cultural property

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act has celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, Indian Country Today Media Network's Rick Kearns reports. The law allows American Indians to repatriate ancestral remains, burial objects and other sacred ceremonial objects from the archives of museums.

There may be as many as one million indigenous ancestral remains and cultural objects internationally, the director of the Association on American Indian Affairs’ (AAIA) International Repatriation Project estimates. The right to ancestral remains and cultural objects also has been recognized by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
 

The Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act was a landmark human rights law when it was enacted 25 years ago: mandating that federal agencies return American Indian remains and sacred objects collected during a long history of colonialism and mistreatment of American Indians. But the law has been "stymied by poorly curated collections, long-lost records and limited operating budgets," E&E Publishing's Dyland Brown reports. NAGPRA was enacted without funding, and "limited budgets, legal expertise and access to land for reburial create a gulf between the number of items available for repatriation and those physically returned." The Government Accountability Office has found that there is poor compliance with NAGPRA, including poor curation practices by federal agencies and federally funded museums and poor documentation of American Indian remains and sacred objects.

According to the Associated Press, the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation is being accused of violating a law meant to protect the cultural property of American Indian tribes. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has told the Interior Department to investigate if the bureau has violated the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which provides a way for American Indian remains and other cultural property to be returned to tribes out of federal custody. The law was enacted to rectify a history in which American Indian remains and sacred objects were scooped up into museum archives and the hands of government bureaucrats.

A whistleblower reported that the office was not keeping detailed records that would ensure the law functions the way it is supposed to, the AP reports.

The remains and artifacts were collected during the construction of dams and waterways in California, Nevada and Oregon, according to the AP.

Matthew H. Birkhold, a visiting scholar at the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, writes for Bloomberg that it was a double-edged sword for the Annenberg Foundation to purchase 24 sacred American Indian objects that were auctioned off by a Paris auction house. The foundation plans to return the objects to the Hopi and the San Carlos Apache tribes. Even though the foundation denounced the sale of cultural property, it legitimized commerce in cultural property by participating in the auction, Birkhold opines.

The best solution for indigenous peoples to regain their cultural property that is not protected by intellectual property law is to work within the legal system, Birkhold argues: "The best bet for indigenous people to secure their cultural property is through the legal system, where taking a principled stand could pay dividends. A developing legal framework provides the tools to restore cultural artifacts to their rightful owners. In addition to the 1970 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Convention, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples explicitly establishes the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain, control and protect their cultural heritage and obligates signatory states to take effective measures to protect their right to do so. This framework needs to be strengthened. In the meantime indigenous groups can further develop the law while making progress in its shadow."

The case of the auction of sacred Hopi masks in France highlights the lack of protection for indigenous peoples' culture under intellectual property law in Western countries.

The Associated Press reports that the Drouot auction house in France sold 25 sacred Hopi Kachina masks, despite protests, for $1.6 million this week.  "Though a judge ruled last week that the sale of the artifacts is legal in France, the American Indian Hopi tribe says the artifacts represent their ancestors' spirits and cannot be sold as merchandise," the AP also reports. Also included in the sale was objects from the San Carlos Apache tribe and a Zuni tribe altar.

The AP decided against publishing images of the objects "because the Hopi have long kept the items out of public view and consider it sacrilegious for any images of the objects to appear."