cultural resources

NYTs: Wampum Belts Pulled from Sothesby’s Auction

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

Sotheby’s has removed two ceremonial Indian wampum belts from an auction scheduled for Wednesday following complaints by the Onondaga nation that the belts were part of their cultural heritage and should be returned.

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Sotheby’s New York

One of two wampum belts pulled from a sale; it may have fetched $15,000 or more.

Sotheby’s issued a statement on Monday saying that the estate of a collector that had consigned the belts had decided to withdraw them “in order to review the information presented” by the Onondaga.

The statement also said the decision to take the belts out of the Wednesday sale had been made “pending further discussion with the Haudenosaunee Standing Committee.” The Haudenosaunee is a confederacy that includes the Onondaga and five other nations.

Sotheby’s had estimated that one of the belts would sell for $15,000 to $20,000 and the other would go for $20,000 to $30,000.

Onondaga leaders had threatened to attend the auction and stand silently in protest as the bidding progressed.

They had sent Sotheby’s a package of letters from Indian leaders and scholars last week describing the two items and outlining their objections to the sale. One expert said the two belts were probably made between 1760 and 1820.

Wampum belts “represent our sacred history, the founding principles of our laws and life-ways and the importance of agreements that we have made between nations,” Christine G. Abrams, a member of the Haudenosaunee Standing Committee, said in a letter to Sotheby’s. “Wampum belts are our legal documents and records, which also combine sacred knowledge, forming the basis of our identity today.”

Shannon Keller O’Loughlin, a lawyer for the Onondaga nation, said the Onondaga considered the belts community property that were never owned by any one person, and that no Onondaga had ever had the authority to sell or transfer them. “Therefore,” she wrote in a letter to Sotheby’s last week, “these belts were originally taken out of these communities without proper ‘title.’ ”

How that happened remains a mystery, according to the letters the Haudenosaunee sent Sotheby’s.

“It is not clear how or why these two wampum belts were removed from native ownership,” wrote Margaret M. Bruchac, the coordinator of Native American studies at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus in Groton.

Both belts were once in the collection of the Museum of the American Indian, a forerunner of the National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan, and Ms. O’Loughlin said the Museum of the American Indian had “deaccessioned” them. Deaccession is a term used by museums to describe the process of taking items out of their collections and make them available for sale or exchange.

Sotheby’s said the belts had come from a collection belonging to Herbert G. Wellington Jr., the chairman of an old-line stock brokerage firm before his death in 2005.

Mr. Wellington’s collection included objects from a number of North American tribes and was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983.

Sotheby’s said the representatives of the estate declined to talk about the dispute.

Ms. O’Loughlin also questioned whether the deaccessioning had been done properly. That issue was investigated in the 1970s by the state attorney general at the time, Louis J. Lefkowitz.

A trustee of the Museum of the American Indian, the anthropologist Edmund Carpenter, had complained that art dealers were permitted to “go shopping” for American Indian rarities at a museum warehouse in the Bronx.

Sam Deloria on Yale and Geronimo

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Yale Alumni Magazine:

Yale seems reluctant to dig into the controversy over whether Skull and Bones has Geronimo’s skull and bones. But the university’s most prominent Native American alumnus wants his alma mater to take a stand.

A federal lawsuit by Geronimo’s great-grandson is on hold for now against the university and the secret society. Nonetheless, “I would like to see Yale say to Skull and Bones, ‘Give them back whatever you have or you’re finished at Yale,'” says Sam Deloria ’64, recipient of the university’s first Native Alumni Achievement Award in 2005.

Deloria, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and director of the American Indian Graduate Center in New Mexico, recognizes that “that’s not going to happen,” thanks to what he calls “institutional cowardice” and the “powerful, powerful people” — including both Bush presidents — who belong to Skull and Bones.

Still, he would like to see Yale take a public stand on the efforts of Geronimo’s descendants to find out whether Skull and Bones really has any of the Apache warrior’s remains. “An acknowledgment that the tribes and the families have some concern would be a start.”

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Grand Forks Herald: Drop the “Fighting Sioux” Nickname

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Herald:

A new deadline probably dooms the UND Fighting Sioux nickname and logo. That’s just as well. It’s been clear for some time that the name and logo couldn’t survive.

The reason is simple enough.

No matter the appeal of the name, the pride in it and the support for it, its use had become corrosive, damaging to the university and the state.

That’s why the Herald has urged dropping the name, sooner than later.

Opponents would never abandon the fight against it, even in the face of demonstrated support among the state’s Sioux people. That became clear in the wake of a vote last month at Spirit Lake.

The board left a small window for supporters of the name and logo. They set an Oct. 1 deadline.

At the same time, they raised the bar. The name can be retained only if the tribes agree to allow its use for at least 30 years.

Meeting these conditions will be so difficult, for so many reasons, that the name and logo appear effectively dead.

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American Indian Arts and Crafts Act’s Constitutionality Challenged

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Native American Arts v. Peter Stone Co., out of the Northern District of Illinois  — Peter Stone DCT Order

And here is the brief of the United States as intervenor supporting the statute — USA Memorandum re Constitutionality of Act

Seeking Amici in Religious Freedom Case in Fifth Circuit

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

If anyone is intersted in working on or joining a brief focusing on the American Indian community’s interest in this case, please contact Fleming Terrell at FTerrell@aclutx.org<mailto:FTerrell@aclutx.org> or (512) 478-7300 ext. 128.

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas and the national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief are seeking amicus support in defending against an Fifth Circuit appeal that threatens the fundamental freedoms of religious practice and expression for Texas schoolchildren, particularly those of American Indian descent.  The case is Needville Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Arocha, No. 09-20091 (5th Cir.), on appeal from A.A. et al. v. Needville Indep. Sch. Dist., No. H-08-2934 (S.D.Tx. Jan. 20, 2008).

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Munzer & Raustiala on IP and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Stephen Munzer and Kal Raustiala have posted “The Uneasy Case for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge” on SSRN. The paper appears in the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 27, pp. 37-97, 2009. Here is the abstract:

Should traditional knowledge – -the understanding or skill possessed by indigenous peoples pertaining to their culture and folklore and their use of native plants for medicinal purposes – receive protection as intellectual property? This Article examines nine major arguments from the moral, political and legal philosophy of property for intellectual property rights and contends that, as applied to traditional knowledge (TK), they justify at most a modest package of rights under domestic and international law. The arguments involve desert based on labor; firstness; stewardship; stability; moral right of the community; incentives to innovate; incentives to commercialize; unjust enrichment, misappropriation and restitution; and infringement and dilution. These arguments do, however, support “defensive” protection for TK: that is, halting the use of TK by nonindigenous actors in obtaining patents and copyrights. These arguments also support the dissemination of TK on the internet and via other digital media and the selective use of trademarks. The force of these conclusions resides in the importance of a vibrant public domain, and the absence of any plausible limiting principle that would allow more robust rights in TK for indigenous groups without permitting equally robust rights for nonindigenous groups.

News Coverage of the Native Arts Foundation & Walter Echohawk

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the Oregonian:

Pauline Echo-Hawk
Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Board Chair Walter Echo-Hawk.

The Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, which will be based in Portland, had its historic launch last week, making it the first nonprofit in the nation devoted exclusively to funding Native American arts and culture causes.

The choice to base the foundation in Portland reflects the appeal to the rest of the country of Portland — even when it’s ailing economically — as well as this area’s many layers of Native American activity and culture.

The foundation is just emerging, but some members of the Native American arts community already are impressed.

“This is visionary,” says art dealer Cecily Quintana of Quintana Galleries, a family-owned gallery that has been involved with the Native American community for 37 years. “Everything about this is encouraging. Look at the board — it’s a nationally based one.”

The foundation’s six-member board includes chairman Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), a lawyer; Joy Harjo (Muscogee (Creek) Nation), a poet; Letitia Chambers, a former U.S. representative to the United Nations General Assembly; and Elizabeth Woody (Navajo/Warm Springs/Yakama), a Portland visual artist and former director of Ecotrust’s Indigenous Leadership Program. Continue reading →

NYTs: Walter Echohawk Helps to Found Native Arts Foundation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is a pdf of the NYTs article — walter-echohawk-native-arts-foundation

Public Radio Segment on NAGPRA and Michigan Tribes

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

INTERLOCHEN PUBLIC RADIO (2009-04-22) For the more than a decade now Indian tribes in Michigan and elsewhere have been reclaiming objects lost over the centuries. In many cases they are also able to return to the earth the remains of long-dead ancestors. We’ll meet the researcher who does this work for one of the tribes in northern lower Michigan.

Listen here.

Arizona Supreme Court to Hear Havasupai DNA Appeal

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Unfortunately for the Havasupai Tribe, the Arizona Supreme Court accepted the university’s appeal. Lower court materials are here. From Indianz:

The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal in the Havasupai Tribe misuse of blood lawsuit.

Tribal members agreed to submit blood samples for diabetes research. But the tribe sued Arizona Board of Regents, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona after discovering the samples were used for studies on migration, inbreeding and mental illness. A judge dismissed the case but the Arizona Court of Appeals revived it last November. One of the parties asked the state Supreme Court to review the decision.

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