Ethical Dilemmas Faced By Small Museums Handling Native American Human Remains
Kristin Beutler, Rebekah Miller, Cate Peebles, Allyssa Yanniello
Bibliography- Trade Publications
Ainslie, George. "Art. III.--THE INDIAN QUESTION." Presbyterian Quarterly and
Princeton Review (1872-1877) no. 15 (07, 1875): 438.
This article is an example of the prevalent point of view by whites in the 19th
century of Native Americans. “The Indian Question” was viewed as an inconvenient
nuisance to be dealt with; natives were characterized as inherently drunk, sickly, and
immoral. Formerly populous tribes were disappearing because of disease, decay,
intemperance and licentiousness. This article purports that the only way to save what
remains of the tribes is to Christianize them and isolate Natives on government-created
reservations.
Bever, Lindsey. “Native American tribe, archaeologists at odds over Indian remains.”
Washington Post. April 28, 2014.
The article details the disagreement between Native Americans and archaeologists
in Larkspur, California, where a development project unearthed a 4500-year-old burial
ground. Native Americans reinterred the remains; archaeologists wanted to study them.
Bray, Tamara. "Repatriation: A Clash of World Views." AnthroNotes - National
Museum of Natural History Bulletin for Teachers 17, no. 1/2 (1995): 1-8.
Bray focuses on the idea of repatriation and the repatriation movement in the
United States as it pertains to Native American remains and funerary objects. She
explains two major Acts that focus on repatriation. The first is the National Museum of
the American Indian (NMAI) Act, 1989, which required the Smithsonian to inventory
and determine the origins of its human remains and funerary objects; identifiable objects
were required to be offered back to its tribe of origin. The Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 1990, made this mandate broader: any
federally funded museum, institution, and/or agencies had to comply with the new law.
This article gives a comprehensive background of the various schools of thought that led
to repatriation. Some fall in favor of returning remains to Native American tribes; this
group is mostly composed of Native Americans and non-professionally affiliated
individuals. They feel that, from a religious and cultural standpoint, the remains and
objects should be returned. The opposition thinks that remains are better preserved within
institutions and museums, and should be available for study within controlled
environments; returning them to less than ideal conditions will lead to their destruction
and loss from posterity.
Davis, Heather. "Penn Museum Explores Jim Thorpe Remains Controversy."
The Penn Current. February 12, 2015.
This article is from The Penn Current’s review of the Penn Museum’s
controversial Jim Thorpe exhibit. This exhibit explored why Jim Thorpe, PA is named
after a Native American from Oklahoma and the call for Jim Thorpe’s remains to be
returned to his three sons for proper burial. However, this is a complicated case because
Jim Thorpe’s wife gifted the remains to the town on the condition that they name the
town in honor of the celebrated athlete. This case becomes an issue of ownership and
how that is qualified under the NAGPRA. This is a current lawsuit between the town of
Jim Thorpe, his sons, and the Sac and Fox tribes. The Penn Museum ran an exhibit in
February 2015 about the legal and ethical issues behind Jim Thorpe’s remains. The
Thorpe family won a local case surrounding returning the bones, but lost their subsequent
appeal. This is a current, ongoing case dealing with the struggles of human remains in a
museum and collection context.
McManamon, Francis. "Changing Relationships Between Native Americans and
Archaeologists." Forum Journal 8, no. 2 (1994).
This article focuses on the issue of ethics from an archaeological standpoint.
However, the article points out issues faced by museums, archivists, and curators, as well
as archaeologists. Some of the major issues highlighted by the article is the lack of
communication between the groups, the classification between what Native Americans
consider to be sacred items and what professionals consider to be remains, and also the
usage of jargon used by many professionals when dealing with the remains of Native
Americans is sometimes offensive to Native groups. Acts like The Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) have helped some to open these lines
of communication but these acts only affect those museums and sites that have
government funding. Also the acts do not give Native Americans their remains back, they
merely intend to catalogue Native artifacts and remains as well as opening the lines of
communication between organizations and Native tribes. Overall, the author argues that
in order for archeologists to continue to study Native remains they must realize that their
profession does not supersede Native rights to their remains and cultural history, even if
their actions are in the name of scientific or historic research.
Shephard, Deborah. "Current Native (and Other) Views of NAGPRA." Teaching
Anthropology: Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges Notes 12, no.
1 (2012): 8-12.
As the title indicates, this article focuses on the Native American viewpoint
surrounding the NAGPRA as of 2012. Shephard breaks Native Americans into two
distinct groups: Native Indians and Native Hawaiians. Shephard addresses how the
NAGPRA affects both groups. She discusses the classifications of what fall under the
NAGPRA and how Natives believe that these classifications should be extended, as well
as how the elements of cultural lineage should be permanently removed.
Weigant, Chris. “Grave Robbing or Archaeology?” Huffington Post. May 12, 2014.
Discusses protests over the inclusion of human remains in the museum
commemorating the September 11th attacks and looks at the bigger question of
archaeologists’ study of human remains. How old, Weigant asks, should bones be before
they are studied? He also looks at changing cultural mores, and how they impact the
answer to that question.
Wyman, Jeffries. "ART. I.--Indian Mounds and Skulls in Michigan. Results of
Explorations of Mr. HENRY GILLMAN. from the Sixth Annual Report of the
Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard College, Prof. JEFFRIES WYMAN, Curator." American Journal of
Science and Arts (1820-1879) 7, no. 87 (01, 1874): 1.
Funerary objects, including human remains, were freely taken from burial
grounds by non-Natives in the 19th century without consideration of spiritual and other
significance to tribes. The ethical and moral questions behind unearthing the dead and
removing funerary objects were not considered an important issue to anthropologists and
archaeologists at the time. These are the types of objects and remains that made their way
into museum collections and led to the call for their return and the NAGPRA (1990).
Zimmer, Carl. "New DNA Results Show Kennewick Man Was Native
American." The New York Times. June 18, 2015.
This article explores the Kennewick Man controversy. The Kennewick Man was a
12,000-year-old skeleton found near Kennewick, Washington in 1996. For the last 20
years various groups have claimed possession of the remains. Native American groups in
Washington, and beyond, claim that the Kennewick Man is the remains of a Native
American and is covered under NAGPRA. However, archaeologists and scientists believe
that he is a very distant relation and does not fall under the law. This debate is ongoing
and as the scientific inquiry evolves, more information is learned about his cultural links.
This article is about new evidence of modern native links to Kennewick Man and the
resulting lawsuits that arose from this finding. This is integral to our research because it
delves into the issue of keeping remains for scientific examination.
Bibliography- Peer Reviewed
Bruchac, Margaret M. “LOST AND FOUND: NAGPRA, Scattered Relics, and
Restorative Methodologies.” Museum Anthropology 33, no.2 (2010): 137-156.
Bruchac discusses the history of relic collectors, describing the often haphazard
way in which items were cataloged and stored, and the effect on museum attempts to
understand what they possess. Also discusses the 1906 Antiquities Act, which stated that
Native American remains were property of the US Government.
Chari, Sangita. "JOURNEYS TO REPATRIATION: 15 Years of NAGPRA Grants,
1994-2008." Museum Anthropology 33, no. 2 (2010): 210-17.
This study looks at the NAGPRA act and the resulting grants and money given by
the federal government due to compliance with the act. It highlights the way in which the
act has had a direct impact on Museum and Archival studies, and how this may be
relevant when working in a professional setting. The study also looks at how committee
members are selected, the various grants proposed, and data relating to the break down of
where the combined $31 million dollars has gone over the 15 year time period explored.
Daehnke, Jon, and Amy Lonetree. “Repatriation in the United States: The Current State
of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.” American
Indian Culture and Research Journal 35, no.1 (2011): 87-98.
Regards the NAGPRA law of 1990, and the moderate success of it. However, the
article mainly focuses on the failures of the law – particularly the number of culturally
unidentifiable remains still within the museum/federal system. Provides history of the
law, and the museum procedures that lead to its creation.
Dalton, Rex. “Rule poses threat to museum bones: law change will allow Native
American tribes to reclaim ancient bones found close to their lands” Nature
464.7289 (2010): 662.
Dalton discusses the 2010 amendment to NAGPRA (which was not yet in place at
the time the article was written), which would allow tribes to claim remains found near
their ancestral homelands. The article also discusses the debate between scientists (who
claim repatriation is a loss to science, especially with the continual advent of new
technology) and the NAGPRA officials who say that scientists have had enough time to
study the remains, and that they aren’t meant to keep items forever.
Di Domenico, MariaLaura. “Evolving Museum Identities and Paradoxical Response
Strategies to Identity Challenges and Ambiguities: Changing Ethical
Understandings in the Handling of Human Remains.” Journal of Management
Inquiry 24, no. 3 (2015): 300-317.
Di Domenico discusses how museum identities change as society changes,
focusing on how museums in the UK have dealt with the human remains in their
collections.
Edgar, Heather J.H., and Anna L.M. Rautman. “Contemporary Museum Policies and the
Ethics of Accepting Human Remains.” Curator: The Museum Journal 57, no.2
(2014): 237-247.
This article looks at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, which accepts all
donated human remains, no matter the origin, and thus accepts any and all associated
consequences surrounding those remains. The article also examines how other museums
approach the issue, and surveys museums’ decisions on what is most beneficial for them.
Kakaliouras, Ann M. “When Remains are ‘Lost’: Thoughts on Collections, Repatriation,
and Research in American Physical Anthropology.” Curator: The Museum
Journal 57, no. 2 (2014): 213-223.
Kakaliouras examines NAGPRA from an anthropologist’s perspective and notes
that scientists look at collections as growing in importance the more they’re studied. She
concludes that collections need to include histories made in conjunction with Native
populations, rather than just focusing on scientific data. Also contends that NAGPRA has
helped to standardize the way data is collected.
Tsosie, Rebecca. “Indigenous Peoples and Epistemic Injustice: Science, Ethics, and
Human Rights.” Washington Law Review 87, no.4 (2012): 1133-1201.
Tsosie discusses the impacts of US public land, health, and repatriation policies
on Native Americans, and maintains that human rights standards should be applied to
public and scientific policy in order to treat Native populations equitably. She examines
NAGPRA in depth, including issues surrounding the discovery of the Kennewick Man.
Additional Resources
National Park Service
http://www.nps.gov/archeology/tools/laws/nagpra.htm
The US National Park Service has a detailed overview of NAGPRA.
The Return to Earth Project
http://www.rfpusa.org/what-we-do/return-to-the-earth/
The Return to Earth Project endeavors to help Native Americans reinter remains
considered culturally unidentifiable.
The Burke Museum
http://www.burkemuseum.org/kennewickman
The Burke Museum is currently in possession of the skeletal remains known as
Kennewick man; their site discusses the controversy over whether the remains should be
repatriated under NAGPRA.