consultation, and recommendation about these ancestors or ancestral materials.

Anthropomorphic ‘tombstones’ of the Gorgippia necropolis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Е.М. Алексеева
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Funeral Ritual ◽  
Conventional Meaning ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Burial Grounds

Traditionally, anthropomorphic sculptures from the necropolis of the ancient city of Gorgippia are flattened half-shapes without detailed face and body contours, merely trunks and heads. In the Northern Black Sea region such monuments are characteristic of the IV–II centuries BC, but some date back to the first centuries of the Common Era. There is a reason to believe that they were used for ceremonial purposes rather than as markers of particular burial grounds or gravestones in the conventional meaning. Faceless half-shapes in Greek necropolises are associated with rites of the worship of Persephone, who dies (as represented by faceless sculptures) and then resurrects (by sculptures with painted faces) as seasons change. They could be used like special posts – ‘cippi’ – for marking sacred places within necropolises with libations and sacrifices in honor of gods with chthonic properties. Such incarnations are observed in Persephone (Kore), Demeter, Aphrodite, Artemis and their male counterparts – Dionysus, Hercules, Hermes, Eros. Epitaphs and carved scenes related to traditions of the funeral ritual on the anthropomorphic objects turned them into tombstones dedicated to specific deceased individuals. 

Religion as Spirituality

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-126
Author(s):  
Michael D. McNally
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Sacred Lands ◽  
American Spirituality ◽  
Religious Claim

This chapter examines the failure in the courts of Native appeals to religious freedom protections for sacred lands, and it extends the previous chapter's analysis of the reception of Native claims to religion as religion. Where a religious claim conforms to the subjective, interior spirituality that has become naturalized in the United States, it has worked reasonably well in the courts. This is emphatically not the case where claims involve religious relationships with, uses of, and obligations to, land. The chapter explains how courts reason their way out of taking steps to protect Native American religious freedom when sacred places are threatened, a puzzling matter in that courts consistently acknowledge the sincerity of the religious beliefs and practices associated with those sacred places. Along the way the chapter develops a fuller sense of the workings of the discourse of Native American spirituality as it comes to control judicial comprehension of Native religious freedom claims.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Weiss ◽  
James W. Springer
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Human Remains

In this introductory chapter, Weiss and Springer introduce the two basic themes of the book: 1) the value of the study of human remains, and 2) the barriers or limitations they see to that study within the parameters of NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act).

scholarly journals Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in Native American Literature: A Panel Discussion

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Womack ◽  
Arnold Krupat ◽  
Lisa Brooks ◽  
Elvira Pulitano ◽  
Michael Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Native American Literature

The Challenges of Dealing with Human Remains in Cultural Resource Management

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Powless ◽  
Carolyn Freiwald
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Cultural Resource Management ◽  
Lead Author ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Community Agencies ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Training

AbstractOver the past few years, the lead author has had the opportunity to excavate multiple large sites in California, working on behalf of developers to keep their projects in compliance with their permits. She also worked in conjunction with local tribes to resolve burial issues with each excavation. During these excavations, she observed the challenges that the tribes encountered when dealing with fast-paced cultural resource management (CRM) projects where burial retrieval and a shortage of resources were the norm. For many years, archaeologists have viewed CRM as only dealing with the material culture of the past; however, archaeologists also consult and work with living cultures. This article will address the endemic problem in CRM that stems from a lack of planning, preparation, resources, and training and how it affects the burial excavations that archaeologists and tribes encounter in the CRM setting. It will also look for solutions to remedy a long-broken system that continues to ignore existing laws set in place to protect resources, as well as the relationships between the Native American community, agencies, researchers, and land developers.

Case note. Kennewick man and native American graves protection and repatriation act woes

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 212-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
LJ Zimmerman ◽  
RN Clinton
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Case Note ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Core ◽  
Legal Challenge ◽  
Core Issues

The contentious, sometimes even raucous debate over the repatriation and reburial of Native American human remains has been calm compared to the clamor raised over the so-called Kennewick Man. Although the reburial debate has captured substantial worldwide media and public attention, the debate over the Kennewick find has done what no other case has so far managed - to raise a serious legal challenge to parts of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), a law providing for the return of human remains and burial artifacts to tribes. This case study examines the core issues surrounding the archaeological discovery, the entanglements related to NAGPRA, and possible impact of Kennewick on NAGPRA itself.

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