cultural repatriation – Turtle Talk

An excerpt:

In many ways, the German association is drawing on the experiences of museums in Britain and the United States, which started facing claims for the repatriation of human remains decades ago. The Smithsonian began to repatriate American Indian bones in the late 1980s, and in 1990 the United States passed legislation to enforce the return of those remains by museums that benefit from federal funds. The Smithsonian independently returned remains to Australia in 2008 and 2010.

However, a report in 2011 from the Government Accountability Office still urged new measures to speed up the Smithsonian’s work, because by then it had returned only 5,000 remains, about one-third of its collection of such material.

U.S. Government Accountability Office Deems Smithsonian Repatriation Lengthy and Resource Intensive

June 17, 2011June 17, 2011Adrea Korthase

The report can be found here.

The story from PR Newswire:

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Smithsonian Institution’s process to repatriate thousands of Native American human remains and funerary objects in its collections is lengthy and resource intensive and it may take several more decades to return items to tribes under its current system, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

This GAO report is the second of a two-part, three-year effort to examine how publicly funded institutions are complying with the two federal laws that direct repatriation to Native Americans. Last year the GAO examined the repatriation work of eight key Federal agencies and the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

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LATs Article on NAGPRA and UC Berkeley

January 13, 2008January 13, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the LA Times:

UC Berkeley’s bones of contention

Native Americans say Hearst Museum is violating a law on returning ancient remains. But officials say finding rightful recipients is often impossible.

Robert Durell / TPN

American Indians protest at the University of California, Berkeley, last October over the university’s storage of tribal remains.

BERKELEY — There is a legend at UC Berkeley that human bones are stored in the landmark Campanile tower. But university officials say that’s not true.

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