LET OUR PEOPLE GO HOME!

PL 101-601 NAGPRA was enacted mainly to prevent and criminalize the black marketeering of Native American objects of cultural patrimony and funerary objects by unscrupulous museum personnel and tribal members; its other purpose is to repatriate Native American human remains, objects of a sacred nature and funerary objects to culturally affiliated tribes upon request.

To accomplish this task, NAGPRA mandated that each museum receiving federal support had to submit an inventory of Native American human remains and objects of cultural patrimony to the Dept. of Interior National NAGPRA committee; these inventories were then sorted and copied, then sent to tribes with affiliation to the items identified in the museum inventories. The tribes then selected the items in these inventories eligible for repatriation and submitted the request to the museum and DOI National NAGPRA committee: at this point in the repatriaton process, the shortcomings in NAGPRA became very clear! Often the National NAGPRA just sent out the inventories to all the tribes in the hopes of not excluding any tribe from NAGPRA and didn't waste time and expense involved in identifying the affiliated tribe.

The problem that developed was the repatriation process and its costs. Identifying Native American human remains, sacred objects, and funerary objects to a culturally affiliated tribe is an issue that still needs to be addressed by NAGPRA. Also the costs involved in the actual repatriation process was extremely underfunded to non-existent within NAGPRA. The other extremely expensive cost was that all the museums use their own proprietary inventory management systems, using different computer software systems and physical reports, thus making the repatriation process difficult, if not impossible for all participants in the NAGRPA process.

With respect to the black marketeering, how does a tribe and the federal government determine when a theft of Native American objects of cultural patrimony has occurred unless a whistle blower informs them. Also, museums don't have a very adequate inventory management system, often allowing personnel to have access to the object of cultural patrimony and its inventory record; thus by removing the inventory card and the object in question, that object no longer exists in the inventory records, making it impossible to determine whether a theft occurred from the inventory.

As for the vailidity of my statements, I am a former NAGPRA commissioner for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North and South Dakota whose committe became unfunded by NAGPRA because of the lack of federal support. And now I address this forum as an individual and not with the permission of my tribe, nor as a NAGPRA commissioner, but as a human being knowing the difference between racism and genocide and outright stupidity.

I support the tribes involved in the UC Berkeley debacle.

LET OUR PEOPLE GO HOME!