Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 101–601, 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural items and human remains to their respective peoples. Cultural items include funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.

The act divides the treatment of American Indian human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony into two basic categories. Under the inadvertent discovery and planned excavation component of the act and regulations, if federal officials anticipate that activities on federal and tribal lands after November 16 1990 might have an effect on American Indian burials—or if burials are discovered during such activities—they must consult with potential lineal descendants or American Indian tribal officials as part of their compliance responsibilities. For planned excavations, consultation must occur during the planning phase of the project. For inadvertent discoveries, the regulations delineate a set of short deadlines for initiating and completing consultation. The act allows archeological teams a short time for analysis before the remains must be returned. Once it is determined that human remains are American Indian, analysis can occur only through documented consultation (on federal lands) or consent (on tribal lands).

Under the inventory and notification provision of the act, Federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funds are required to summarize their collections that may contain items subject to NAGPRA. Additionally, Federal agencies and institutions must prepare inventories of human remains and funerary objects. Under the act, funerary objects are considered "associated" if they were buried as part of a burial ceremony with a set of human remains still in possession of the Federal agency or other institution. "Unassociated" funerary objects are artifacts where human remains were not initially collected by—or were subsequently destroyed, lost, or no longer in possession of—the agency or institution. Consequently, this legislation also applies to many Native American artifacts, especially burial items and religious artifacts. It has necessitated massive cataloguing of the Native American collections in order to identify the living heirs, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations of remains and artifacts.

Return to the Earth project

Return to the Earth is an inter-religious project whose goal is to inter unidentified remains in regional burial sites. Over 110,000 remains that cannot be associated with a particular tribe are held in institutions across the United States, as of 2006. The project seeks to enable a process of reconciliation between Native and non-Native peoples, construct cedar burial boxes, produce burial cloths and fund the repatriation of remains. The first of the burial sites is near the Cheyenne Cultural Center in Clinton, Oklahoma.

Kennewick Man controversy

There have been some issues raised by the legislation, most notably in the case of Kennewick Man, because the direct descendants of the remains are uncertain. Kennewick Man is a skeleton found near Kennewick, Washington. The Umatilla, Colville, Yakima, and Nez Perce tribes claim that Kennewick Man is their ancestor, and that they should thus be permitted to rebury him. Archaeologists claim that because of Kennewick Man's great age and caucasoid appearance, there is insufficient evident to connect him to modern tribes. The 9300 year age of the remains makes them very valuable scientifically, as they could lead to knowledge of the arrival of the first humans into the New World.

See also

• American Indian Religious Freedom Act
• National Museum of the American Indian

Further reading

• Fine-Dare, Kathleen S., Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA, University of Nebraska Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8032690-8-0.

• Jones, P., Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West, Bauu Press, Boulder, CO. ISBN 0-9721349-2-1.

External links

• NAGPRA information from the National Park Service
  • Summary of NAGPRA laws from the National Park Service
• Basic NAGPRA information warehouse