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.

scholarly journals Restitution or a Loss to Science? Understanding the Importance of Māori Ancestral Remains

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber Kiri Aranui
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The World ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Descendant Communities

For the past 20 years, the main focus of repatriation-related publications has been how the return of human remains has affected the institutions in which the remains reside. Be that with regard to the loss to science or public good, or changes in the way human remains are now cared for, treated, displayed, and stored. But what about the effects on the descendant communities from which these remains originate? There are some examples of Indigenous perspectives regarding the importance of repatriation in the literature, but these are few and far between by comparison. This article examines the importance of returning Māori ancestral remains back to descendant communities, and the development of the repatriation movement in Aotearoa New Zealand. The ethical consideration relating to research on Māori ancestral remains is also explored to understand how scientific research is viewed and used in the Aotearoa New Zealand context. Certain academics and scientists have commented over the years that repatriation is a loss to science and a purely political ploy. It is hoped that by sharing some of the impacts that are dealt with from a Māori perspective, that there is a better understanding of how this effects indigenous communities all around the world.

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.

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

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick E. Hoxie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Indian History ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Indian History ◽  
National Life

The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History guides readers to major topics and themes in the Native American past and helps them to identify major resources for further study and research. The book presents the story of the indigenous peoples who lived—and live—in the territory encompassed by the modern United States. Its chapters, by both Native and non-Native scholars, describe the major aspects of the historical change that occurred over the past 500 years as the continent was transformed from an “undiscovered” Native land to the seat of the world’s most powerful nation-state. It accomplishes this task with chapters that focus on significant periods of upheaval and change, place-based histories of major centers of indigenous culture, and overviews of major aspects of Indian community and national life.

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.

The Treatment of Human Remains under the Ecclesiastical Law of England

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Ian Blaney
Keyword(s):  
Local Authority ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Modern Treatment ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Character ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
The Church

Human remains interred in parish churchyards or in consecrated portions of local authority cemeteries are within the faculty jurisdiction of the consistory courts of the Church of England. A faculty is required for the disturbance of human remains lying within the faculty jurisdiction. This article will examine the law surrounding consecrated burial grounds in England and the disinterment of human remains therefrom and what this demonstrates about the principles of the ecclesiastical law of England relating to their protection. If ecclesiastical law provides for the protection of human remains, what is the justification for that and how adequate is the protection? The article will compare the consistory courts’ treatment of human remains with the regulation of remains outside the faculty jurisdiction, and attempt to relate canonical principles towards human remains with the legal character of consecrated ground. It will investigate whether the modern treatment of human remains is different from the treatment of remains in the past. By these comparisons I hope to better explore what justifications exist for the approach the consistory courts have taken in regulating disturbance of human remains.

Indigenous Understandings: Fusing Landscape and Skyscape

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn M Frank
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Night Sky ◽  
The Way

The talk examines the relational ontology of the Native American Lenape Delaware people who form part of the larger Algonquian-speaking group of North America. It is sometimes said that in the past as people contemplated the night sky, they ended up telling stories that were meant to explain what they saw in the sky above. Certainly, there is ample proof for the existence such astral tales when viewed cross-culturally. What I discuss, however, is the way in which what the Lenape people saw and experienced on earth was projected onto the stars above along with the associated cosmovision and belief system they embraced. Instead of passive sky-watching, they were fusing together landscape and skyscape. In the case of the Lenape cosmovision discussed here I will show that it is intimately linked to the tenets of bear ceremonialism. It was a remarkable belief system that managed to weave together landscape and skyscape: what was happening on earth and experienced on a daily basis was exteriorized, given expression and importance by projecting aspects of this rich earthly belief system onto the massive sky screen above.

Religion as Collective Right

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-223
Author(s):  
Michael D. McNally
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Federal Indian Law ◽  
Indian Act ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Indian Law

This chapter discusses repatriation law and a cluster of legal cases involving possession of ceremonial eagle feathers, where courts have consistently affirmed the collective contours of Native religions. Courts have upheld an exemption to the criminal penalties for feather possession tailored to members of federally recognized tribes against legal challenges by individual practitioners of Native religions who are not members of those tribes. These cases illustrate well the difficulties and the possibilities of religion as a category encompassing collective Native traditions. The coalition that persuaded Congress in 1994 to pass the Peyote Amendment to AIRFA was successful in part because it was largely the same circle of advocates, lawyers, tribal spiritual and political leaders, and allies who had recently won congressional passage of two repatriation statutes: the National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAI) in 1989 and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) the next year. The chapter thus tells the story of Native-led efforts to secure these two laws and offers an interpretation of them not as religious freedom laws, but primarily as additions to federal Indian law that encompass religious and cultural heritage.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document