2024: Review in Photos (MPR)

 GO LOOK: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/12/31/land-return-voting-rights-and-fashion-2024-native-news-coverage-through-photos

Personal histories, items can be claimed by adult adoptees from Minnesota’s DHS files

A small group of community members met at the Minneapolis American Indian Center in July to share information about how adopted adults can claim items left for them by their birth parents.

The conversation about the ability to retrieve personal effects came to the forefront with the law that went into effect July 1 — where birth records held by the state can be obtained by adopted adults.

More visuals for Native News can be found throughout online coverage.

 

GOOD READS:

Under a 'grandma moon,' Native Americans honor their sacred pact with salmon

Artnet News: How Native American Artists are Combatting Misrepresention with ‘Indigenous Joy’ 

High Country News: Indigenous affairs stories you need to read 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!   xox Trace 

Indigenous SAMI Christmas

 The Sámi (/ˈsɑːmi/ SAH-mee; also spelled Sami or Saami) are the traditionally Sámi-speaking indigenous peoples inhabiting the region of Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The region of Sápmi was formerly known as Lapland, and the Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are regarded as offensive by the Sámi, who prefer their own endonym, e.g. Northern Sámi Sápmi.^[8][9] Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages, which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.

A Sea Sámi man from Norway by Prince Roland Bonaparte in 1884

Lakota Spirituality Winter Solstice

How Indigenous traditional knowledge is improving our understanding of Aurora Borealis

 Inuit hunters use the aurora borealis to forecast hunting conditions

Adam Killick · CBC Radio · Dec 22, 2024

Tour operator Joe Buffalo Child welcomes the northern lights near Yellowknife. (Submitted by Joe Buffalo Child)

Northern lights are our night sky guides

When Nicholas Flowers was young, he made sure to never whistle at the northern lights. 

It was disrespectful, his grandmother taught him. "She told me, if you whistle at the northern lights, they may actually harm you by cutting off your head," he told Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild.

It's advice that Flowers, who teaches the Inuktitut language and Inuit culture in Nunatsiavut, N.L., still follows today. "Learning about these traditions in our culture plays a big role in our survival, and also in our well-being. As Inuit we need to remember that we simply couldn't exist without the land."

While modern science explains the mechanism of the aurora borealis, members of First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities say that their traditional knowledge, which goes back thousands of years, can help explain its meaning — in mythology, legend and even weather forecasting. 

The two ways of knowing can be complementary, said Jennifer Howse, an education specialist at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, just north of Calgary. Howse is also a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta.

It all starts with the sun

Auroras are caused when charged particles that are released from the sun get trapped in the polar areas of the Earth's magnetic field. These interact with the Earth's magnetic field, creating the northern lights.

The amount of charged particles the sun releases varies on an 11-year cycle, and we're currently at the busiest time of the cycle, Howse said.

The varying colours of the lights relate to what gases in the atmosphere are being affected: green is oxygen, red is upper-atmosphere nitrogen. "It's essentially showing us our atmosphere with these colours," she said.

Intermediate colours, like purple, magenta and even blue, result from different gases reacting. "These gases are coming together, almost like when you're mixing paint colours," Howse said.

The Rothney Astrophysical Observatory near Calgary. (Rothney Astrophysical Observatory)

Howse said that although newer technologies are teaching scientists about auroras, there are still many mysteries, which can be addressed by Indigenous stories.

"Northern Canadians have so much mythology around the aurora. If you listen to the stories, you'll hear all of the science, and all of the observations," she said. 

• Christy's weather: The science behind the northern lights

• Why the northern lights have been lighting up southwestern Ontario skies, and how you can see them tonight

The First Nation science involves understanding the timing of the lights, their colours, how they move, and how those movements might impact weather, for example. "[The stories] use a lot of wonderful metaphors of things that we understand in our relations with ourselves and with the natural world," Howse said.

She compared Indigenous stories to ancient Greek maps of the sky, "that tell you about the sky, of course, but it also tells you about that ancient Greek astronomer and their perception of the sky overhead."

Wiped Off the Map

READ: https://indigenous.boston/federal-district-court-affirms-yakama-reservation-boundaries

A federal clerk's error put more than 90,000 acres of Yakama Nation land in the hands of Washington state. Because of forced treaties and a clerical error, Yakama reservation is over a million acres — but not all of it belongs to the tribe. Grist >

 

It was barely a choice.  In 1855, a time when the ink of border lines on United States maps had scarcely dried, Yakama Chief Kamiakin (left) was told to sign over the land of 14 tribal nations and bands in the Pacific Northwest — or face the prospect of walking “knee deep” in the blood of his people.

 Legend has it that, when he put pen to paper, he was so furious he bit through his lip. 

By signing, he ceded over 10 million acres across what is now known as Washington state.  In return, the Yakama Nation was allowed to live on a reservation one-tenth the size of their ancestral lands, about 100 miles southeast of Seattle.

But the story doesn’t end there.  The treaty map was lost for close to 75 years, misfiled by a federal clerk who put it under “M” for Montana.

With no visual record to contradict them, federal agents extracted even more Yakama land for the nascent state, drawing new boundaries on new maps.  One removed an additional 140,000 acres from the reservation, another about half a million, and still other versions exist.

By the time the original map was discovered in the 1930s, it was too late.  Settlers had already made claims well within reservation boundaries, carving the consequences of this mistake into the contours of the land.  Non-Native landowners remain to this day.

The Yakama want that land back.  Most tribal members know the story of Kamiakin and his bloodied lip when he signed the treaty.  Ask Phil Rigdon, a Yakama citizen and nationally recognized forester.  As the superintendent of the Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, he deals with a medley of issues, but his most important work is getting the reservation land back.  After working on this for nearly 20 years, he knows that it takes time and an entire community to make the progress they want.

 “It’s a family thing for us, as we do this business,” he said.

Pahto, also known as Mount Adams, looms over the western edge of the Yakama reservation. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed an executive order acknowledging that the mountain had been mistakenly excluded from the reservation.
Maria Parazo Rose / Grist

 #LANDBACK  🗺

LONG READ: https://grist.org/indigenous/state-trust-lands-yakama-nation-washington/?_bhlid=c017f67204d03a1055422b042c785be71d5dfa0e

What it looks like to prepare for a second Trump term

 Outgoing (DOI) Interior Secretary Deb Haaland

(EXCERPT)

 LINK:  https://19thnews.org/2024/12/preparing-second-trump-term/?_bhlid=7947f714bdc19d610f7340ba5f94275d19bd1c9b

‘These policies don’t take care of people’

April Wazhaxi-Jones’ planning for the Trump administration centers around maintaining her personal safety and the well-being of other Indigenous people. She lives in Oklahoma and is a member of the Osage Nation, but the area where she resides is mostly White. Throughout this year’s presidential campaign season, she saw Trump signs and flags sprinkled throughout neighborhood yards. 

She recalled times when she and her husband greeted neighbors passing by and were met with silence or stares. Just a few days before speaking with The 19th, Wazhaxi-Jones said she was at Home Depot and a man wearing a Trump hat and shirt stared at her as he blocked her way down the aisle.

“You’re excused,” she remembered the man saying sarcastically as Wazhaxi-Jones stepped around him to walk by.

As an Indigenous woman in the United States, she knows well that threats of violence and the erasure of history are nothing new for the country. But this moment feels different for her.

“I feel as though we as Indigenous people were finally having a voice, finally being heard,” she said. “We had Deb Haaland as secretary of interior and now that’s gone. And not only is that gone, but my rights as a woman, the right to love who you want are under attack. We Native Americans take care of each other — and these policies don’t take care of people.”

In the past, Wazhaxi-Jones said she did what she could to educate people who expressed political opinions that conflicted with her own. She won’t be doing that moving forward. Her focus now is self-care and making sure her Indigenous and two-spirit friends and family have resources they need. 

She knows someone who had breast reduction surgery while it was still covered by their insurance. She knows people who are trying to get alternative forms of gender-affirming care lined up and others who are stocking up on plan B. For her own peace of mind, Wazhaxi-Jones is in counseling, deleted social media and is limiting her consumption of news about Trump and his administration. She also does not go out as much as she used to.

“Everything I believed in is being torn down. I’m exhausted and it’s all just too much. I am one voice and it has been stomped out,” she said.

 

VANITY FAIR: WHAT IS COMING in Trump's Second Term?

"...We’re talking about how the television world vowed to change after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the protests that followed. Entertainment conglomerates promised to slay systemic racism and knit diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into the fabric of the industry.

"We are now closing in on the fifth anniversary of those vows. So how’s that going?

“It not only didn’t change, but in some ways it kind of got worse,” says Simien, who created Dear White People and directed Haunted Mansion and the recent doc series Hollywood Black. 

ARTICLE:  https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/hollywoods-dei-programs-have-begun-to-die?srsltid=AfmBOoq6uINruIA_bTAVB82snugn9-Wumdaj7AEX3t1duwSeWj2wCfZ6&_bhlid=30dc56ad7b396f15218835b6c093f5c536c53e50

 

This journalist is pushing back against the erasure of Native American history

 

Originally published by The 19th

Rebecca Nagle has turned the false history of Native American communities she received as a child into a career of truth-driven storytelling. 

A writer, journalist and author, Nagle is the host of the documentary podcast “This Land” and author of the novel “By the Fire We Carry.” 

Born in Joplin, Missouri, 38-year-old Nagle spent much of her youth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City with her Cherokee family members. She recalls Native history scarcely being addressed throughout her education.

"I remember making ships out of popsicle sticks to celebrate Columbus Day and asking questions that went unanswered. I definitely think my education was lacking when it came to that stuff in public school," she said.

Her understanding of her family history and culture was primarily taught through her grandmother.

“Growing up, I learned a lot from my grandma. She made sure that we understood that we knew who our family was,” she said. “And then, of course, as an adult you sort of test what your family members told you about your family.” 

Her family’s portrayal of their forebears was mostly heroic, focused on how her “Cherokee ancestors sacrificed their lives for the sake of the Cherokee Nation.” Though she recognizes that her family’s history has more detail and nuance, she has kept their overarching pride and sacrifice close to her.

This passion for history fuels much of Nagle’s work as a writer and journalist. Over its two seasons, her podcast, “This Land,” reflects her will to dive into research and highlight the very stories that were avoided throughout her childhood. 

The first season leads the audience through the case of Patrick Murphy, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation who was sentenced to death for the murder of George Jacobs in 1999. Murphy’s case took an unexpected turn when his attorney challenged his conviction by arguing that he could not be prosecuted by the state of Oklahoma but instead must be tried by the Muscogee Nation. Murphy was ultimately convicted for murder and sentenced to life in prison by the federal court. 

Season two continues the work of purposeful storytelling by detailing the Haaland v. Brackeen Supreme Court case, which challenged the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act’s restrictions on Native children being adopted by non-Native parents. The high court affirmed the constitutionality of the act in 2023. 

Nagle describes the work she produced on her podcast as a push that led her to writing her novel, “By the Fire We Carry.”

“We made the first season, and I then kept wanting to follow this story and follow those threads, and I felt like I had more to tell and more research to do,” she said. 

“By the Fire We Carry” invites readers through the fight for rightful ownership of Native lands. Deep diving into U.S. history, Nagle highlights the ways in which Native people were forcibly removed from their homes on lands that are now recognized as property of eastern Oklahoma. The history she details provides context to the Murphy case, which she recognizes as a modern-day portrayal of the generations-long battle for Native grounds. 

Exploring how the past has influenced the present and using that knowledge to increase visibility and awareness is a primary reason she has continued to amplify Native stories in her journalism career.

“When you look out in the news media, there just isn’t enough Native representation, and I think that that creates this prevailing ignorance in U.S. society about Native people and our tribes and the law,” Nagle said.

“That ignorance is a really big barrier for progress, and I think that impedes us having better policy in place. That’s one thing that I’m very passionate about: pushing back against that erasure and having Native stories in the mainstream,” she continued.

But she said it can be tricky to get editors to view these stories as newsworthy. 

“It’s almost like if you were writing about women’s reproductive health and your editor didn’t know what abortion was and that’s their starting point,” she said. 

“People who are used to having a [high] level of knowledge and expertise have a hard time when they’re confronted with this situation where their ignorance is kind of daunting. I think some people can have a hard time admitting that.”

Today, Nagle can be found working on an essay series with other Native writers and historians about the history of colonization and genocide against Indigenous people undermining democracy in the United States.  

“You can tell some big lies about tribes and about Native people, and people will believe it because they don’t know that much. I think when you look at history, I can tie every oppressive policy against Native people to the lies that were told to justify it,” Nagle said. “I think so much of history informs our present day and I think we can’t understand one without the other.”

RED FEVER - Official Trailer 1080p

Check out the Red Fever website for the upcoming screenings & broadcast dates: redfeverfilm.com

 

STORY: https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/film-tackles-worlds-fascination-native-people-set-national-release

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12432272/mediaviewer/rm3577182465/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Alaska tribe, WA agency sign child and family services agreement

• Jadenne Radoc Cabahug

The Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (Tlingit & Haida) and Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families have signed an agreement on how to provide support services to the Tribe’s enrolled members — the first formal partnership between that department and an out-of-state Native nation.

Around 23%, or 1,600, Tlingit & Haida tribal children and youth under 18 live in Washington state.  This agreement specifies roles and responsibilities shared by the tribes and the Department of Children, Youth and Families to administer services under the Indian Child Welfare Act, including child protective services, foster care, dependency guardianship, termination of parental rights and adoption proceedings for those children. The department has similar agreements with a number of tribes based in Washington.

The Tlingit & Haida is the largest federally recognized Alaska Native nation, with 22,000 citizens throughout the United States. 

In November 2023, the Tlingit & Haida opened an office in Lynnwood with at least 20 staff members to serve more than 8,000 tribal citizens who live in Washington, according to Alaska television station KTOO.  These services include tribal court, enrollment and case management of child welfare cases.

SOURCE: https://www.cascadepbs.org/briefs/2024/12/alaska-tribe-wa-agency-sign-child-and-family-services-agreement 

 CENSUS DATA:

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/10/2020-census-dhc-a-aian-population.html

Otipemisiwak Métis Government to Advocate for Alberta Métis in Sixties Scoop Hearing

December 10, 2024 (Edmonton, AB) – A class action aiming to hold Canada accountable for the harms it inflicted on Métis and non-status Indian children in the Sixties Scoop is currently before the courts. From December 9-12, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government will participate as an intervener in the summary judgment hearing in Varley et al v. The Attorney General of Canada (“Varley Action”). The Otipemisiwak Métis Government is seeking justice for the many Métis children taken from their parents, families, and communities in this heinous act of cultural genocide.

“This week marks a pivotal moment in our ongoing journey toward justice for Métis Citizens who—through no fault of their own—were victims of Canada’s deliberate efforts to erase their identity as Indigenous people,” said Andrea Sandmaier, President of the Otipemisiwak Métis Government. “While we remain hopeful that the Court will recognize Canada’s responsibility for its actions—taking our children, disrupting our families, and stripping us of our ability to pass down our language, traditions, and culture—we know that true justice extends beyond addressing the harm done to individual victims. Our government is committed to holding Canada accountable for the profound damage inflicted on the Métis Nation within Alberta as a collective. We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure our future generations are rooted in the richness of our Métis heritage.”

Brooke Bramfield, Secretary of Children and Family Services for the Otipemisiwak Métis Government, added, “the Sixties Scoop tore children away from the heart of their Métis identity, leaving scars that continue to affect families and communities today. As a government, we continue to seek accountability as we work to ensure that future generations of Métis children never experience the same erasure of their culture, language, and heritage.”

The Varley Action was brought in the wake of the 2018 Sixties Scoop settlement, which excluded Métis and non-status Indian victims from the compensation Canada promised victims.  The summary judgment motion will address whether Canada had a responsibility to protect Métis and non-status Indian children who were taken from their families in the Sixties Scoop, and if Canada had a special obligation to act in the best interests of those children. Canada, for its part, denies responsibility and argues that the victims’ claims are out of time because the limitation period has lapsed.

LINK:  https://albertametis.com/news/otipemisiwak-metis-government-to-advocate-for-alberta-metis-in-sixties-scoop-hearing/

Feds Release Media Guidelines for Reporting on MMIP Cases

• Yahoo News

By Elyse Wild

December 11, 2024

Family affected by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) Crisis feel lackluster media coverage influences how cases are perceived by the public and pursued by law enforcement. That’s according to new guidelines released by the federal government this week on best practices for media coverage of MMIP.

The guidelines result from roundtable discussions moderated by Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland and attended by more than 200 participants, including journalists, survivors, community advocates, and Tribal and federal officials.  Among the participants where members of the  Not Invisible Act Commission, a 41-person committee tasked with developing recommendations improving intergovernmental collaboration on violent crimes in Indian Country and providing resources for survivors and victims’ families.

Between 2022 and 2023, the Commission held seven in-person listening sessions across Indian Country, plus one virtual session.  According to the Commission’s 212-page report, more than 600 individuals attended the hearings.  Of those, 260 gave testimony to the NIAC, sharing their expertise, experiences, and recommendations to address and reduce the tragic consequences of the crisis of missing, murdered, and trafficked American Indians and Alaska Natives. Many families and survivors expressed concern at the lack of media coverage or coverage that reinforces long-standing prejudice against Native communities.  

The new recommendations encourage journalists to focus on an MMIP humanity rather than any potential criminal background. Also, the guidelines urge media to contextualize cases within the disparities faced by Native communities, wrought by generations of forced assimilation, broken treaty promises, and gross underfunding for health and public safety. Using language such as “crisis” vs. “epidemic” and “at-risk” vs. “vulnerable” is encouraged.

The report also features guidelines for strengthening collaboration between law enforcement and journalists, including designating public information officers to release timely information on MMIP case developments to the media. 

The MMIP crisis is characterized by Native American communities experiencing disproportionately high rates of assault, abduction and murder. The crisis dates back decades, underpinned by systemic apathy, jurisdictional confusion, and underfunded law enforcement. There is no nationwide data system for MMIP information, and the actual number of MMIP cases is unknown; however, the Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates there are 4,200 unsolved cases.

LINK: https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/feds-release-media-guidelines-for-reporting-on-mmip-cases

Interior Sec. Deb Haaland - Honoring Native American History & Gift to Biden...

Teaching Indians how to do stuff (1950s)

WATCH:

The Indian Sanitarium Will Help You (?)

A 1940s U.S. Department of Interior film produced by the Office of Indian Affairs. A film about health practices and hospitals:

https://archive.org/details/TheIndianSanitariumWillHelpYou

During the 1950s in the USA, a large amount of prescriptive material appeared in the form of magazines, handbooks, and guidance films, teaching proper manners and good behavior in a rapidly evolving post-war society.  In this context, the U.S. Department of the Interior commissioned two short films produced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1952 aimed at teaching young Native Americans how to properly use a telephone and answer calls.
The political context of the era is key here, as the 1950s represented a kind of pinnacle in the federal government's assimilationist intentions about Native American communities, whether it be the attempt to abolish protected reservation territories or the forced teaching of Anglo-American values in federal residential schools.
These short films, which at first seem to resemble the innocuous orientation films of the time in their format and approach, in fact aim not simply at the acquisition of new cultural codes, but at the complete rewriting of the most traditional thought patterns.  Analyze their scenography and purpose in the light of ethnographic and anthropological data, as specifically relevant to the Navajo culture, as the students and the examples in the movie are clearly aimed at this community. 

Two short films here: 

Telephone Etiquette
Receiving a Telephone Call

We didn't need their help.

 

National Monument at Carlisle?

graves of children at Carlisle Indian Industrial School

NOTE:  I've been to Carlisle to see what is left of that school. I've been to Jim Thorpe, PA where the Olympic Athlete is still buried. Nothing, no words, no building or a gravesite can bring back the millions and millions who were murdered on this soil... The colonizer's goal of genocide was a success, by also burying the truth...Trace

President Joe Biden designated a national monument at a former Native American boarding school site in Pennsylvania to commemorate the resilience of tribes whose children were forced to attend the school and similar abusive institutions

 HARRISBURG, Pa. -- President Joe Biden designated a national monument at a former Native American boarding school in Pennsylvania on Monday to honor the resilience of Indigenous tribes whose children were forced to attend the school and hundreds of similar abusive institutions.

The creation of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument — announced during a tribal leaders summit at the White House — is intended to confront what Biden referred to as a “dark chapter” in the nation's history.

“We're not about erasing history. We're about recognizing history — the good, the bad and the ugly,” Biden said. “I don't want people forgetting 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now and pretend it didn't happen.”

Thousands of Native children passed through the notorious Carlisle Indian Industrial School between 1879 and 1918, including Olympian Jim Thorpe. They came from dozens of tribes under forced assimilation policies that were meant to erase Native American traditions and “civilize" the children so they would better fit into white society.

It was the first school of its type and became a template for a network of government-backed Native American boarding schools that ultimately expanded to at least 37 states and territories.

“About 7,800 children from more than 140 tribes were sent to Carlisle — stolen from their families, their tribes and their homelands. It was wrong making the Carlisle Indian school a national model,” Biden told the White House summit.

Thorpe's great-grandson, James Thorpe Kossakowski, called Biden's designation an important and “historic” step toward broadening Americans' understanding of the federal government's forced assimilation policy.

“It's very emotional for me to walk around, to look at the area where my great-grandfather had gone through school, where he had met my great-grandmother, where they were married, where he stayed in his dorm room, where he worked out and trained,” Kossakowski, 54, of Elburn, Illinois, said in an interview.

The children were often taken against the will of their parents, and an estimated 187 Native American and Alaska Native children died at the institution in Carlisle, including from tuberculosis and other diseases.

There are ongoing efforts to return the children's remains, which were buried on the school's grounds, to their homelands.

“They represent 50 tribal nations from Alaska to New Mexico to New York and I think that symbolizes how horrific Carlisle was,” said Beth Margaret Wright, a Native American Rights Fund lawyer. She has represented tribes trying to get the Army to return their children's remains and is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, which has children still buried there.

Carlisle was a model for many other schools that came after it and a huge majority of tribal nations that exist today have stories of their children being sent to Carlisle, Wright said.

In September, the remains of three children who died at Carlisle were disinterred and returned to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana.

At least 973 Native American children died at government-funded boarding schools that operated for more than 150 years, according to an Interior Department investigation.

During a dozen public listening sessions over the past several years hosted by the Interior Department, survivors of the schools recalled being beaten, forced to cut their hair and punished for using their native languages.

The forced assimilation policy officially ended with the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. But the government never fully investigated the boarding school system until the Biden administration.

Biden in October apologized on behalf of the U.S. government for the schools and the policies that supported them.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose grandparents were taken to boarding schools against their families’ will, said no single action would adequately address the harms caused by the schools. But she said the administration's efforts have made a difference and the new monument would allow the American people to learn more about the government's harmful policies.

“This trauma is not new to Indigenous people, but it is new for many people in our nation," Haaland said in a statement.

The schools, similar institutions and related assimilation programs were funded by a total of $23.3 billion in inflation-adjusted federal spending, officials determined. Religious and private institutions that ran many of the schools received federal money as partners in the assimilation campaign.

Monday's announcement marks the seventh national monument created by Biden, who has also altered or enlarged several others. In 2021, he restored the boundaries of two monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, on land in southern Utah that's sacred to tribes after the monuments were shrunk under former President Donald Trump.

The 25-acre site (10 hectares) in central Pennsylvania will be managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Army. The site is part of the campus of the U.S. Army War College.

For Wright, one of the most powerful places at the Carlisle school are the imprints of since-removed tracks for trains that delivered children there.

“There's no longer train tracks there, but you can see where they might have been and where their children would have arrived for the first time and seen a place so far away and seen a place so horrific,” Wright said.

Native American tribes and conservation groups are pressing for more monument designations before Biden leaves office.

 

Tightening federal law gives tribes more power for Indigenous items to be returned to communities

 By Charly Edsitty

December 9, 2024

There is a push for universities and museums to return Indigenous remains and sacred belongings with new federal regulations.

There is a push for universities and museums to return Indigenous remains and sacred belongings with new federal regulations.

The push for museums, universities, and federal agencies to return Indigenous remains and sacred belongings is getting stronger as federal regulations have further tightened the rules around how these items can be displayed, giving more legal power to Indigenous tribes.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is a federal law created in 1990. It states that organizations that receive federal funding and possess remains of ancestors and sacred belongings must catalog, identify, and repatriate or return them to their rightful and ancestral owners.

"Anyone can imagine how they would feel if their relatives were being held in an institution and their bones were being pulverized due to radio-carbon testing," Ray Halbritter, the leader of the Oneida Indian Nation in New York, said.

Since its implementation more than thirty years ago, repatriation has been slow-moving. But thanks to tightening restrictions implemented in January, tribes have more legal power to stop the display of ancestors or sacred belongings without their approval. This forced museums across the country to adjust their exhibits to stay in compliance.

It also gave more power to Indigenous communities in identifying ancestors and set a five-year deadline for museums, universities, and federal agencies to definitively identify remains and update inventories.

"Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to de-install or remove a rattle that might have specific meaning in ceremonial context," said Dr. Dirk Van Tuerenhout, the curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Dr. Van Tuerenhout says a pair of woven sandals were also removed out of caution, leaving an open space in the middle of the display.

HMNS' John P. McGovern Hall of The Americas explores Indigenous peoples' diverse and dense history from the Arctic to South America.

According to data from ABC News' owned & operated station WLS in Chicago, there are currently 496 museums or federal agencies across the country that have possession of 90,169 ancestral remains and 708, 279 associated funerary objects that are still pending identification and are not available for repatriation.

"We know that museums, agencies, and universities have identified 128-thousand ancestral remains in their collections," said Maggie Green, data journalist at WLS.

According to data gathered from the Federal Register by Green, these are the Houston-area entities with an inventory: Houston Museum of Natural Science with 26 ancestors, Rice University with five ancestors and 11 funerary objects, and the Army Corps of Engineers - Galveston District with 13 ancestors and 24 funerary items.

The National Park Service defines funerary object as any object reasonably believed to have been placed intentionally with or near human remains.

Dr. Van Tuerenhout estimates the museum currently possesses at least 70 ancestors and sacred belongings - explaining that in the years since their initial NAGPRA review was completed, their staff has discovered additional remains that they are working to return.

ABC13 reached out to Rice University regarding the status of the items listed in the Federal Register, which states the 11 funerary belongings in their possession are currently missing and the university is seeking to find them.

This is the university's response: "Last year, in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Rice returned the human remains of five Native American individuals to the Tonkawa Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Concerning the artifacts referenced in the National Archives and Records Administration Federal Register, we have no record of ever possessing these items."

When explicitly asked about the status of the missing items, the university said it could not provide further details.

As for the Army Corps of Engineers - Galveston District, ABC13 made multiple attempts to get a response and has yet to hear back.

Regarding the process of identification, it cannot utilize DNA testing, which is a controversial method among Indigenous communities who say it desecrates the remains of their ancestors.

In some cases, this leaves only a paper trail to find clues about where the ancestors or remains were taken from and how to take steps to return them.

"In the last 20 years, we've returned about 90 of our ancestors back to us," Halbritter said. "Through sacred ceremonies and spiritual ceremonies not open to the public, we've returned them to their resting place. Their home."

Dr. Van Tuerenhout says their office regularly sends letters to various tribes trying to find a possible match.

These letters could lead to more conversations or a visit to the museum to examine the ancestors or belongings in question.

Its work, he says, is essential to HMNS for one reason.

"Well, it's the right thing to do. So, there is the answer," he said. "These belongings do not belong to us."

LINK:  https://abc13.com/post/tightening-federal-law-gives-tribes-more-power-reclaiming-ancestors-belongings/15627943/