<< News >> US museums and universities face questions about requests for return of remains
Submitted by coldrum on Wednesday, 23 April 2008 Page Views: 1979
Pre-ContactAt the same time that Ohio State University is preparing to send the remains of American Indians back to West Virginia, the school is returning tissue and blood samples from Yanomamo tribes, at the request of the Brazilian government. In northeastern Ohio, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History has received a letter from Odawa Indians requesting the return of two wooden ceremonial bowls.The Cleveland Museum of Art is talking with Italian authorities who want several antiquities returned.
Similar requests for human remains, artifacts and art are on the rise nationwide, museum officials say.
"I think there will be an increase in claims over time," said Helen Robbins, repatriation director at the Field Museum in Chicago. "Laws and policies are changing."
Researchers, historians and others at museums and universities used to scour the globe for antiquities, artwork and other artifacts.
Digs in such places as Egypt and Greece yielded finds that were shipped to London, New York, Cleveland, Chicago and Paris, where they were displayed for crowds eager to see ancient wonders and art.
But in recent years, a growing number of governments and cultures have asked -- and in some cases, demanded -- that these finds be returned.
"All institutions are concerned," Robbins said. "But I don't think there's any anxiety. If we have title to a collection and if permits were properly obtained and things were done openly, there's no problem."
Working with Indian tribes and other countries has cost museums some works but also has opened the door to new cooperation and loans, said Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums.
"Museums are our guardians of our heritage, and we feel a huge responsibility. At the same time, we don't want to do anything offensive to other cultures."
The 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act says that if an institution has remains from a federally recognized tribe and the tribe asks for them back, the two sides must go through a process to determine whether they will be returned.
But what happens when remains belong to a people who predate any known tribe?
That's the case with Ohio State's remains, as well as most of the nearly 7,000 at the Ohio Historical Society and others across the state.
Ohio State's plan to return the remains to Putnam County, W.Va., commissioners for reburial must be approved by a federal committee and the interior secretary.
The plan is one of 11 the committee will consider at its May meeting. In the past 13 years, there had been 48 such requests.
Seventeen years after the graves law was passed, specific regulations on how to handle remains of early cultures were proposed. Some museum representatives say the regulations proposed last year don't ensure that the remains go to those most closely tied to the ancient Indians.
Indian tribes generally support the proposal because it creates a system that eventually will allow them to bury remains of people they consider their predecessors.
Hundreds of comments are being reviewed by the National Park Service, which administers the 1990 law.
The Ohio Historical Society and others have been awaiting regulations before deciding what to do with remains and artifacts found in Hopewell and Adena burial mounds and from other prehistoric cultures.
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