Smoke Signals
Bringing our people home: NAGPRA
Continued from front page
cover our people and property from
those who want to own them.:." said
Suzan Shown Harjo of the Cheyenne
and Hodulgee Muscogee Tribes.
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The belief that Indians were sub
human was essential to upholding
the processes of stealing land, re
sources, dignity and life. It was nec
essary for the dominant society to be
lieve that the people they were sys
tematically destroying were animals,
to be dealt with as was most conve
nient, lucrative and effective to their
culture. Harjo continues, with dis
cussion of the 1868 U.S. Army Sur
geon General's directive to augment
the collection of Indian crania. In
an arrangement with the Smith
sonian, the Army would receive os
teological remains and the Smithson
ian would be given burial and cul
tural items. Harjo notes advertise
ments for crania in old newspapers
and other practices which led to the
"decades long practice of decapitat
ing Native people, weighing their
brains and shipping them as freight
to Washington, D.C. for more 'study.'
For Native people such actions
were and are unthinkable. To this
day, Indian remains sit tumbled to
gether and dusty in museum draw
ers or in private collections as novel
ties or precious scientific material.
This is a testament to the continuing
debt of disrespect and the crudity of
ignorance. "
' The truth is, Indian people are nei
ther a novelty, nor a scientific .curi
osity. Indians are people with civil
rights that have long been violated.
NAGPRA, the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act, acknowledges Indians' rights to
grave protection and the return of
previously stolen Indian relics. The
lines are still being drawn as to what
exactly this legislation means.
Mending the Circle, the Native
American Repatriation Guide from
which the above Harjo and Echo
Hawk quotations were taken, gives
an in-depth look at these issues.
The most current battle that came
to the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde arose from the cumbersome
inventories of human remains and
associated objects. These inventories
are a tangle of incomplete informa
tion. For example, 80 of the hu
man remains are not affiliated with
a specific tribe. This means that
whoever collected the bodies "forgot"
to record where they came from.
The Grand Ronde, with the help
of Ryan and Adrienne Heavyhead,
(Blackfeet) national NAGPRA ex
perts, have established a game plan.
After having waded through the in
ventories, meeting with other tribes
to identify primary areas of concern,
creating a document of cultural in
formation and objectives, the Grand
Ronde Tribe has made its first re
'quests for repatriation.
However, these steps are plagued
at each foot fall by the congressional
interpretation of NAGPRA. The dis
covery three years ago of the Kenn
ewick Man has tested the original
intent of the law. The Umatilla Tribe,
in collaboration with the other Co
lumbia River Tribes, fought to have
the bones of the Kennewick Man
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reinterned without scientific testing.
However, the federal district court
ruled in favor of the scientists, on the
22nd of September.
It is in the name of such atrocities
to justice that the Grand Ronde Cul
tural Resource Protection staff were
called to a private home in Salem
where a grave robber's collection
caught the attention of the authori
ties. The extensive collection, valued
at $50,000, included not only bead
work, knife cases, feathers, religious
and ceremonial objects, but assorted
Indian remains. The man had the
arrogance to place the bones of a foot
in a moccasin, which sat on his cof
fee table. The skulls in his posses
sion were most likely used as ash
trays. Unfortunately this sort of
practice is not rare.
The reclaiming of these bones by
Christine Contreras, Grand Ronde's
Cultural Resources Site Monitor and
tribal member, was a bittersweet vic
tory for the Tribe.
Contreras says, "For me there's a
lot of anxiety of being in the pres
ence of human remains. I have this
inner struggle that tells me it is not
okay for them to be out on display.
As a sovereign nation I think we
should have access to our ancestors'
remains both from museums and pri
vate collectors, to insure that they are
not looked at like a trinket or a nick
nack, and that someone can't talk
over them socially. I think we should
get every bone, every bead, every
piece of our heritage back from these
people so we can take care of it as we
see fit."
The human remains and associ
ated burial objects (in Salem) were
discovered because the grave robber
was found dead in his house. Re
portedly, he bled to death in his own
home after being bitten by his pet
parrot. While the unusual circum
stances surrounding his death may
cause others to pause, Native Ameri
can people are not at all surprised.
Grave robbers and profiteers need to
be wary of the power of the dead.
Currently, remains from 180 tribal
ancestors from the University of Or
egon and the Smithsonian are being
returned to the Tribe. As the remains
arrive home, there is great responsi
bility bestowed upon the Tribe. The
tribal NAGPRA committee was
formed four months ago to deal with
the issues of reinternment, and has
accepted the gravity of the work. . :
Committee member Janell Haller
says, "My belief is that everyone de
serves respect. We were raised to know
you don't eat in the cemetery or you
get a crooked mouth. It's respect, re
spect of the cemetery, of where you
walk, of where you come from."
Committee member Marce Norwest
has been appointed to receive the
bones that arrive from the museum.
Meanwhile, June Olson, Lindy
Trolan, Lisa Watt and the Heavy
heads have been in transit between
different museums, researching
other collections. The Heavy
heads, renowned for their compre- ;
hensive data base and expert ma-
neuvering through NAGPRA poli
cies, have brought the Grand
Ronde a great gift. However, the
proposed NAGPRA amendment, if
passed, may have a severe impact
on their work.
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Currently pending in the House of
Representatives is a bill, which is
backlash from the Kennewick Man
case. The bill is "to amend the
NAGPRA to provide for appropriate
study and repatriation of remains for
which a cultural affiliation is not
readily ascertainable."
This means that those 80 of hu
man remains which were not prop
erly identified when they were sto
len, will be free ground, once again,
for the scientific community to play
with.
As Bob McElderry, NAGPRA com
mittee member, says, "It's an attempt
by the government to renege on the
original intent of the law. It doesn't
matter what tribe those remains be
long to, as much as it matters that
someone says the right thing over
them and lays them to rest."
Haller, shaking her head says, "it's
just another form of a broken treaty."
Speaking of the proposed amend
ment, Contreras concurs, "I think it's
crazy to think anyone can look at a
group of bones and determine its their
great, great grandfather or look at
that moccasin and say it belonged to
my family. How can we recognize
these things that were stolen from
us before we were born? I think that
before people start digging up some
thing and handling remains and the
items they were buried with, they
should consider how it would feel if :
this was their own grandparents or
children. Would they want their
family on display or used for scien
tific research? I don't blame the con
gress and the people now for things
that happened in the past, but I will
hold them accountable for the cur
rent practices which continue to dis
respect our people."
Through the years of disease and
forced acculturation, the years of ter
mination, a great deal of the conti-
nuity to the past has been lost. How
ever, enough roots have survived for
the tree to flourish and rejuvenate.
From ethnographic texts and a
handful of Elders who know the old
ways, our generation still has access
to enough information to know and
understand the ways of our ances
tors. As Louis LaChance has said,
"Our ancestors laid it down for us.
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The staff must determine if artifacts
they inventory, such as these baskets,
have sacred significance to the Grand
Ronde people. Photo by Lindy Trolan
We have only to pick it up; Some
times the old knowledge seems hard
to find, but it is there. We only need
to look for it."
Over the years, the various tribes
and bands now affiliated at Grand
Ronde buried their people in a vari
ety of ways. All these varied beliefs
and customs are represented in the
ancestry of Grand Ronde. One chal
lenge of the NAGPRA committee and
of the tribal community will be to
meld traditions and honor the bones.
. - Margo Mercier, NAGPRA commit
tee member, says, "Our goal is to re
inter the remains in a good way, to
build a memorial for those who came
before us. We want to build a visual
memorial of those who were unjustly
incarcerated in museums, a memo
rial that says we belong to these
people, they are our ancestors. The
proposed NAGPRA amendment is
another slap in the face. The injus
tice that has been done is horrific
enough, but to point fingers and say
you must prove affiliation is worse.
Knowing these kind of grave robbers
. are in our community makes me sick
to my stomach. Unless you are re
ally well protected spiritually, it can
really harm you to handle remains.
When I had first started out on this
committee four months ago, I had no
idea what it all entailed. Each day I
learn more and hurt more deeply for
our ancestors. So, we work together
.to bring this all together in a good
way. The needs of the living and the
needs of the dead must be balanced
together and it is really important to
feed the spirit."
Despite continued opposition, Na
tive America is reconnecting to its
ancestors. Said Christine Contreras,
"It is important for people to know
there are still people out there who
collect Native American relics. The
Tribe needs to have some conversa
tions about how they feel about these
things that are property of our an
cestors, so that we present ourselves
as a tribe and relearn customs. I
think people, even though we were
stripped of our language and cus
toms, still have a connection to tribal
ancestors. I believe it is a link to a
better way of treating your commu
nity and living your life."
June Olson and Tracy Dugan con
tributed to this story.