Bones of contention: The repatriation of native American human remains

Public Historian

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 119-143

  Gulliford, Andrew ^a,b  

^a Department of History ^*

^b MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 63849167620     PISSN: 02723433     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3379790     Document Type: Review

References (64)

1. Susan Shown Harjo, cited in Gerald Vizenor, "Bone Courts: The Natural Rights of Tribal Bones," Crossbloods (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), 62
2. For additional Harjo quotes see Karen Swisher, "Skeletons in the Closet," The Washington Post, 3 October 1989
3. Curtis M. Hinsley, The Smithsonian and the American Indian: Making a Moral Anthropology in Victorian America (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), 12
4. See William Simmons, The Narragansett (New York: Chelsea House, 1989)
5. Thomas F. King, "Beyond Bulletin 38: Comments on the Traditional Cultural Properties Symposium," in Traditional Cultural Properties: What You Do and How We Think, ed. Patricia L. Parker, CRM 16 (1993): 63
6. Deward E. Walker, Foreword to Roger C. Echo-Hawk, "Pawnee Mortuary Traditions," in Testimony of Walter Echo-Hawk Before the House Committees on Interior and Insular Affairs, Administration, and Public Works and Transportation on the National American Indian Museum Act, H.R. 2688, 20 July 1989, pp. i-ii
7. Robert E. Bieder, "A Brief Historical Survey of the Expropriation of American Indian Remains," (Bloomington, Ind.: privately printed by Robert E. Bieder and Native American Rights Fund, April 1990), 3
8. Robert E. Bieder, "Expropriation of American Indian Remains, 10,11
9. Also see Douglas Cole, Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 74-101
10. William A. Hammond, Surgeon General, circular proclaiming intention to establish the Army Medical Museum, 21 May 1862. Document published by Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, p. 12. Author's copy courtesy of Tom Killion, Repatriation Office, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
11. Former chief historian of the National Park Service Robert Utley writes of the Sand Creek Massacre, "Men, women, children, and even infants perished in the orgy of slaughter, their bodies then scalped and barbarously mutilated." Having returned to Denver, the Colorado volunteers "paraded triumphantly through Denver's streets to the cheers of her citizens. Theater patrons applauded a display of Cheyenne scalps [and] women's pubic hair, strung across the stage at intermission." Robert Utley, The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 92-93. Skulls from Sand Creek were shipped to the Army Medical College and have only recently been reburied by the Southern Cheyenne
12. Bieder, "Expropriation of American Indian Remains," 16
13. Madison Mills, Surgeon, United States Army, Surgeon General's Office, 13 January 1868. Author's copy courtesy of Thomas Killion, Repatriation Office, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
14. Bieder, "Expropriation of American Indian Remains," 31
15. Ronald P. Rohner, The Ethnography of Franz Boas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 88
16. Beider, "Expropriation of American Indian Remains," 31
17. Cole, Captured Heritage, 114-21
18. Loyd Smith, "Remains of 35 Blackfeet to be returned to nearby reservation," Glacier Reporter (Browning, Montana) 20 June 1991. Also interview with Curly Bear Wagner, 25 July 1992
19. Douglas J. Preston, "Skeletons in Our Museums' Closets," Harper's Magazine, February 1989, 69
20. Also see Kenn Harper, Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo (Frobisher Bay, Northwest Territory: Blacklead Books, 1986)
21. For the complete discussion of the Larsen Bay excavations see Tamara L. Bray and Thomas W. Killion, eds., Reckoning With the Dead: The Larsen Bay Repatriation and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994)
22. Andrew Gulliford, "Bones of Contention: Wickliffe Mounds and the Evolution of Public Archaeology at a Prehistoric Mississippian Village," Museum Assessment Program, American Association of Museums, September 1991, pp. 5-6
23. For specific details see Kit Wesler, "The King Project at Wickliffe Mounds: A private excavation in the New Deal era," in D. Polloack and M. L. Powell, eds., New Deal Era Archaeology and Current Research in Kentucky (Frankfort: Kentucky Heritage Council, 1988), 83-96
24. Bryan W. Kwapil, "Coping with a Shady Past," History News 42, no. 2 (1987), 13-17
25. and Kit Wesler, "The Wickliffe Mounds Cemetery: Educating the Public in a Changing Exhibit," paper presented at the symposium, "Public Education at Archaeological Parks: Doing It Every Day," Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10 April 1992. Both authors describe the unsavory past at Wickliffe Mounds, but the current director, Dr. Kit Wesler, also discusses how the site is now properly interpreted to meet NAGPRA requirements and the concerns of area Indians
26. Montgomery Brower and Conan Putnam, "Walter Echo-Hawk Fights for His People's Right to Rest in Peace," People Magazine, 4 September 1984, p. 43
27. Robert Tomsho, "Indian Burial Site Becomes Big Issue in Little Salina, Kansas," Wall Street Journal, 17 May 1989
28. Richard Johnson, "Bones of Their Fathers," Contemporary: Sunday Denver Post, 4 February 1990
29. Also see Larry Fruhling, "Burial dispute pits Indians vs. scientists," Des Moines State Register, 16 April 1989
30. and "Study at Indian Burial Pit," Kansas State Historical Society Mirror 36, no. 3 (April, 1990)
31. The reference to "skeleton picnics" comes from letters written by the director of Harvard University's Peabody Museum during the Great Depression as he sought funding for the valuable work of Harriet S. and Cornelius B. Cosgrove in the Mimbres valley. The Cosgroves were amateur archaeologists in the best sense of the word who published The Swarts Ruin: A Typical Mimbres Site of Southwestern New Mexico, Papers of the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, vol. 15, no. 1 (Cambridge, Mass, 1932). In written letters to donors, the Peabody's director described local pot-hunters and the damage they were doing as he solicited funds to support the ongoing research of the Cosgroves
32. Douglas Cole, Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985), 121
33. Skokomish Tribe of Shelton, Washington, Resolution No. 86-37, 4 June 1986, attached to a letter to Dr. Adrienne Kaeppler, chair, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 5 June 1986
34. Larsen Bay Tribal Council Resolution No. 87-89, 29 May 1987 in Larsen Bay Repatriation Letters, appendix to Reckoning With The Dead: The Larsen Bay Repatriation and the Smithsonian Institution, ed. Tamara L. Bray and Thomas W. Killion (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), 187
35. Gordon L. Pullar. "The Quikertarmiut and the Scientist: Fifty Years of Clashing World Views," in Reckoning With The Dead, 17, 22
36. Walter Echo-Hawk Before the House Committees on Interior and Insular Affairs, 20 July 1989, p. 1
37. Adams, Select Committee On Indian Affairs, p. 15. To further understand Secretary Adams' original point of view and then his changed stance in favor of Smithsonian repatriation the author interviewed Robert McCormick Adams at his home in Seven Castles near Basalt, Colorado on 2 August 1995
38. Robert McCormick Adams before the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 12 November 1987, p. 15
39. Adams, Select Committee on Indian Affairs, p. 16
40. Preston, "Skeletons in Our Museums' Closets," 70
41. H. Arden, "Who Owns Our Past?" National Geographic 175 (March 1989): 376-93
42. Legislature of Nebraska, Ninety-First Legislature Legislative Bill 340, Unmarked Human Burial Sites and Skeletal Remains Protection Act, May 31, 1989. For a detailed account of the conflict which led to this legislation, see American Indian Culture and Research Journal 2 (1992)
43. Testimony of Kansas State Archaeologist Tom Witty on the Kansas Unmarked Burial Sites Preservation Act, House Bill No. 2144, which became law January 1,1990. Also see Carol L. Carnett, A Survey of State Statutes Protecting Archaeological Resources (Washington, D.C.: National Trust for Historic Preservation and U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service Cultural Resources and Archaeological Assistance Division, August 1995)
44. Chris Raymond, "Some Scholars Upset by Stanford's Decision to Return American Indian Remains for Re-Burial by Tribe," Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 July 1989, A4
45. Chris Raymond, "Reburial of Indian Remains Stimulates Studies, Friction Among Scholars," Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 October 1990, A13
46. Felicity Barringer, "Smithsonian Accord Is Likely on Return of Indian Remains," New York Times, 20 August 1989
47. For the scholarly debate also see Douglas Ubelaker and Lauryn Guttenplan-Grant, "Human Skeletal Remains - Preservation or Reburial?" 1989 Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 32: 249-87
48. See Gillian Flynn, "Annual Report on Repatriation Office Activities at the National Museum of Natural History, June 1994 to May 1995" and telephone interview with Dr. Stewart Speaker in the Repatriation Office, 15 November 1995
49. NAGPRA testimony included Report of the Panel for a National Dialogue on Museum/ Native American Relations, 28 February 1990; Willard L. Boyd, President of Field Museum of Natural History, Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, The United States Senate, 14 May 1990; and Henry J. Sockbeson, Native American Rights Fund, Testimony before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, 17 July 1990. For the impact of repatriation see "Symposium: The Native American Graves Protections and Repatriation Act of 1990 and State Repatriation-Related Legislation," Arizona State Law Journal 24, no. 1 (Spring 1992)
50. John Noble Wilford, "8,000 Year-Old Human Bones Are Found in Cave," New York Times, 3 October 1993
51. Samantha Silva, "A Famous Skeleton Returns to the Earth," High Country News, 8 March 1993
52. Clement W. Meighan, "Another View on Repatriation: Lost to the Public, Lost to History," reply to Andrew Gulliford, "Native Americans and Museums: Curation and Repatriation of Sacred and Tribal Objects," The Public Historian 14, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 45
53. Randall H. McGuire, "Do the Right Thing," in Tamara L. Bray and Thomas W. Killion, eds., Reckoning with the Dead: The Larson Bay Repatriation and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994)
54. Preston, "Skeletons in Our Museums' Closets," 71
55. For an update on repatriation of skeletal material see Lawrence Biemiller, "A 'Bone Man' at the Smithsonian Catalogues and Repatriates the Remains of American Indians," Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 February 1994, A55
56. Repatriation of human remains has become an international museum issue. See " Reburying Human Remains: Making Amends for Past Wrongs," Museums Journal (March 1993), 24-25
57. Gordon Pullar, "The Quikertarmiut and the Scientist: Fifty Years of Clashing World Views," in Reckoning With The Dead, 23. For background information on the Larsen Bay repatriation the author interviewed Gordon Pullar at the Alaska Native Heritage Conference on 4 August 1992 in Anchorage, Alaska
58. Andrew L. Giarelli, 'The return of Cheyenne skulls brings a bloody Western story to a close," High Country News, 15 November 1993
59. For recent scholarship on the Sand Creek Massacre see David Fridtjoff Halaas, "'All the Camp Was Weeping': George Bent and the Sand Creek Massacre," in Colorado Heritage (summer 1995): 2-17
60. Edward Halealoha Ayau, "Rooted in Native Soil," Federal Archaeology Special Report: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Fall/Winter 1995): 24-27. For additional understanding of Hawaiian human remains issues the author spoke with Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Denver, Colorado on 13 October 1995
61. Edward Halealoha Ayau, "Rooted in Native Soil."
62. Seminole information from Barringer, "Smithsonian Accord Likely,"New York Times, 20 August 1989
63. "Draft Recommendations regarding the Disposition of Culturally Unidentifiable Human Remains and Associated Funerary Object [sic]," circulated to Federal Agency and Museum Officials and Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations Representatives by the Departmental Consulting Archeologist, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, May 16, 1995. The memo called for comments by September 30, 1995
64. At the NCPH annual meeting in Seattle, Washington in April, 1996, E. Richard Hart spoke eloquently as a panelist on expert witness testimony in Indian court cases. Dr. Hart is the quintessential public historian, advising and consulting with diverse Indian tribes with whom he has worked for over twenty-five years. See E. Richard Hart, ed., Zuni and the Courts: A Struggle for Sovereign Land Rights (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995)