Preservation and Native Peoples: Whose History?

1. Preservation and Native Peoples: Whose History? Thieves of Time, directed by Don Hopfer, for Arizona Educational Television, 1992. Introduced by Tony Hillerman

2. Native Americans’ view of Historic Preservation Native Americans–especially on reservations view with distrust the process of survey and registration of cultural properties. Until recently many American Indian sites were treated as archaeological sites only important based upon the cultural information likely to be obtained if they were excavated. Native Americans have argued that these sites are known and important to the descendants of the people buried there. They describe a “cultural descendent.” Native Americans have vigorously reiterated their view that the National Register is heavily weighed to favor the self-interests of archaeologists not the indigenous populations.

3. What is the difference between the past and the use of the past? Who has the right to tell the story? Who frames what the questions will be and the procedures for answering the questions? How did European settlers see the products of native cultures? Ownership of land and what lies underneath it is a basic English property right, yet it did not extend to the skeletons of European settlers.

4. The impulse to dig The early excavation of native grave goods in the United States stemmed from two different uses of the past. Antiquarians and collectors sought rare and exotic artifacts as objects of curiosity and expertise. 1. Museums served the purpose of displaying objects as curiosities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cultural scientists sought answers to questions of past development of cultures and to understand who made the objects and how they were used. 1. Scientists treated both the objects and the skeletons associated with the objects excavated as evidence for investigation. Neither use of the artifacts considered the emotional engagement that the descendents of the prehistoric peoples might have about their excavation or display.

5. Federal government use of Native American pre-history Why did the federal government require U. S. Army troops to collect skeletons from Native American graves after the Civil War? Why did the United States Congress move to limit access to Indian artifacts on Public Lands in the early twentieth century? How did large scale public works projects during the Great Depression change publicly funded archaeology? Federal Funding of archaeology through the 1970s continued to speak of objects of study (including skeletons) in dispassionate or scientific terms.

6. 1979 Archaeological Resources Preservation Act “As used in this Act- (1) the term “archaeological resource” means any material remains of past human life or activities which are of archaeological interest, as determined under uniform regulations promulgated pursuant to this Act. Such regulations containing such determination shall include, but not be limited to: pottery, basketry, bottles, weapons, weapon projectiles, tools, structures or portions of structures, pit houses, rock paintings, rock carvings, intaglios, graves, human skeletal materials, or any portion or piece of any of the foregoing items. Non fossilized and fossilized paleontological specimens, or any portion or piece thereof, shall not be considered archaeological resources, under the regulations under this paragraph, unless found in an archaeological context. No item shall be treated as an archaeological resource under regulations under this paragraph unless such item is at least 100 years of age.”

7. Native American Militancy American Indian Movement (AIM) 1968. Wounded Knee, South Dakota, Pine Ridge Reservation, 1973 Chosen for the symbolic value relating to the Wounded Knee massacre of December 1890.

8. Increased militancy and public agitation of Native Peoples changed public opinion In the 1980s native peoples convinced state governments to pass repatriation laws returned to natives peoples. Arizona was one of the first. When were Native Peoples recognized by the Federal government as having full human rights? Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act 1990. 1. Forces Museums to inventory existing collections. Return to direct descendants or nearest cultural relatives. 2. Affords sweeping protection from private excavations 3. National Park Service becomes a granting agency Museums are catching up. Science is not dominant over heritage. The human story becomes more compelling than the objects.

9. Contemporary Native Peoples seek to assert and affirm Indian humanity What is sacred to Native Peoples? Tribal Preservation