KLAMATH >> Imagine the outcry that would be heard around the world if bandits broke into the Vatican (or into Mecca, or any other modern spiritual center), stripped precious metals from every surface, raided the tombs of the saints and sold their spoils to museums and private collectors for millions. A crime of this scale seems almost unimaginable in this day and age, but for hundreds of years it was common practice for unscrupulous traders to despoil Native American villages, burial sites and ceremonial centers, selling the artifacts and amassing huge personal collections.
While it's impossible to change the past, efforts have begun in recent years to "repatriate" purloined items to their rightful owners. On June 28, the Yurok Tribe hosted a Repatriation Ceremony (called Kwom-hle'-chey-ehl, meaning "They have come back") to celebrate the return of 128 ceremonial pieces used in the traditional Brush Dance.
"It is indescribably important that Yurok ceremonial items come back to the people and the land where they originated," said Cultural Resource Manager Rosie Clayburn in a news release about the event. "Not only do they belong with us, but they need to participate in ceremonies, which is their intended purpose. We are all out of balance until they are all home."
It took more than five years of negotiations with the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian to secure the release of these items, which are the second "installment" of artifacts described in a 2005 claim. The first batch was repatriated in 2010, bringing back 217 artifacts used in the White Deerskin Dance and the Jump Dance.
Tribal representatives said the majority of their items from the museum have now been returned, though the museum retains 15 caps that the tribe is working to reacquire. (The museum is conducting research to determine whether the caps qualify for repatriation under their definition of "sacred.")
"Our perspective is that those caps are ceremonial. They're used in dances, so to us they are sacred," said Clayburn. "When you're making something for a ceremony, a basket cap or a dress or anything else, you spend a lot of time gathering things. Everything on there is from the Earth — shells from the beach, bear grass from the hills and so on — and the materials have to be worked in the right frame of mind. The whole time you're making something, you're praying and bringing the object to life by putting your thoughts and prayers into it."
The most recent batch of returned items included a basket cap decorated with dentillium shells (also called 'dentalium' shells), dresses adorned with abalone, arrow quivers made with woodpecker scalps, "jump sticks" decorated with woodpecker heads and more.
"I'd like to thank tribal staff and the Smithsonian for working so hard to bring these ceremonial items home," said Thomas P. O'Rourke Sr., chairman of the Yurok Tribe. "This is where they belong. They are meant to be used in our ceremonies for healing and prayer."
According to the news release, "90 percent of the items were removed from Yurok territory by Grace Nicholson, an avid collector of Native American items in the early 1900s. The remaining 10 percent were collected by various non-Indian collectors throughout North America."
After Nicholson acquired the items, she sold some of them to wealthy private collectors Harmon Hendricks and George Gustav Heye, and they eventually became part of the Museum of the American Indian in New York. They remained there until a 1989 act of Congress created the National Museum of the American Indian and transferred stewardship of more than 800,000 objects to the Smithsonian Institution.
The act requires that Smithsonian museums create and carry out a repatriation policy "to inventory, identify, and consider for return — if requested by a Native community or individual — American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian human remains and funerary objects." The law was amended in 1996 to add provisions for "unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony." A similar law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, was passed in 1990, and it directs repatriation efforts for other federally-funded institutions.)
According to the NMAI website (http://nmai.si.edu), "One common misconception about the NMAI's repatriation program is that the majority of the NMAI's collections, at some point in the future, will be repatriated. In fact, less than 3 percent (about 25,000 items) of the NMAI's collections fall within the four primary categories of eligible items for repatriation: human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony."
Clayburn said that the tribe's main focus has been on repatriating human remains and funerary objects, and now that most of those items have been returned, they're beginning to focus on the other categories. They plan to file repatriation claims with three more museums soon, including one in Del Norte County, one in Portland, Oregon, and one at the University of Washington.
"It's a feeling of overwhelming joy to see these items come home. It's like welcoming somebody home who has been away for a long time, like a prisoner of war. They're finally back and doing what they are made to do," said Clayburn.
"A lot of the elders who started this work are no longer here, but this is their life's work that we're continuing, and we'll keep it up until all of our items have been returned so that we can make the Yurok people whole, and put the world back in balance."
Contact Clay McGlaughlin at 441-0516.
AT A GLANCE:
Items that can be 'repatriated' include:
Culturally affiliated human remains: The legislation defines these as human remains with whom a demonstrable relationship of shared group identity can be shown to an existing federally recognized American Indian tribe, Alaska Native Village or Regional Corporation or Native Hawaiian organization, based on a preponderance of evidence.
Associated and unassociated funerary objects: Funerary objects are items that, as part of the death rites of a culture, are believed to have been intentionally placed with an individual at the time of death or later. An object is considered to be "associated" if the human remains with which it was originally interred are present at the National Museum of Natural History.
Sacred objects: These are specific ceremonial objects that are needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present-day adherents.
Objects of cultural patrimony: An object having ongoing historical, traditional or cultural importance central to the Native American group or culture itself, rather than property owned by an individual Native American, and which, therefore, cannot be alienated, appropriated, or conveyed by any individual regardless of whether or not the individual is a member of the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and such object shall have been considered inalienable by such Native American group at the time the object was separated from such group.
Remains of individuals whose identity is known: The return of the remains of named individuals to lineal descendants was an established priority for the National Museum of Natural History, even prior to the passage of the NMAI Act. This policy continues to be in effect. Very few of the individuals whose remains are in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History are known by name.
Objects acquired illegally: In accordance with long-standing Smithsonian policy, the National Museum of Natural History may repatriate any materials acquired by or transferred to the National Museum of Natural History illegally or under circumstances that render invalid the Museum's claim to them.
