More can be done

 

Nelda Goodman, a Menominee tribal elder, remembers when her white friend, Miriam Horneff, bought a ceremonial Big Drum on eBay from a former Boy Scout leader.

The drum belonged to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.  Horneff wanted to return the drum to its original owners, so, with her will executors, she met with Alton “Sonny” Smart of the related Lac du Flambeau Chippewa tribe. 

Smart is a traditional helper — or “skapaewes” in Menominee — who can be given the cultural authority from Bad River elders to transport it back to its Wisconsin reservation. 

After Horneff died, Smart covered the drum with a blanket and returned it with a private ceremony.  However, Goodman said Horneff had a deep fascination with cultural artifacts, and her estate sold off much of her collection, which included other Native objects that were not repatriated with such care.

KEEP READING:  https://mndaily.com/294574/campus-administration/weisman-is-taking-steps-to-return-their-indigenous-artifacts-but-more-can-be-done/ 

Indigenous communities reclaim 41 remains, hundreds of artifacts from WWU

After heightened attention, university continues efforts to identify and return ancestors

• Jan. 21, 2025   | Bellingham, WA

Western Washington University is in possession of 63 culturally affiliated Indigenous remains — 41 of those have been repatriated. Another 18 remains have unidentified tribal affiliations. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)

By Charlotte Alden 

 

Western Washington University has repatriated 41 Indigenous remains and 238 cultural items to their ancestral communities, about two years after heightened attention to the issue. 

Repatriation does not mean those items have been physically returned to the Indigenous communities they belong to, explained Alyson Rollins of Western. Rather it means, legally, those items are “no longer in our control, but they’re still in our care.”  Tribes can pick up the remains and artifacts at any time.

A database released by ProPublica in January 2023 prompted a nationwide look into the more than 600 institutions that possess remains, including Western. Institutions that receive federal funding have been required since 1990 to return “cultural items” and remains to American Indian Tribes, Alaska Native villages and Native Hawaiian organizations, after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).  

Western has repatriated artifacts since before NAGPRA, but committed in 2023 to accelerating its efforts. 

The university is in possession of 63 culturally affiliated remains — 41 of those have been repatriated.  Another 18 remains have unidentified tribal affiliations, meaning Western must work with 34 Native American tribes and Canadian First Nations to determine where they belong.

Five remains have been physically transferred to ancestral communities.  Rollins, who is the new NAGPRA program and collections manager at Western, said the university is still storing the rest for various reasons.  For example, a tribe may have requested the university hold the items until members can pick them up.

Tribes are not bound by federal deadlines like institutions are, NAGPRA Advisory Committee Chair Judith Pine said.  Communities can decide for themselves when to physically retrieve the remains and artifacts. 

Pine said Western is “standing by to facilitate and assist.” Pine and Rollins describe the university’s relationship with local tribes as “long-standing” and positive.

Western returned three ancestral remains to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Josephine Jefferson, the Swinomish Tribe’s historic preservation officer told CDN in a January email. She said they’re now being taken care of by the tribe’s “spiritual people and elders.”

“This is where they belong,” Jefferson told CDN in 2023. “They don’t belong in a science lab. They don’t belong in a museum to be looked at. And they don’t need to be studied, because we are human, we are people, and we’re the first peoples of this land.”  

Alyson Rollins, WWU’s NAGPRA Program and Collections Manager. (Photo courtesy of Alyson Rollins)

124 Native People's Remains go home

just a few images from their collection

 

American Museum of Natural History Repatriates Remains of 124 Native People

7/30/2024  hyperallergic.com /938886/american-museum-of-natural-history-repatriates-remains-of-124-native-people/

 

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New York City’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is repatriating the remains of 124 Native individuals and 90 Native cultural items as it faces increased pressure to return the thousands of human remains in its holdings. The news follows an updated and stricter set of federal rules under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) that went into effect at the beginning of this year.

Last Thursday, July 25, AMNH President Sean Decatur updated staff on the institution’s repatriation efforts in a letter first reported by the New York Times. According to his announcement, AMNH has conducted “more than 400 consultations, with approximately 50 different stakeholders, including hosting seven visits of Indigenous delegations and eight completed repatriations” in 2024. 

A Hyperallergic investigation last year found that the museum’s collection of around 12,000 remains from communities within and outside the United States includes the bodies of Black New Yorkers acquired from medical schools in the late 1940s. Collected across 150 years of acquisitions, donations, and expeditions, a majority of these remains originate from Indigenous or colonized communities and lack identification. 

Earlier this year, AMNH joined other museums around the country in removing swaths of Indigenous artifacts from public view by closing two galleries dedicated to Native American history, in order to abide by the updated NAGPRA regulations. 

The newly enacted rules now mandate institutions to “obtain free, prior and informed consent” from tribal communities “before allowing any exhibition of, access to, or research on human remains or cultural items.”  Despite these recent regulations, tribal community members have continued to raise skepticism over institutional delays in returning the remains of their ancestors, while issues like contaminated collections and damage to cultural objects have also posed complications.

In an email to Hyperallergic, an AMNH representative noted that the museum’s recent repatriations do not account for objects that were on display in its since-closed galleries, as “reviews and consultations for [these items] are ongoing.”

The Federal Register shows that in April, AMNH identified the remains of three individuals affiliated with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, situated in southern California.  Their bodies were taken from San Miguel Island and Santa Rosa Island, located off the Santa Barbara coast.  In the late 19th century, the museum acquired one set of remains from James Terry, a curator in its anthropology department, and the two others from Felix von Luschan, an Austrian-born anthropologist and ethnologist whose private collection of more than 5,000 human skulls was sold to AMNH after his death.  That same month, AMNH identified the remains of another four individuals and one associated funerary object affiliated with seven tribal communities in California, including the Santa Ynez tribe.

Today, many families of individuals in AMNH’s collections still have not received information about their ancestors’ whereabouts, according to recent reports.

 

👉👉WHAT?

While it no longer does so, in the past, the Museum applied potentially hazardous pesticides to items in the collections. Museum records do not list specific objects treated or which of several chemicals used were applied to a particular item.  (WHAT?) (POISON!) Therefore, those handling this material should follow the advice of industrial hygienists or medical personnel with specialized training in occupational health or with potentially hazardous substances.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/08/2024-07365/notice-of-inventory-completion-american-museum-of-natural-history-new-york-ny

 

You Cannot Give Thanks for What Is Stolen

READ: hyperallergic.com /783269/you-cannot-give-thanks-for-what-is-stolen/

 

 

 

 

Indigenous Human Remains, Mostly Boarding School Children, Reported In 3 States This Week

Please share this story... thanks, Trace, blog editor

By Nancy Marie Spears

Secretary of The Interior Deb Haaland listens to testimony from a boarding school survivor during the first stop on The Road to Healing tour at Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma in July 2022. Photo by Nick Oxford.

Indigenous communities in three states this week are mourning the human remains discovered in their area.

Some have been waiting for confirmation that Native children were buried at the sites of local boarding schools, while other remains were discovered by sheer accident.

In southern Utah on July 11, twelve children’s bodies were found at a burial site at Panguitch Boarding School east of Highway 89 — becoming the only school among at least eight operated in Utah where student deaths and burials at the school have been verified.  The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and its five sovereign bands are “devastated” by what was unearthed by Utah State University using ground-penetrating radar.

“Our hearts go out to the families of these children as we are left to consider how best to honor and memorialize their suffering,” said Ona Segundo, chairwoman of Arizona’s Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, in a statement provided to The Salt Lake Tribune.

In Nebraska, archaeologists began digging at the site of the long-shuttered Genoa Indian Industrial School 90 miles west of Omaha, hoping to uncover the location of the school’s cemetery.  Though the school closed in 1931 and most of its buildings were demolished, the dig is an attempt to locate children who never came home from the school and whose bodies were never uncovered. 

The process is expected to take several days, after months of trial and error to determine the exact location of the graves, The Washington Post reported July 11. 

Last summer, dogs trained to find decaying remains signaled to archaeologists that they had found a burial site in a piece of land bordered by railroad tracks, a canal and an agricultural field.

Then in November, ground-penetrating radar was again used and detected an area that was consistent with burials, but nothing could be confirmed until archaeologists broke ground. 

Researchers found that 86 children — described in a student’s letter, newspaper clippings and school records — had perished at the school, mostly because of disease. At least one death was caused by an accidental shooting.  The researchers have not yet identified 37 of the children.  Some of the bodies had been returned to their families, while others were buried at the school in a forgotten location.

In Pennsylvania, officials confirmed on July 9 that the human remains discovered during construction work by a gas crew late last month were Indigenous people.

On June 21, workers and contractors excavating on Short Canal Street in Sharpsburg unearthed human remains four to five feet underground while attempting to install a piece of equipment. Sharpsburg’s police and Allegheny County forensics consulted with anthropologists and archaeologists to confirm the remains belonged to Native Americans. 

The anthropologist from the Seneca Iroquois National Museum in upstate New York said the remains are specifically from an Iroquois group, according to Melanie Linn Gutowski, chair of the Sharpsburg Historical Commission.

 

READ MORE

THEY ARE NOT ARTIFACTS: HUMAN REMAINS

EXCERPT:

Serpent Mounds repatriation stalled

The Michi Saagig of Hiawatha First Nation have been working for several years on the repatriation of about 200 ancestral remains and ancestral artifacts removed from the Serpent Mounds national historic site, about 150km northeast of Toronto.

The park is home to ancient burial mounds that date back about 2,000 years. There are 10 mounds in total.  The largest is 60 metres long and 8 metres wide, shaped like a snake, that contains the remains of 150-200 individuals.  It's surrounded by eight smaller round mounds, each containing the remains of between 50 and 80 individuals.

The site was excavated in the late 1950s by an archeologist affiliated with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Hiawatha First Nation has been wanting the ancestral remains and artifacts that are at the ROM repatriated for decades, although the formal process was only started a few years ago. 

Richard Johnston's excavation at Serpent Mounds, near Peterborough, Ont., took place from 1957-1960. (Royal Ontario Museum)

While the First Nation received approval to have the remains and items from the mounds returned, not everything from the park is included.

Near the mounds, three burial pits were also excavated.  The Huron-Wendat nation has made a claim to the remains and artifacts removed from the pits.

• Royal Ontario Museum to return human remains and artifacts removed from burial mounds

• Remains from 145 Indigenous ancestors in storage at University of Winnipeg

Chief Laurie Carr of Hiawatha First Nation says this has stalled the repatriation process.

"It's very frustrating that our ancestors are still sitting at the ROM because Huron-Wendat believe that they have claims to them and there's no archeological proof of any Huron-Wendat villages in our area," said Carr.

"There are a few sites around Rice Lake that are said to be Huron-Wendat, however they need to be substantiated." 

Carr said the Huron Wendat haven't come forward to meet with them, "which leaves us stuck."

There are ten mounds in total at Serpent Mounds national historic site, the largest being 60 metres long and shaped like a serpent. (Royal Ontario Museum)

"If they really cared about the ancestors they should be having discussions with us and they're not."

The Conseil de la Nation Huronne-Wendat did not respond to a request for comment. 

The Royal Ontario Museum declined to comment.

The ROM's board policy regarding repatriation of Indigenous human remains says "The ROM will not arbitrarily decide contested cases, i.e., cases in which more than one Indigenous group claim the same ancestors."

SOURCE

Harvard’s Peabody Museum Keeping Native Remains Is Just One Attack on the Rights of Indigenous Children

Harvard’s influence on this tragic story cannot be understated.  It stands as a symbol of the early stages of colonialism in America and has not fully reckoned with this past.  In October, Native alumni of Harvard Law School called for the immediate return of more than previously announced 6,500 Native remains in a letter to the president of the University, stating that the institution should “dedicate the resources and place the priority on returning them to the appropriate places and relatives. Not sometime, not soon, but now.”

As with Harvard Medical School and Indigenous health, we believe Harvard Law does not provide its law students an adequate education on Indian law, even though the Supreme Court has decided an average of 2.6 federal Indian law cases per term since 1959.  Three such Indian law cases are currently underway for the 2022-2023 term.  The future of our Native Nations lies largely in the hands of  legal scholars who can graduate from top law schools like Harvard without ever having to take an Indian law course or even hearing the words “tribal sovereignty.” 

We do appreciate the Peabody's recent transparency, and celebrate the announcement of Harvard University’s new president, but we hope to move beyond apologies and toward action that addresses the erasure of Native Americans and Alaska Natives at the University, and the burdens they carry as a consequence. Whether it's the Peabody having Native children’s hair or Harvard-trained Supreme Court justices deciding on the Indian Child Welfare Act, the fate of future generations of our tribal Nations — our Native children — remains bound up in Harvard's history of colonialism and the legacies it leaves behind, legacies Native students here feel every day.

KEEP READING 

Lakota Human Remains Stolen from US Army Massacre Hoarded by Private Museum in Massachusetts

 

 UPDATE

I'm happy to report a successful outcome in the fight to correct this shameful chapter in US history. Mia Feroleto invited LAURA BRUNO to attend (via Zoom) "a joint announcement from the board of directors of the Barre Museum Association and the Oglala Sioux Tribe to learn about current plans for disposition of the sacred objects held at the Woods Memorial Library for more than 100 years.

"A press conference is scheduled for Monday, October 10th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 12 Noon Mountain Time when the repatriation of the artifacts and remains taken from the Wounded Knee Massacre will be shared with the media. This press conference will be conducted in person at the Woods Memorial Library in Barre, Massachusetts, located at 19 Pleasant Street and live via Zoom."

 

Digging up Human Remains in Michigan

 

The End of a Michigan Law Allowing Scientists to Dig Up “Aboriginal Inhabitants”

September 28, 2022 Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Came across this short note in Indian Talk, a 1973 newsletter by and about Michigan Indians and a precursor to the original Turtle Talk, referencing a federal lawsuit filed to have Michigan public law 750.160 declared unconstitutional. That law prohibited Dr. Frankenstein and others from digging up graves, but granted an exception to Indiana Jones in case he found some Indian bones:

Shay Elbaum at the Michigan law library found a 1974 law repealing the part about “aboriginal inhabitants.”

Can’t find a record of the lawsuit, however. It probably went away when the state legislature repealed the exception.

BONE COLLECTORS: 6.7 million Indigenous objects and human remains held in Canada museums #TRC

Canadian Museums Association Urges Repatriation of Indigenous Objects

The report estimates that 6.7 million Indigenous objects and human remains continue to be held in Canadian institutions, most of which do not have formal repatriation policies.

  

by Jasmine Liu 

A display in the First Peoples Hall of the Canadian Museum of History in 2018 (via Wikimedia Commons)

A major new report released on Tuesday, September 27 by the Canadian Museums Association (CMA) calls for greater support and funding for Indigenous organizations and museums as they pursue Indigenous “self-determination” at all levels of governance. 

The CMA estimates that 6.7 million Indigenous objects and human remains continue to be held in Canadian museums, with approximately 94% of them held in eight institutions. The report finds that few museums have formal repatriation policies and that even fewer of them are publicly accessible. Currently, only one province, Alberta, has repatriation legislation. The report also finds that although many museums showcase Indigenous-related programming and say they value Indigenous engagement, Indigenous curators and staff members are underrepresented, suggesting that Indigenous professionals are often slotted into advisory roles.

KEEP READING

The report, entitled “Moved to Action: Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums,” was commissioned as part of the nation’s response to Call to Action 67, one of 94 calls to action issued in 2015 by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC was established to reckon with Canada’s history of Indian residential schools, which forcibly separated Indigenous children from their communities for purposes of assimilation.

KU is in possession of Native American remains

by Maya Hodison, Cuyler Dunn & Mackenzie Clark

The back side of Lippincott Hall on the University of Kansas campus is pictured on Sept. 20, 2022. (Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times)

The University of Kansas has remains of Native American people in its museum collections, according to a statement from administrators.

The remains are being stored in the annex of Lippincott Hall, which is the building that currently houses offices of staff members in KU’s Indigenous Studies program. Offices were closed Tuesday, and they will be moved to a different location on campus.

KU Chancellor Douglas Girod; Barbara Bichelmeyer, provost and executive vice chancellor; Nicole Hodges Persley, interim vice provost for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; and Melissa Peterson (Diné), director of tribal relations, sent out a joint statement Tuesday morning.

“While some efforts have been made in the past to repatriate items, the process was never completed,” the statement says. “The continued possession of these human remains causes great pain for many in the Native community and beyond.”

“As a university, we have a responsibility to follow the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), a federal law enacted by Congress in 1990, which sets criteria for tribal nations to reclaim human remains (ancestors) and funerary objects held by museums,” according to the statement. “The University has a responsibility to tribal nations and the Native American community to continue a relationship built on dignity, respect, and enduring support.”

An online federal database shows that KU is in possession of remains belonging to a minimum of 380 individuals, as well as 554 associated funerary objects. However, Peterson said that 380 number was probably from a complete inventory that KU did back in the 90s.

University of Kansas Melissa Peterson

The current number of individuals may be closer to 200 — “That is early kind of numbers that we received. We don’t know lots of details, but that’s what we’re working on so that we’re able to … identify those that will need to consult with tribes and kind of go through the NAGPRA process and then just to understand the issue” of why KU has these remains, Peterson said.

She said the discovery came about recently because “We’ve had new people start at KU, and I think someone from the museum was getting to know the collections and realized these were in there and that’s when it was brought forward.”

KU’s Indigenous Studies Program tweeted on Tuesday, “It’s been a heavy, heavy week. There are no words. Please keep our Native students, faculty, staff, alums and community in your thoughts as we try to process this and work for all ancestors to find their way home.”

KU is still gathering information, according to the administrators’ statement.

“We are fully committed to the work of creating meaningful institutional memory by properly repatriating the ancestors and funerary objects,” the statement continues. “We are working with members in our Native American community and outside consultants specializing in repatriation.”

Peterson said the university is planning to make a website that will have updates on the NAGPRA process.

Spokespeople for KU’s Natural History Museum and Spencer Museum of Art forwarded our requests for information to Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a spokesperson for the university.

“We are working to (communicate) more fully with our Native American students, staff and faculty and address their immediate needs at this time,” Barcomb-Peterson said. “We are still gathering information and will share more details in the future.”

Geographic origins listed for the remains and artifacts attributed to KU in the online database include Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York and several counties in Kansas. Remains of at least 73 individuals are listed as coming from an unknown geographic origin.

Rep. Christina Haswood, a Lawrence Democrat and Diné, tweeted late Tuesday, “My heart is heavy with this news and how we have ancestors who have not completed the journey home. Native students of Lawrence, I’m here if you need my support.”

SOURCE

Brantford discovery prompts review into cases where human remains were found in vicinity of residential schools

 A discovery of decades-old child remains near the Mohawk Institute last year was the catalyst for a larger probe into historical deaths...

Ontario’s chief coroner says he has begun the work of reviewing unidentified human remains found near former residential schools in Ontario to determine if any investigations should be reopened.

“We’re looking at our files from the past many years,” Dr. Dirk Huyer told The Spectator.

Huyer said he plans to evaluate past cases of unmarked burials “in the vicinity of residential schools” to see if they’ve missed deaths linked to the institutions that sought to systemically — and, often, violently — strip Indigenous children of their culture, language and identity.

The coroner’s office will begin with files starting in the 1980s.

Plans to review old cases follow an announcement on Friday that a newly created task force responsible for investigating deaths at the Mohawk Institute would probe an unmarked burial found by police Aug. 5, 2020, near Glenwood Drive in Brantford to determine whether it is connected to the former residential school.

Archaeologists’ report revealed the bones, initially deemed not of forensic interest, belonged to a child.

Lawyer and former Truth and Reconciliation Commission director Kimberly Murray, who is heading up a survivor-led search of the Mohawk Institute, said Six Nations archeology contacted her after receiving the report in the summer.

“It was concerning to archeology because it’s a child,” she said.

The archeology company presented its findings to survivors, community members and the task force — comprising three police services and representatives from the province’s death investigation system — it was decided there should be further investigation.

“We’re like, that needs to go to the task force because it’s starting to look a lot like this might be a residential school child,” Murray said. “We don’t know ... but there are some things pointing that way.”

Huyer said sex, race and identity have not been determined.

The remains discovered in August 2020 were not believed to be of forensic interest, in part due to their age.

“Based upon the anthropologist’s examination of the bones and the scene, it was not felt to be representative of a new crime scene or a typical crime-scene location,” he said.

Historically, remains approximately 50 years or older would not be considered “new.”

Instead, the burial site was referred to the registrar from the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act, who worked with the landowner to conduct an archeological assessment. The assessment revealed the remains were bones of an adolescent — a child under the age of 14.

“In retrospect ... given the proximity to the Mohawk Institute and the recognition of unmarked burials in locations that are at or associated with residential schools, this is obviously of forensic interest,” Huyer said.

KEEP READING: Brantford discovery prompts review into cases where human remains were found in vicinity of residential schools | TheSpec.com

Ontario coroner reviews cases of unidentified human remains for links to residential schools

 

The office of Ontario's chief coroner is embarking on a review of unidentified human remains found in the last four decades to determine if any are linked to former residential schools.

"Burials that may have occurred within the residential school period of time could be many years old," he said in an interview Tuesday.

"We are going to look back into our files to see if there are cases ... that are at or near residential schools."

READ: Ontario coroner reviews cases of unidentified human remains for links to residential schools | CTV News

Carlisle report: Remains don't match - not Little Plume

Students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, circa 1900.

Exhumed remains don't match 19th century Indian child, in fact contains two unidentified sets
CARLISLE, Pa. — According to the Associated Press, the remains unearthed at a Pennsylvania Army base don't match the Native American child thought to have been buried there after dying at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 19th century, authorities said Friday.

The U.S. Army said Friday the grave thought to contain 10-year-old Little Plume, also called Hayes Vanderbilt Friday, doesn't match his age, and in fact contains two sets of unidentified remains.

The remains of 15-year-old Little Chief, also known as Dickens Nor, and 14-year-old Horse, also called Horace Washington, do match and will be returned to a Northern Arapaho delegation on Monday. They'll be reburied in Wyoming's Wind River Reservation.

The grave with Little Plume's headstone contains remains from a teenage male and another person of undetermined age or sex. They will be reinterred at the site.

The government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School, founded by an Army officer, took drastic steps to separate Native American students from their culture, including cutting their braids, dressing them in military-style uniforms and punishing them for speaking their native languages. They were forced to adopt European names.

More than 10,000 Native American children were taught there and endured harsh conditions that sometimes led to death from such diseases as tuberculosis.

The exhumations began early Tuesday at the post cemetery on the grounds of the Carlisle Barracks, which today houses the U.S. Army War College.

Seventeen members of the Northern Arapaho tribe, including tribal elders and young people, came to Carlisle to take part in the process. In 2016, the tribe had formally requested the bodies be returned to them.

"The U.S. Army honored its promise to reunite Native American families with their children who died more than 100 years ago at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School," Army National Military Cemeteries Executive Director Karen Durham-Aguilera said in a statement. "We are thankful to the Northern Arapaho families for their patience and collaboration during this process."

Editors Note: This is so wrong. And we are expecting them to find more remains that are not officially registered.