1
NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVES PROTECTION AND REPATRIATION
REVIEW COMMITTEE MEETING
AUGUST 21-22, 2019
FAIRBANKS, ALASKA
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 2
NATIVE AMERICAN GRAVES PROTECTION AND REPATRIATION
REVIEW COMMITTEE MEETING
9:00 a.m.
August 21-22, 2019 Arnold Espe Multimedia Auditorium
University of Alaska Museum of the North
Fairbanks, Alaska
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. Patrick Lyons, Chair
Mr. John Beaver
Ms. Heather Edgar
Ms. Honor Keeler
Mr. Barnaby Lewis
Mr. Frank McManamon
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS CALL TO ORDER – AUGUST 21, 2019 ...... 5
INVOCATION ...... 11
WELCOME ...... 16
ACTION ITEM: SELECTION OF REVIEW COMMITTEE CHAIR ..... 18
REPORT: NATIONAL NAGPRA PROGRAM ...... 21
BREAK ...... 63
PRESENTATIONS ...... 64 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, ALASKA ...... 64 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 75 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS . 97 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 117 LUNCH ...... 124
GREETING ...... 124
ACTION ITEM: RECOMMENDATION ON DISPOSITION REQUESTS . 131 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ ...... 132 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 155 REVIEW COMMITTEE MOTION ...... 175 PUBLIC COMMENT ...... 181 BOB SAM, SITKA TRIBE OF ALASKA ...... 181 ACTION ITEM: SUBCOMMITTEE DISCUSSION ...... 189
MEETING RECESS ...... 213
CALL TO ORDER – AUGUST 22, 2019 ...... 214
PRESENTATIONS ...... 215 SAM NOBLE OKLAHOMA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ...... 215 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 222 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION ... 225 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 230 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, INTERIOR MUSEUM PROGRAM . 242 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 256 BREAK ...... 276
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 4 PRESENTATIONS ...... 277 U.S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE ...... 277 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 289 UNIVERSITY OF DENVER MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY ...... 302 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ...... 309 LUNCH ...... 330
PUBLIC COMMENT ...... 331 MATT GANLEY, BERING STRAITS NATIVE CORPORATION ..... 331 JOSHUA REUTHER, UNIV. OF ALASKA MUSEUM OF THE NORTH . 334 BOB SAM, SITKA TRIBE OF ALASKA ...... 337 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS, INDIANA UNIVERSITY ...... 339 MEGON NOBLE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS ...... 339 LOURDES HENEBRY-DELEON, CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIV. ... 346 ANGELA NELLER, WANAPUM HERITAGE CENTER ...... 352 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS, INDIANA UNIVERSITY ...... 356 JAN BERNSTEIN, BERNSTEIN AND ASSOCIATES ...... 357 ANGELA GARCIA-LEWIS, SALT RIVER PIMA-MARICOPA INDIAN COMMUNITY ...... 361 KARA HURST, U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION ...... 368 KEN PRATT, U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, ALASKA ...... 371 TRADITIONAL CLOSING ...... 374
ACTION ITEM: OUTSTANDING MEETING ITEMS ...... 379 FUTURE MEETINGS ...... 379 REVIEW COMMITTEE’S REPORT TO CONGRESS ...... 388 CLOSING COMMENTS ...... 413
MEETING ADJOURNED ...... 415
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 5
1 CALL TO ORDER – AUGUST 21, 2019
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Good morning, everyone. My
3 name is Melanie O’Brien. I am the Designated Federal
4 Official to the Native American Graves Protection
5 and Repatriation Review Committee. I’d like to
6 welcome the Review Committee members, the National
7 NAGPRA Program staff, and all in attendance here at
8 this, the 65th meeting of the NAGPRA Review
9 Committee.
10 Before I call the meeting to order, I would
11 like to start with some thanks. I would first like
12 to extend a very heartfelt thank you to the Alaska
13 Native peoples on whose lands we are meeting today.
14 The interior of Alaska is the traditional homeland
15 of a diverse Athabascan peoples, one of the seven
16 different culture groups here in Alaska. I’m pleased
17 that we were able to hold this meeting here in
18 Fairbanks, for the first time the Review Committee
19 has come to the interior of Alaska.
20 I would also like to express my appreciation to
21 our partners for this meeting, the University of
22 Alaska Museum of the North. The museum staff have
23 worked exceptionally hard to ensure the success of
24 this meeting. The staff include Joshua Reuther,
25 Angela Linn, Jake Sirevaag, and Scott Shirar.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 6
1 I would also like to thank the audiovisual
2 company, Alaska Universal Productions, who are
3 helping today with the webcast. Both today and
4 tomorrow, these proceedings will be broadcast
5 online. I encourage all of those of you here to
6 please spread the word to those that you know who
7 might be interested in viewing this meeting but were
8 unable to attend. There is a link on the National
9 NAGPRA Program website, as well as on our Facebook
10 page, to each session of the meeting. And to
11 everyone tuning in from home, thank you for joining
12 us online. Hi, Mom!
13 A note to those in our audience today, please
14 make sure that you are on our attendee list at the
15 registration table, and please check in each day of
16 the meeting. You’ll find a copy of the agenda on the
17 registration table, and you will see that we have
18 three scheduled opportunities for public comment
19 during this meeting. The Review Committee is very
20 interested in receiving comments on progress made
21 and any barriers encountered in implementing NAGPRA.
22 The Committee is especially interested in hearing
23 from those of you who work on NAGPRA here in Alaska.
24 If you’re interested in providing public comment,
25 please let me know during a break.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 7
1 This meeting is being held under the Federal
2 Advisory Committee Act and its implementing
3 regulations. FACA requires meetings be held in
4 public at reasonably accessible locations and
5 convenient times with adequate advance notice for
6 each meeting published in the Federal Register. This
7 meeting was noticed in the Federal Register on July
8 5th, 2019. FACA requires the Committee have a valid
9 charter, renewable every two years. The current
10 Review Committee charter was filed on November 1st,
11 2018.
12 FACA further requires that committee membership
13 be fairly balanced in terms of points of view
14 represented and functions to be performed. To
15 achieve this, Congress established this Review
16 Committee with seven members. Three members
17 nominated by Indian Tribes, Native Hawaiian
18 organizations, and traditional religious leaders,
19 with at least two of these members being traditional
20 Indian religious leaders. Three members are
21 nominated by national museum organizations and
22 national science organizations. One member is
23 appointed from a list of persons developed and
24 consented to by all of the other members. Members to
25 this Review Committee are appointed by the Secretary
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 8
1 of the Interior and serve as advisors to the
2 Secretary on NAGPRA-related issues.
3 The purpose of this Review Committee is to
4 monitor and review the implementation of the
5 inventory and identification process and
6 repatriation activities under Sections 5, 6, and 7
7 of the Act. Under 25 USC 3006, the Review Committee
8 is charged with this purpose to ensure a fair and
9 objective consideration and an assessment of all
10 relevant information and evidence. In addition, the
11 Review Committee is responsible for reviewing and
12 making findings of fact related to the identity,
13 cultural affiliation, or return of cultural items
14 upon the request of an affected party. The Review
15 Committee is also charged with facilitating the
16 informal resolution of any disputes around the
17 repatriation of NAGPRA cultural items.
18 The Review Committee is responsible for
19 recommending specific actions for the disposition of
20 certain human remains and for consulting with Indian
21 Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, and museums
22 on matters within the scope of work of the
23 Committee. Finally, the Review Committee is also
24 responsible for reporting to Congress on the
25 progress and any barriers encountered in carrying
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1 out its responsibilities.
2 With that as an introduction, the 65th meeting
3 of the NAGPRA Review Committee is called to order.
4 I’d like to start with a roll call of the Committee
5 members, if you could please respond by saying
6 “here.”
7 John Beaver?
8 JOHN BEAVER: Here.
9 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Heather Edgar?
10 HEATHER EDGAR: Here.
11 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Honor Keeler?
12 HONOR KEELER: Here.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Barnaby Lewis?
14 BARNABY LEWIS: Here.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Patrick Lyons?
16 PATRICK LYONS: Here.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Frank McManamon?
18 FRANK MCMANAMON: Here.
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I’d like to inform the
20 Committee, as well as those in attendance, that just
21 yesterday the Secretary of the Interior appointed a
22 seventh member to this Committee. Armand Minthorn
23 has been reappointed to the NAGPRA Review Committee
24 to serve a two-year term. Armand was unable to join
25 us today, but I’m pleased that his appointment has
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 10
1 been finalized.
2 In addition to the members of the Review
3 Committee who are here at this meeting as special
4 government employees with the Department of the
5 Interior, we also have five other employees here
6 representing the Department. Three staff from the
7 National NAGPRA Program and two staff from the
8 Department’s Office of the Solicitor are here with
9 me today. As I said earlier, my name is Melanie
10 O’Brien, and in addition to serving as the Review
11 Committee’s Designated Federal Officer, I am also
12 the program manager for the National NAGPRA Program.
13 With me from the Program are Sarah Glass, who
14 handles notices and grants for the Program, and Lesa
15 Koscielski, who coordinates these Review Committee
16 meetings. From the Office of the Solicitor, we have
17 Brady Blasco with the Division of Parks and Wildlife
18 and Steven Simpson with the Division of Indian
19 Affairs.
20 We have planned to begin our meeting today with
21 the University of Alaska Museum of the North – our
22 host today, the University of Alaska Museum of the
23 North has invited Dr. Reverend Anna Frank to give an
24 invocation this morning. And she will be followed by
25 some welcoming comments from Patrick Druckenmiller,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 11
1 the director of the museum.
2 INVOCATION
3 ANNA FRANK: I think I’m ready. Let me see what
4 I’m doing here first. I was just down there praying
5 for another group. Maybe they need a little bit more
6 prayer than you do. That’s why I’m late. Thank you
7 for inviting me here. It’s an honor.
8 So like I told the other group, if you could
9 just kind of relax and, just for a minute, let your
10 surroundings go. We all know we have to make
11 decisions or think about things, but at this moment
12 you don’t have to. Thank you.
13 (Native American language), You have made us
14 not in one mold, but in many, so deep in our unity
15 in Christ that we may rejoice in our diversity. God
16 of nations, help us to reflect and share the
17 goodness that surrounds us. Help us to win justice
18 for the poor and rich alike. Bring trust and
19 friendship to all our different races, creature of
20 all the earth. You have given us the heritage of the
21 good and fertile land. Help us to respect and use
22 it. You have established the people by teaching us.
23 Thank You for the journey to gather us and put that
24 joy there in what we are talking about. This is just
25 not for ourselves, but for everyone, for everyone.
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1 We thank You for time of together, getting to know
2 one another, both great and small. Amen.
3 (Discussion off record.)
4 Okay. I want to thank all of you for being here
5 and participating. This is the Review Committee. I
6 remember talking, I was telling someone here, many,
7 many years ago we talked about this, and to me it
8 wasn’t my thing, even though our great chief from
9 Minto was buried out in the Minto Flats where our
10 people used to live, our chief that came to
11 Fairbanks in 1915. That was where our people lived.
12 I was practically born and raised in that place too,
13 so when I talk about Minto as my home, I’m talking
14 about the Minto Flats, because that’s where I
15 learned to do almost everything. I learned to become
16 a hunter. I learned to become a Native woman and
17 what you’re supposed to do and not do.
18 Our traditions are so different that sometimes
19 I wonder, how did we ever make it in this world.
20 Thank goodness that our family had already lived
21 this life in different cultures and different way of
22 doing things, so we learned from that, even though
23 my parents didn’t know how to read or write. In the
24 sixties, fifties, they had a program in the school
25 and they brought the adults there. And what – I know
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1 what my mom and dad went to school for is to write
2 their name, because my dad was a janitor at the
3 school. And you know he’s going to get checks on a
4 monthly basis, so he had to learn to write his name.
5 And so in their mind, they knew that someday they
6 may be – you know, they may have to learn to use –
7 learn what they’re using, what they’re learning at
8 school. And so that was – I’ll never forget that.
9 And they – there’s a lot of humor in our Native way.
10 And the single men would tell the widow women, “The
11 reason I’m going to school is I’m going to write you
12 a love letter.” In their own language they would say
13 that, and so it was good.
14 I too had to learn the hard way, because of my
15 parents not learning – no read or write. So I didn’t
16 have anyone to help me with my schoolwork. And so I
17 had to figure out, especially in my day you call it
18 arithmetic, today they call it math. I had to try to
19 figure out how the schoolteacher got the right
20 answers, and I went forward and backwards with my
21 problem lesson. But those are things sometimes we
22 had to learn to be where I’m sitting at today. And
23 it was hard work for me. The only way that I knew
24 that I could achieve some of these things is to work
25 in different jobs.
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1 I remember I wanted to be a nurse because my
2 aunt was the first health aide without pay, when
3 they first started the health aide program. And she
4 got me to go visit the sick with her. And so I
5 wanted to become a nurse. And so I went to the – I
6 was married then. I went to the BIA in Anchorage and
7 asked if I could get money to go to school. Their
8 answer – question was, “Are you head of the
9 household?” and I said, “No.” They said, “Well, you
10 have to be the head of the household.” And I said,
11 “You mean I have to divorce my husband?” And they
12 shrugged their shoulders and say, “I guess.” They
13 didn’t really have an answer. And so I said, “Well,
14 thank you very much,” and I walked out of there and
15 thought, “Well, I’m going to find my way with jobs,”
16 and that’s what I did.
17 I was the first Native person hired in the post
18 office in my Village. I went from Fairbanks, I moved
19 back to the Village. And so with that I picked up on
20 jobs. I became – we had a store. We had a pool
21 table, and so I learned to handle money. And then I
22 became the health aide in the Village. And Tanana
23 Chiefs was just starting out, and they asked if I
24 would like to – I already had health aide training.
25 And they asked if I would like to work in Fairbanks
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1 for Tanana Chiefs, and I became the health educator
2 director. And so I worked in that position half
3 time, and then they asked me if I wanted to become
4 one of the first counselor – Native counselors to
5 travel out to the Villages, and I took that job too.
6 And that was one of my favorite jobs, to go out and
7 help the communities, because we’ve never had that
8 before.
9 So it’s been interesting. It’s been fun. I
10 loved my job. In 1974, I think, I can’t keep up with
11 the years – in 1973, I got ordained in the Episcopal
12 Church, the first Native American woman to be
13 ordained. And so I worked in that position for a
14 long, long – still working. I don’t know the word
15 “retire,” because I don’t have time to retire.
16 There’s just too many things to do, and wonderful
17 things. And I want to teach our young people that
18 even though we struggle, there’s always a way.
19 There’s always a way for education, so here I am
20 sitting here.
21 When I got my honorary degree, the next day my
22 grandson came out of his bedroom and said, “Grandma,
23 I need a doctor! I need a doctor!” He said, “My toe
24 is hurting me.” And so then I thought, well, I got
25 to tell this young boy there are different degrees.
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1 I’m not that kind of a doctor.
2 But it’s an honor to serve all of you. It’s an
3 honor to be here. And I will always, as long as I
4 can, try to help our younger people get further in
5 life. Thank you. I have something else to do, so
6 thank you so very much. I have to leave.
7 WELCOME
8 PATRICK DRUCKENMILLER: Good morning. Again,
9 thank you, Reverend, for those opening comments and
10 the invocation. And I’d like to welcome everyone
11 here on behalf of the University of Alaska Museum of
12 the North and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
13 First, I’d begin with acknowledging that we’re
14 fortunate to be meeting here today on this ridge
15 known as Troth Yeddha’on the traditional lands of
16 the Dené and the Lower Tanana.
17 Our museum itself is located here on the campus
18 of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. One quick
19 little comment on that is that this museum, in fact,
20 represents the entire University of Alaska system.
21 So there is only one University of Alaska museum.
22 And we are happy to be here on this campus, on the
23 Fairbanks campus, of course, but the university
24 itself is much more than just the Fairbanks campus.
25 It includes the Anchorage, Juneau campuses, as well
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1 as many community campuses, as well. And our museum
2 has the holdings for our entire university and all
3 the work that we do, so we’re very proud of that.
4 We really are a unique institution in the state
5 of Alaska. We’re the only museum in the state of
6 Alaska that has a tripartite mission to collect, to
7 conduct research, and to teach about those holdings.
8 At the moment, our current holdings are estimated
9 around 2.2 million objects. That includes artifacts,
10 specimens, pieces of art, and various other objects.
11 And these reflect broadly the cultural history, the
12 natural history, and the artistic history of not
13 only Alaska but the entire Circumpolar North.
14 So we’re very happy to be here and hosting the
15 NAGPRA Review Committee this next two days. And we –
16 our museum has been actively involved with NAGPRA
17 since the founding of this important original
18 legislation. Some quick statistics, our museum has
19 been involved in a total of 29 repatriations with 55
20 Alaska Native Villages and corporations, Native
21 Hawaiian organizations, and Native American Tribes.
22 Seventy-five percent of the individuals and 88
23 percent of the funerary objects once held by this
24 museum have been transferred or repatriated. Our
25 museum’s also taken into trust ancestral remains and
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1 funerary objects for Alaska Native Tribes, and we
2 currently have eight NAGPRA cases currently in
3 progress. So this is very much an active area of
4 interest and work for us here. We take this very
5 seriously.
6 So we continue to pursue this work. We value
7 the partnerships that we’ve established throughout
8 this process with both Federal agencies and Native
9 entities. And so on behalf, again, of the museum and
10 the university, I thank you again for all of the
11 work that you do. I’m happy to take questions if I
12 can answer them. Yes?
13 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much for hosting
14 us.
15 PATRICK DRUCKENMILLER: Yes. Again, it’s a
16 pleasure. It’s an honor. Okay, thank you.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Again, I just want to say what
18 a wonderful partner in hosting this meeting the
19 museum has been.
20 ACTION ITEM: SELECTION OF REVIEW COMMITTEE CHAIR
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: We can proceed now with the
22 first item on the agenda. Pursuant to NAGPRA and the
23 FACA regulations, as well as your own Review
24 Committee charter, the Review Committee must
25 designate one of its members to chair this meeting.
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1 Under the Review Committee’s meeting procedures
2 adopted in October 2018, the chair will serve a two-
3 year term, with no limits on the number of terms. If
4 a chair is absent or needs to be recused from a
5 consideration of a matter, the chair may appoint
6 another member to serve in his or her place. All
7 members of the Committee including the chair must
8 vote when a vote is called. At the October 2018
9 meeting, Patrick Lyons was selected to serve as
10 chair until the next in-person meeting, and here we
11 are.
12 At this time as the Designated Federal Officer,
13 I’d like to facilitate the selection of a chair for
14 this meeting. I’d like to start by calling for any
15 nominations. We’ll follow that with some discussion,
16 and then I will call for a voice vote.
17 BARNABY LEWIS: I vote for Patrick Lyons to
18 serve as the interim chair for the Review Committee
19 until his term expires on this committee.
20 FRANK MCMANAMON: Do you need a second?
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: No, not necessarily, but are
22 there any other nominations?
23 Okay then, I will go ahead and call for any
24 discussion on Patrick Lyons as the chair?
25 PATRICK LYONS: I would just say I’m happy to
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1 help out, and thank you for your confidence in me.
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: For the Committee, as well as
3 for those in the audience, Patrick Lyons’s term does
4 expire in November of 2019.
5 Well, we will go ahead and call a voice vote.
6 It’s a good practice exercise for us. So I will –
7 I’ll go through and ask each of you to voice either
8 a yes, a no, or an abstain.
9 Heather Edgar?
10 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes.
11 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Frank McManamon?
12 FRANK MCMANAMON: Yes.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Honor Keeler?
14 HONOR KEELER: Yes.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Patrick Lyons?
16 PATRICK LYONS: Yes.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Barnaby Lewis?
18 BARNABY LEWIS: Yes.
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: John Beaver?
20 JOHN BEAVER: Yes.
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: With that then, Patrick, you
22 are the chair of this committee.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you, everyone.
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Mr. Chair, would you like to
25 proceed to the next item on the agenda?
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, please, Madam DFO.
2 REPORT: NATIONAL NAGPRA PROGRAM
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next item on the agenda
4 today is a report from the National NAGPRA Program.
5 Before I begin reporting to you on the state of
6 NAGPRA implementation, I would like to remind
7 everyone that there are three scheduled
8 opportunities to provide public comment to the
9 Review Committee. The Review Committee is very
10 interested in receiving comments on progress made
11 and barriers encountered in implementing NAGPRA.
12 Again, the Committee is especially interested in
13 hearing from those who work with NAGPRA here in
14 Alaska. If you’re interested in providing a public
15 comment, please see me during a break.
16 To begin my report on the National NAGPRA
17 Program I’d like to briefly describe the
18 responsibilities under NAGPRA that are delegated to
19 me as the program manager by the Secretary of the
20 Interior. The program manager is charged with
21 receiving inventories and summaries, as well as
22 publishing notices in the Federal Register,
23 administering grants to assist Tribes and museums
24 with their NAGPRA obligations, and serving as the
25 Designated Federal Officer to this Committee. As
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1 staff support to the Assistant Secretary of the
2 Interior, the program manager prepares draft
3 regulations and assists with civil penalties against
4 museums. The Program also provides assistance to the
5 Department of Justice on trafficking provisions of
6 NAGPRA.
7 I am very fortunate to not have to shoulder
8 these responsibilities alone. The dedicated staff of
9 the National NAGPRA Program help me to carry out
10 these responsibilities. The Program staff is
11 available to assist anyone with direct technical
12 assistance on NAGPRA, and I encourage anyone who is
13 involved with NAGPRA to reach out to me or the
14 Program staff directly if we can assist you with
15 understanding or complying with the law.
16 I’ve prepared for you a few – I’ve prepared a
17 few slides, mostly for the audience. These are taken
18 from the report that my office prepared, which you
19 have in your binder. Since our last meeting in
20 October of 2018, the Program published its annual
21 report for the fiscal year ending September 30th,
22 2018. The report provides updated statistics on
23 NAGPRA, specifically as related to inventories,
24 summaries, and notices that are required under
25 Sections 5, 6, and 7 of the Act. The statistical
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1 information in this report I already provided to you
2 in October verbally, although we have presented it
3 in this year’s annual report in a more visual format
4 in hopes that we can better communicate the status
5 of NAGPRA.
6 As I have reported to you in the past, these
7 statistics are presented based on the NAGPRA
8 process. As you know, the purpose of NAGPRA that’s
9 stated in the regulations is to provide a systematic
10 process for determining the rights of lineal
11 descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian
12 organizations, to certain Native American human
13 remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and
14 objects of cultural patrimony. These statistics are
15 based on that systematic process, specifically by
16 looking at the final step of that process, notice
17 publication.
18 As I reported in this chart, which is on page
19 three or four of the Program report, for 35 percent
20 of the human remains that have been reported in
21 inventories, the NAGPRA process has been completed.
22 For the remaining 65 percent of those human remains,
23 the process is incomplete. And museums and Federal
24 agencies have an ongoing obligation to consult on
25 those human remains, and depending on that
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1 consultation, publish notices to resolve the rights
2 to those human remains. While there are many valid
3 reasons for not publishing notices under NAGPRA, for
4 these 122,000 individual sets of human remains, the
5 rights of Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian
6 organizations to request those human remains is
7 still undetermined and the NAGPRA process is
8 currently incomplete.
9 New to our report this year is a map showing
10 those 122,000 human remains pending consultation and
11 notice publication, based on the state from which
12 they were removed or excavated. This map is based on
13 the publicly available data from our inventory
14 database. The Program is hoping to make this map
15 available as a dynamic interactive tool available
16 online later this year. A second map in the report
17 shows the number of museums and Federal agencies by
18 state that hold those 122,000 human remains, still
19 pending consultation and notice publication under
20 NAGPRA.
21 As I reported to you in October, the National
22 NAGPRA Program has continued to provide direct
23 technical assistance to these museums and Federal
24 agencies on their responsibilities under NAGPRA.
25 Since 2014 the National NAGPRA Program has produced
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 25
1 a report of those human remains that were determined
2 in an inventory to be culturally affiliated, but
3 have not been listed in a notice of inventory
4 completion. By providing direct technical assistance
5 to these museums, the number of museums with
6 culturally affiliated human remains not listed in
7 notices has been reduced by 64 percent.
8 In addition to this effort for culturally
9 affiliated human remains, in June of 2019 the
10 Program began providing technical assistance to
11 museums whose inventory of culturally unidentifiable
12 human remains did not contain evidence of
13 consultation. We contacted 66 museums, and 58
14 responded. As of this week, 43 percent of the
15 responding museums have provided evidence of
16 consultation or have amended or corrected their
17 inventory. Both of these efforts are intended to
18 improve the available information in inventories on
19 Native American human remains and to ensure that the
20 systematic process to resolve the rights of those
21 human remains can proceed.
22 The final step in this systematic process is
23 the publication of a notice, whether for Native
24 American human remains and associated funerary
25 objects or for other cultural items. As I reported
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 26
1 to you in October, we have continued to see a
2 significant increase in the number of notices
3 submitted for publication. I reported to you in
4 October on the number of cultural items that have
5 been listed in notices, shown here. Since October
6 1st and since these numbers were compiled, we have
7 received 166 notices from museums and Federal
8 agencies, and we have published a record number of
9 notices this year, 220 so far. As we enter the final
10 weeks of this fiscal year, I anticipate publication
11 of a few more notices, perhaps even reaching 230
12 notices for this year, which will resolve the rights
13 to an additional 10,000 individual sets of human
14 remains and over 100,000 funerary objects.
15 As you all know, the work of the NAGPRA process
16 requires a significant investment of time, energy,
17 and effort on the part of all parties involved.
18 Thankfully, since 1994 Congress has provided annual
19 appropriations for NAGPRA grants to assist museums
20 and Indian Tribes with a portion of this work. To
21 present more about our grants, I have asked Sarah
22 Glass, the notice and grants coordinator for the
23 Program, to provide you with an update on NAGPRA
24 grants.
25 SARAH GLASS: Hello, and thank you for giving me
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 27
1 the opportunity to speak to you today. As Melanie
2 said, my name is Sarah Glass, and I have been the
3 notices and grants coordinator with the National
4 NAGPRA Program for three years. I would like to take
5 this opportunity to provide you with a quick update
6 on the status and progress of the NAGPRA grant
7 programs.
8 As you may know, Section 10 of NAGPRA
9 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to make
10 grants to museums, Indian Tribes, and Native
11 Hawaiian organizations for the purposes of assisting
12 in consultation, documentation, and repatriation of
13 Native American cultural items under NAGPRA.
14 Consequently, the National NAGPRA Program offers two
15 types of NAGPRA grants, repatriation and
16 consultation/documentation. Funding for these two
17 grant programs is appropriated annually by Congress
18 and has remained steady over the past three years at
19 a little over 1.6 million dollars. Over the past 10
20 years, funding for the grant programs has averaged
21 around 1.7 million.
22 Repatriation grants are noncompetitive, meaning
23 as long as funds are available, applicants who
24 submit a complete and eligible proposal by the
25 deadline will be funded. Consultation/documentation
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 28
1 grants are competitive, meaning they are ranked
2 against other submissions by an independent review
3 panel and the top-ranked proposals are awarded,
4 again subject to availability of funds.
5 Repatriation grants defray costs associated
6 with the packaging, transportation, contamination
7 removal, and storage of NAGPRA-related human remains
8 and cultural items, while consultation/documentation
9 grants support the efforts of museums, Indian
10 Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations to consult
11 on and document NAGPRA-related human remains and
12 cultural items.
13 To give you some recent examples of funded
14 projects, a 2017 repatriation grant to the Virginia
15 Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond covered
16 transportation and travel costs for returning the
17 Keet Gooshi, or Killerwhale Fin, also called the
18 “Bear Song Leader’s Staff,” back to Alaska. That’s
19 the image on the left for those in the room. The
20 staff is a communally owned object that has ongoing
21 importance to the Tlingit people. Similarly, a 2019
22 grant to the Wiyot Tribe of California will send
23 Tribal representatives to retrieve a ceremonial
24 dance skirt from the Brooklyn Museum in New York and
25 accompany it back home, where it will be used in
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 29
1 future ceremonies.
2 Another example is The Field Museum in Chicago,
3 which has received multiple grants in recent years
4 to conduct in-person consultations with the Hopi
5 Tribe on the appropriate handling and care of
6 ancestral remains and funerary objects in their
7 collections, as well as noninvasive testing to
8 determine whether or not those items have been
9 treated with hazardous materials in preparation for
10 repatriation.
11 I’d like to give some quick statistics from the
12 past 10 years, 2010 to 2019, to give you a better
13 sense of what these programs look like today. We
14 have received 224 applications from museums and 277
15 from Tribes, with 501 applications total, requesting
16 approximately 28 million dollars. We’ve funded 163
17 museum projects and 203 Tribal projects, so 366
18 awards total, in the amount of over 17 million. Our
19 average funding rate in dollar amounts requested
20 versus awarded is just over 60 percent. In terms of
21 application odds, we fund about 73 percent of the
22 applications we receive. This high rate is due to
23 the noncompetitive nature of the repatriation
24 grants. The consultation grant program on its own is
25 closer to a 60-percent success rate, which is still
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 30
1 very high for any Federal grant program.
2 Of both the 501 applications and the 366 awards
3 from the past 10 years, Tribes account for
4 approximately 55 percent and museums approximately
5 45 percent. And the fact that these numbers are
6 consistent between the two over time is a good
7 indicator of the nonbiased review and selection
8 process.
9 We were excited to announce our latest round of
10 awards for fiscal year 2019 earlier this month. We
11 received 12 repatriation applications and 41
12 consultation/documentation applications requesting
13 over 3 million. All 12 of the repatriation requests
14 and 22 of the consultation/documentation requests
15 were funded. Of those 41 documentation and
16 consultation grant applications that we received, 38
17 were from separate or unique applicants. Some
18 applicants submitted more than one proposal. I’m
19 happy to share that of those 38 separate applicants,
20 10 were applying to the program for the very first
21 time, and an additional 4 had not applied since the
22 1990s. We see this as a reflection of our recent
23 efforts to improve and broaden outreach to these
24 grants.
25 Some final updates I’d like to mention are that
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 31
1 over the past year the National NAGPRA Program has
2 been working with an external evaluator to review
3 our grant programs and provide us with an assessment
4 of program needs, as well as improvements we can
5 make to better serve our constituents. We expect
6 this project to wrap up this fiscal year and look
7 forward to sharing those results. We are also
8 working on increasing our ability to provide better
9 statistical analyses, which will enable us to make
10 better data-driven decisions in response to input
11 and feedback from the field. And we’ve also been
12 able to successfully implement new and increased
13 regulatory requirements for the administration of
14 these grants, which resulted in a 98.5 percent score
15 on an internal audit conducted by the National Park
16 Services Financial Assistance Policy Office. That
17 was the highest in the Cultural Resources
18 Directorate, to toot my own horn a little bit there.
19 So these are just a few of the ways the
20 National NAGPRA Program continues to work to improve
21 our grant programs to meet the needs of the Tribes
22 and the museums that we serve. I’d encourage anyone
23 who would like to learn more about our funding
24 opportunities to contact me. I’d also like to thank
25 Melanie O’Brien for the guidance she’s exercised
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 32
1 during my time with the Program so far. And thank
2 you all again for allowing me to provide you with
3 this update. Thank you. And I’m happy to take
4 questions if anyone has any.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Thank you,
6 colleagues, for the great written report and thank
7 you for the presentation. I do have a couple
8 questions, because I just want to highlight some
9 things. First I want to say I think it’s a really
10 impressive report. I think that the data show quite
11 clearly that a lot of really good work is being done
12 by our community of practice out there and by you
13 all at National NAGPRA. And so I commend you on your
14 excellent work. I would like to just make sure
15 everybody gets a sense of kind of the highlights
16 here. So am I to understand that this was a record
17 year for draft notice submission?
18 SARAH GLASS: Last year was actually the record
19 year for submissions, but this year was for
20 publication.
21 PATRICK LYONS: For publications. And that
22 something like half as many or 50 percent more than
23 average was the -
24 SARAH GLASS: Yes, it was a significant
25 increase, so right around 50 percent.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 33
1 PATRICK LYONS: That’s really pretty amazing.
2 That to me speaks of real response, results to the
3 kind of outreach and effort that you all in the
4 Program are putting into getting compliance out
5 there. So I think you’re to be commended for that.
6 I did have one other thing I wanted to ask
7 about. So it looks like there’s continuing to be
8 increased demand for grant funding. Is that correct?
9 SARAH GLASS: I would say it’s been a steady
10 demand, but demand always is higher than supply.
11 PATRICK LYONS: Right. So in other words, the
12 funding is level pretty much in the last several
13 years?
14 SARAH GLASS: For the last three years it’s been
15 level.
16 PATRICK LYONS: But to me – could you repeat the
17 – you had some information about the unique
18 submissions this last time?
19 SARAH GLASS: Yes. So this round with the
20 consultation/documentation grants for 2019, we
21 received 41 applications, and 38 of those were from
22 unique entities, separate applicants. And of those
23 38, 10 were applying for the very first time to the
24 Program at all and an additional 4 had not applied
25 since the 1990s. So it was 37 percent of our
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 34
1 applicants to that program this year were either new
2 or hadn’t applied in 20 years.
3 PATRICK LYONS: See again, I think that that
4 speaks to the results of outreach. And again, you’re
5 to be commended for that. So thank you.
6 SARAH GLASS: Thank you.
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: Sarah, thanks for that nice
8 presentation and summary. And Melanie, thanks for
9 including it. If individuals wanted to find out
10 more, look at the detailed information about the
11 grants, the recent grants, the years that you
12 summarized, but also going back to 1994, I see that
13 there’s a – it looks like a publication, an image of
14 a publication. Is that available on the web, or can
15 it be made available?
16 SARAH GLASS: Yes. So this is a report that was
17 produced in 2008-2009 that was also done – an
18 evaluation of the grant programs for the years 1994
19 to 2008. And that is the same thing I mentioned
20 we’re working with an external evaluator this year
21 to do another assessment of the programs and provide
22 some more up-to-date data. So we’re going to be
23 working on whatever comes of that, releasing that
24 out, and being able to provide those better
25 statistics and clean data out for everyone.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 35
1 FRANK MCMANAMON: And currently is that
2 information available on the Program’s website?
3 SARAH GLASS: What’s available on the website
4 currently, in addition to this report, is a list of
5 all awards that the Program has ever made, and to
6 which entities and which amounts.
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: Great.
8 SARAH GLASS: Back to 1994.
9 FRANK MCMANAMON: Thanks.
10 PATRICK LYONS: Please.
11 HONOR KEELER: I saw that it looks like 22 of 41
12 consultation applications were awarded, and roughly
13 about half the money was present that was needed. Is
14 there additional – are there additional funds that
15 are needed for grants?
16 SARAH GLASS: Well, the short answer is yes. Not
17 sure how self-serving that sounds for me to say
18 that, yes, the grant program could always use more
19 money. But like I said, and as the statistics show,
20 we always receive more applications requesting more
21 money than we have the ability to fund.
22 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Perhaps I could add on to your
23 question and get Sarah’s response. Of the grants
24 that were not awarded this year, were any of them
25 scored highly by the grants panel and worthy of
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 36
1 funding but we did not have the money?
2 SARAH GLASS: Yes.
3 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. I have one additional
4 question. I’m curious to know, over the past several
5 years, and you probably won’t have this information
6 on hand, but whether universities take a large
7 overhead percentage of the grants and what those
8 might be.
9 SARAH GLASS: So I don’t have those directly in
10 front of me, but speaking anecdotally or from
11 experience, we honor any indirect cost rate from any
12 applicant that has a current negotiated indirect
13 cost rate agreement, and they’re required to provide
14 that with their application. And both Tribes and
15 universities, museums, negotiate that rate with
16 their Federal cognizant agency, and we are required
17 to accept that negotiated rate.
18 HONOR KEELER: Would it be possible to produce
19 something over the past 10 years that might give us
20 some idea at a future NAGPRA Committee meeting what
21 those percentages may be?
22 SARAH GLASS: You mean like an average percent
23 broken out by types of applicants or just more data
24 on the indirect cost rates that are approved and
25 taken?
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 37
1 HONOR KEELER: I would say both, if possible.
2 SARAH GLASS: Yes. I think I could work on
3 something like that, if that’s interesting.
4 HONOR KEELER: Thank you.
5 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I’ll just say that it’s
6 probably more we will probably look back at the last
7 five years. Because of the changes that occurred in
8 OMB regulations in 2014, there’s a shift in the way
9 that indirect cost rates were applied. And I think
10 it’s probably best if we look at the last five years
11 of NAGPRA grants for that kind of statistical
12 information. It’ll be more consistent.
13 PATRICK LYONS: Also it will vary from
14 university to university and from Tribe to Tribe and
15 agency to agency.
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
17 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. My final question is
18 actually for Melanie. You provided some information
19 on page four of your report that I was interested in
20 hearing – page four and I suppose the maps as well.
21 And you talked about, since 1990, 189,415 human
22 remains were reported under NAGPRA, and as of
23 September 2018, 122,338 human remains are pending
24 consultation and/or notice. And thank you for
25 providing maps. It’s very helpful to see how this is
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 38
1 distributed across states. I was curious to know
2 what you believe or in your experience has been with
3 the – what’s impeding and creating barriers for
4 these repatriations.
5 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Before I respond to that, are
6 there any other questions for Sarah on grants?
7 PATRICK LYONS: I think we’re good. Thank you.
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I will release her from the
9 hot seat. Lesa, is it possible to go back to my
10 slides?
11 I do have an answer for your question, Honor.
12 And I’d like to use a visual to answer it. Thank
13 you, Lesa.
14 So the chart in the middle, below the circles,
15 shows all 189,000 human remains based on cultural
16 affiliation or no cultural affiliation. The green
17 reflects those that are culturally affiliated and
18 noticed, the dark green. The light green are those
19 that are not culturally affiliated and noticed. The
20 end of that in what is peach in reality, but on the
21 screen in a little brown, demonstrates again those
22 122,000 human remains broken down by, again,
23 culturally affiliated and not culturally affiliated.
24 And so you can see that there are just around 8,500
25 Native American human remains that are culturally
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 39
1 affiliated and pending a notice. And the large
2 majority then of those 122,000, 113,821 human
3 remains have not been affiliated and are pending
4 consultation or notice.
5 While consultation is required under NAGPRA
6 prior to completing an inventory – let me just say
7 again, prior to completing an inventory,
8 consultation must be conducted, the way that the
9 current regulations proceed with those human remains
10 that are not culturally affiliated is with a request
11 from a Tribe to consult. So that’s why for the
12 113,000 that are not affiliated they are pending
13 consultation requests from Tribes or Native Hawaiian
14 organizations prior to a notice or a transfer under
15 the culturally unidentifiable regulations.
16 You asked me what I see as a barrier to that
17 population. I would say that it is in part the
18 process by which Tribes and Native Hawaiian
19 organizations must request consultation or transfer
20 of those 113,000 human remains. I know that a lot of
21 the consultation grants that we have awarded in the
22 past to Tribes have been for them to initiate that
23 consultation with museums on those culturally
24 unidentifiable human remains. Tribes have had –
25 Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations have taken
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 40
1 lots of different approaches to making requests for
2 their culturally unidentifiable human remains.
3 We have funded several projects through the
4 NAGPRA grant program for Tribes who are seeking to
5 establish cultural affiliation for those human
6 remains. So I think in addition to Tribes making
7 requests, another barrier are those Tribes that wish
8 to first start with affiliation and to revisit the
9 decision that was made by the museum or Federal
10 agency about the affiliation of those remains. I
11 state in the report that cultural affiliation
12 studies, as well as in-depth consultations, are what
13 could resolve the rights to many of those 113,000
14 human remains.
15 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. So it would behoove
16 the Program to have increased consultation grants or
17 money for the grants that are typically awarded
18 every year?
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: That would certainly assist
20 with more consultation and cultural affiliation.
21 HONOR KEELER: Thank you.
22 JOHN BEAVER: Just a quick follow-up question on
23 your comment about Tribes initiating the
24 consultation as a part of the process. Can you speak
25 to perhaps the museums or institutions taking sort
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 41
1 of a proactive approach in the consultation process
2 and how that might move things along in the process?
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Certainly. Again, I think that
4 the best way for me to respond to that question is
5 to talk about some NAGPRA grant projects that we
6 have funded. In many cases a museum may apply for a
7 grant to bring together a group of Tribes that
8 either have Aboriginal land for the location where
9 these remains were removed or are otherwise
10 potentially culturally affiliated, and in these
11 large consultation meetings will begin the process
12 of determining the disposition of those human
13 remains. So there are certainly museums that have
14 taken that approach to initiating consultation
15 themselves and not waiting for a request from
16 Tribes.
17 I think I also report here that for 20 percent
18 of museums, they have completed the NAGPRA process
19 for all human remains in their collection, including
20 those from an unknown location. So that, I think for
21 those 20 percent, is not necessarily driven on a
22 Tribal request but has been a decision of the museum
23 to actively transfer all human remains from their
24 collections.
25 PATRICK LYONS: I would echo that based on my
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 42
1 experience at the Arizona State Museum. What we’ve
2 tried to do, with help of grant funding from
3 National NAGPRA over the years, is to invite
4 requests on a systematic basis as we go through –
5 geographically through the state of Arizona, and
6 literally invite Tribal representatives to consult
7 with us, at the same time that we’re dealing with
8 culturally affiliated remains in a particular
9 geographical area to also address CUHR. So it’s
10 worked really well for us, at least, as an
11 institution. And we’re planning to continue to do
12 that over the next several years.
13 JOHN BEAVER: Just as follow up, so then you
14 would, respectful of these museums or institutions,
15 their own sort of process that they have in place,
16 taking sort of the proactive approach to the
17 question, I imagine that would be something that
18 certainly that National NAGPRA would encourage these
19 museums and institutions to perhaps move the process
20 along in working with Tribes and identifying these
21 culturally unidentified – particularly these
22 culturally unidentified materials then, right?
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Actually, I would disagree
24 with that. I would say that the approach is based on
25 the museum’s or Federal agency’s own wishes or
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 43
1 mission or objective. And it is not, I would say – I
2 wouldn’t even necessarily use the word “proactive.”
3 There is another driver here that is not driven by
4 the requirements of the regulations, but is driven
5 by some other motivation. And I think you would need
6 to ask museums who have taken that approach what is
7 that motivation for approaching it prior to a claim.
8 I would say again that the responsibility of
9 any museum or Federal agency is to respond to a
10 request to consult. And I would stress that the
11 regulations require responding to that request
12 within 90 days. So where I would encourage a museum
13 to be proactive is in being sure that they are
14 prepared to respond to that request so that they can
15 meet the regulatory deadline of responding within 90
16 days.
17 So if I were to encourage a proactive approach,
18 it would be to ensure that museums are prepared to
19 respond. And that would mean having their records
20 prepared, knowing who else they might need to
21 consult with upon request. We have assisted a number
22 of museums in responding to requests. And quite
23 often the museums that call for assistance, after
24 receiving a request for these culturally
25 unidentified human remains, have not done anything
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 44
1 really since 1995 since submitting their inventory,
2 and they often feel a bit lost. So quite often our
3 assistance is to help them figure out how to respond
4 within the regulatory timeframe and what their
5 responsibilities are under the regulations. So I
6 would say that if I was going to encourage anything,
7 it would be maybe call me before you get the
8 request, so we can help you figure out what needs to
9 be done.
10 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you.
11 HONOR KEELER: I do have one more question. Do
12 you find in any of the trends in the state, perhaps
13 that are not making cultural affiliations, that
14 there is a reluctance to affiliate with Tribes
15 outside of that state?
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I don’t think that I can
17 generalize why there is a difference among the
18 states in terms of affiliation or the completing of
19 the process, I would say, because really that – I
20 mean, it does reflect a large majority of those are
21 culturally unidentified. I think there are a lot of
22 reasons for that.
23 I would say the trend that I observe most often
24 is whether or not a museum or Federal agency is
25 revisiting the cultural affiliation determination
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 45
1 that was made in 1995 or not. One trend that we have
2 observed is that every year the number of human
3 remains that are moved from culturally unidentified
4 to culturally affiliated increases. So there are
5 certainly some museums and Federal agencies that are
6 revising the decision that was made in 1995 in the
7 original inventory.
8 I would ask others who are presenting to you to
9 comment on that trend or their experience. I would
10 also think that there may be those in the academic
11 disciplines who might have some perspective on
12 cultural affiliation under NAGPRA today and how that
13 might be different than cultural affiliation under
14 NAGPRA in 1995.
15 HONOR KEELER: Thank you, Melanie. We welcome
16 those public comments later today as well.
17 JOHN BEAVER: Just as a follow up to Honor’s
18 question about the numbers, the question is sort of
19 a follow up to how these numbers reflect
20 particularly Tribes who are removed from certain
21 areas, who no longer live in these areas, and what
22 sort of the – either the consultation or how the
23 affiliation process is going and maybe your feelings
24 on how those numbers sort of exist, or is there a
25 perception that because those Tribes no longer live
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 46
1 in those areas, where they fall – where that sort of
2 falls in the consultation process, in the
3 identification process?
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Well, I think that probably
5 anybody who’s watched the PBS series Native America
6 can look at this map and see removed states. I mean,
7 it’s a pretty clear representation of Native
8 American history in this country in many ways with
9 this central block of higher numbers. I think – I
10 don’t know that that’s a reason. I don’t know that
11 that coincidence is necessarily the causation. But I
12 think there’s some clear indication here. Now I will
13 note that there are pretty small numbers in the
14 Upper Midwest, which again has more history of
15 removal, and likewise along the Southeast, which
16 again is a significant amount of removal history.
17 Again, I would not want to generalize about why
18 there are remains from some states. I think that
19 again, I would probably turn to the academic
20 community to look a little bit at these states in
21 particular and the history of archeology in these
22 states. I think that probably has some – could shed
23 some light on these numbers as well.
24 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you.
25 PATRICK LYONS: So I wonder if you’re in a
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 47
1 position today to tell us anything about the
2 progress in the long-running process of rewriting
3 the NAGPRA regulations.
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I do have a few more updates
5 for you regarding the Review Committee and other
6 work of the Program. But before I go into that,
7 Frank, did you have a -
8 PATRICK LYONS: Please. Sorry, Frank.
9 FRANK MCMANAMON: Sorry. Thank you. The other
10 map that shows the number of museums and Federal
11 agencies by state holding the unpublished remains –
12 remains that haven’t been published, if you were to
13 dig a little deeper into those numbers, it would be
14 possible I think to identify – to rank the museums
15 within a state in terms of numbers, which might be –
16 have you done that, I wonder?
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. You can generate that
18 from the data. Actually, that’s a good suggestion. I
19 think that is one way that we might provide this
20 data when we do provide it publicly is to provide
21 that in that order.
22 FRANK MCMANAMON: It would be a finer-grained
23 analysis.
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
25 FRANCIS MCMANAMON: And it might reveal some
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 48
1 more specific opportunities to contact those museums
2 and discover in more detail what is preventing them
3 from moving things along or suggest some ideas about
4 how things might be moved along. So just for your
5 consideration and perhaps for the Review Committee
6 to help you look into that, that sort of thing.
7 Thanks.
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. Again, I would like to
9 explain that this is a visual representation of the
10 data that has been available through our database.
11 It’s fortunate for us that we’ve been able to do a
12 little bit more of this kind of analysis of that
13 data, thanks to the wonder of technology.
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: And it’s a great presentation.
15 I really find a lot of information in the way that
16 you have presented it visually. So thanks for taking
17 the time to do that. And I think it – as I said, I
18 think it suggests further assessments that we could
19 do that might, again, move things along or resolve
20 some of the issues as to why there’s – why there are
21 so many sets of remains that we don’t have
22 affiliation data for, for example.
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Are there any other questions
24 about either the inventory and notice process or
25 grants before I move on to my other
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 49
1 responsibilities?
2 Okay. So as I said at the beginning, one of my
3 responsibilities as the manager of the National
4 NAGPRA Program is serving as your Designated Federal
5 Official and providing administrative support to the
6 Review Committee. As I mentioned at the beginning of
7 the meeting, there was recently an appointment of a
8 seventh member to the Committee. It is my
9 responsibility to accept those nominations and to
10 move them forward to the Department and to the
11 Secretary for appointment.
12 This is a good opportunity for me to remind
13 both the Committee and those in the audience that we
14 are currently accepting nominations for two
15 vacancies on the Committee that are upcoming. Those
16 nominations should be received from national museum
17 or scientific organizations. The terms for Heather
18 Edgar and Patrick Lyons end in November, and so we
19 are actively accepting nominations for those two
20 positions. Those nominations are due by September
21 9th. I’m happy to answer any questions or concerns
22 people might have about who can nominate for those
23 positions, and there’s more information in the
24 Federal Register nomination notice.
25 In addition, the Program has also worked on
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 50
1 preparing the agenda for this meeting. We made
2 requests on your behalf for presentations and
3 updates on outstanding issues from your previous
4 meetings. During the next two days we will hear a
5 request for disposition, as well as numerous
6 presentations from Federal agencies and other NAGPRA
7 constituents, including some from Alaska.
8 Following this meeting, we will begin planning
9 for the next in-person meeting. The Review Committee
10 has several outstanding invitations. Later in this
11 meeting I would like your input on venues, as well
12 as the schedule and location for our next in-person
13 meeting. We welcome any suggestions from the Review
14 Committee or invitations from anyone here at the
15 meeting for your next meeting. I’m bringing this up
16 now so that you have time to consider this, and
17 we’ll address it at the end of our meeting tomorrow.
18 I would also like to tell the Committee, as
19 well as those in the audience, that we have
20 tentatively scheduled a telephonic meeting for
21 October 30th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. That meeting will
22 provide an opportunity for disposition requests, as
23 well as public comment, but the primary purpose of
24 that meeting will be to finalize your report to
25 Congress for the fiscal year 2019, and to do that
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 51
1 prior to Patrick and Heather’s term ending.
2 I’d also like to provide you with updates on
3 three requests that you heard in your October 2018
4 meeting just briefly, to let you know that the
5 Missouri Department of Natural Resources had
6 requested the Review Committee to make a finding of
7 fact on cultural affiliation of human remains and
8 funerary objects from the Clarksville Mound Group in
9 Pike County, Missouri. After consideration of that
10 request, the Review Committee found that there was
11 not a reasonable basis for a cultural affiliation
12 determination and advised the museum to make some
13 revisions. That finding of fact, if you want more
14 information on what the Review Committee found, was
15 published in the Federal Register on April 3rd,
16 2019. And just a few weeks ago, the Missouri
17 Department of Natural Resources published a
18 correction notice for those human remains from Pike
19 County, Missouri.
20 The Review Committee heard a request from the
21 City of Traverse City at your October meeting for a
22 recommendation to the Secretary on the disposition
23 of Native American human remains from – “Western
24 Plains” was the identification of the human remains.
25 After the Review Committee considered the request,
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1 they did make a recommendation to the Secretary to
2 approve the disposition. In November of 2018, the
3 Secretary of the Interior concurred with the Review
4 Committee’s recommendation, and the City of Traverse
5 City published a notice in the Federal Register in
6 April 2019 for those human remains.
7 Finally, the Office of the State Archaeologist
8 for the – at the University of Iowa requested that
9 the Review Committee recommend that the Secretary
10 approve the renewal of its reburial process for
11 certain culturally unidentifiable human remains from
12 Iowa. The original process had been approved by the
13 Committee in 2006 and was due for a renewal. In
14 December of 2018, the Secretary of the Interior
15 concurred with the Review Committee’s
16 recommendation, and the Office of the State
17 Archaeologist in Iowa published its first notice in
18 the Federal Register under that renewed process in
19 March of 2019.
20 In addition to this, we held a telephonic
21 meeting in April, at which time the Review Committee
22 finalized its report to Congress, pending some
23 wordsmithing and editing by the subcommittee. The
24 work on the report to Congress was finished in June,
25 and it was then sent forward through the Department
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1 of the Interior and the proper channels for
2 distribution to Congress. I’m still awaiting the
3 final delivery of your report to Congress, but I
4 anticipate it will be in just a few weeks that we
5 will be delivering your report to Congress and then
6 making that report publicly available.
7 I would like to ask the Committee for any input
8 on the distribution of that report. Obviously, it’s
9 a report to Congress. We submit the report to those
10 members of Congress that serve on the relative
11 committees to NAGPRA, so committees on Indian
12 Affairs and Insular Affairs, depending on which
13 House of Congress; we target the delivery of that
14 report. We also deliver the report to any member of
15 Congress that you may request us to deliver it to.
16 And we have a few members of Congress who have
17 expressed interest in the past that we send the
18 report to.
19 In the past, the Review Committee has asked
20 that we deliver the report more broadly or
21 distribute it in physical copy, which we have done.
22 I would say that we’ve had some moderate success
23 with that. The mail delivery is relatively expensive
24 once it’s multiplied by the number of people it’s
25 sent to. And of course, we do make the report very
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 54
1 available electronically. It’s available on our
2 website. All of your reports to Congress are
3 available through our website. So I would ask the
4 Review Committee for any input on that and any
5 methods that you might think might get your report
6 to Congress more attention or more visible to those
7 who are involved in this process.
8 And lastly, I will address your question,
9 Patrick. There has been an ongoing effort by the
10 Department of the Interior to revise the NAGPRA
11 regulations in its entirety. This effort began in
12 2011 with a series of consultations and listening
13 sessions on the NAGPRA regulations. That work has
14 continued since 2011, and the revision of the
15 regulations remains on the Office of Management and
16 Budget agenda for regulatory review, and the work of
17 the Program in preparing draft regulations has
18 continued.
19 PATRICK LYONS: So is there any timetable or how
20 the process might play out in terms of public
21 comment?
22 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. So any regulatory process
23 provides the opportunity for public comment through
24 the publication of a proposed rule. So in the
25 regulatory process, the first step is the
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1 publication of a proposed rule with a public comment
2 period.
3 PATRICK LYONS: Is there any information about
4 when we might expect – I know it’s been a long time,
5 but is there any expectation that will happen in the
6 near future?
7 MELANIE O’BRIEN: So currently on the OMB
8 agenda, the Office of Management and Budget website
9 lists publication of a proposed rule in November of
10 2019.
11 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Does anybody else –
12 yes.
13 FRANK MCMANAMON: Any consideration being made
14 of getting the Review Committee’s comments on the
15 proposed document that you referred to?
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, certainly the Review
17 Committee is required under the Act to consult with
18 the Secretary upon request on regulations, on draft
19 regulations. So that will be a part of any revision
20 or regulatory process.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Are you in a – since it’s been a
22 long time and many practitioners participated in
23 consultations and listening sessions in the past,
24 are you in a position to talk about sort of the
25 rationale or the guiding principles that the team
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1 has taken in the draft – the redraft?
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. I can tell you that the
3 work that was done in 2011 was pretty extensive and
4 received comments from many different people related
5 to issues identified in the regulations as they are
6 currently. And there is a full transcript, or at
7 least minutes of those meetings, that may not be
8 available on our website, but we can certainly make
9 available. And it is those comments that have driven
10 the revision process since 2011.
11 HONOR KEELER: With regard to regulatory
12 revisions that have been done in the past, could you
13 or anyone on our Committee offer some historical
14 knowledge about that process and how that proceeded
15 with the Review Committee?
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Well, the initial proposed
17 rule for NAGPRA regulations was published in 1993.
18 After a comment period, those regulations were
19 published as final in 1995. Since that time,
20 reserved sections of the regulations have been
21 published as both proposed rule and final rule. The
22 most recent of those was the rule at 43 CFR 10.7 for
23 unclaimed cultural items from Federal or Tribal
24 lands that was first issued as proposed and then as
25 final in 2015. Other minor changes and technical
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1 amendments have been made to the regulations. We do
2 have a full history of all regulatory actions on our
3 website.
4 And you will find in each of those final rules
5 a preamble that explains the effort to receive
6 comment, both publicly as well as input from the
7 Review Committee, and then the response to those –
8 to that comment and to that input in establishing
9 the final rule. Probably one of the most extensive
10 preambles that would provide that kind of
11 information and a full historical accounting of the
12 effort to produce a final rule was the rule that was
13 published in March of 2010 at 43 CFR 10.11 for
14 culturally unidentifiable human remains. That would
15 – that preamble does provide a pretty extensive
16 history of the work involved both in getting public
17 comment but then direct consultation with the Review
18 Committee in the development of that rule.
19 FRANK MCMANAMON: I don’t have the full history
20 in front of me or in my head at this point, but when
21 those original regulations were being considered,
22 there was – there were discussions with the Review
23 Committee about what they would look like, what some
24 of the issues were, things of that sort, at Review
25 Committee meetings. I would just put that out there
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1 as another option that the Department may want to
2 look into in terms of any further work on the work
3 that you described on the modifications, amendments
4 to the existing regulations.
5 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you.
6 PATRICK LYONS: So I understand that – the
7 question I asked about timeline was if this is going
8 to happen this cycle, it would be November of 2019.
9 Is that correct?
10 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. That’s the current
11 scheduled publication.
12 PATRICK LYONS: And we don’t know yet – is it
13 correct that we don’t know yet what the public
14 comment period might be, how long it might be? Is
15 there – do you have an idea of what – I mean, it’s
16 not firmly set, but do we have an idea of what it
17 might be?
18 MELANIE O’BRIEN: In general, public comment
19 periods range from 60 days to 90 days, sometimes a
20 bit longer, depending on the rule or the anticipated
21 comments.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
23 JOHN BEAVER: I have a follow-up question. So
24 then the Review Committee’s review of the proposed
25 changes would also occur during that particular – or
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1 viewing, during that time period as well, along with
2 the public’s?
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: It’s generally been the
4 process that the Secretary will request to consult
5 with the Review Committee at the same time that
6 there’s public comment.
7 JOHN BEAVER: So then it would be released to
8 the Review Committee at the same time as the public?
9 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. And let me just take this
10 opportunity to remind each of you that there is
11 nothing that would prevent you from providing a
12 comment on the proposed regulations as an
13 individual, but to be able to make any kind of
14 comment or recommendation as a Review Committee, it
15 will have to be done in a public meeting.
16 JOHN BEAVER: And if I could then – my follow up
17 to that is, and that’s when we’ve received – the
18 members of the Review Committee have received the
19 document at the same time as the general public. So
20 any discussion that the Review Committee has, say,
21 in the public forum, the general public will have
22 been afforded the same amount of time to see the
23 document and formulate said comments or concerns
24 within the same time period and the same timeframe
25 as the Review Committee?
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1 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
2 JOHN BEAVER: Okay.
3 PATRICK LYONS: And so a logistical matter
4 directly related to that is that so, presumably,
5 we’ll have to be ready to set up a public meeting
6 within the public comment period once that’s
7 established. Is that correct?
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
9 JOHN BEAVER: Sorry. Just as a – just as a
10 follow up, just so everyone is clear, the Review
11 Committee will not have advanced access to said
12 document before the general public. We’re all on the
13 same page together, reviewing at the same time,
14 correct?
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: As a Federal advisory
16 committee, any documents that are provided to you
17 are part of the public record, so I would not
18 anticipate providing anything to the Review
19 Committee that was not publicly available.
20 JOHN BEAVER: So at the same time, yes. My
21 questions are for the public, the general public as
22 well, so in terms of process and transparency. Thank
23 you.
24 PATRICK LYONS: Do we have any other questions?
25 HONOR KEELER: Melanie and Review Committee, we
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1 have requirements within the law and our charter to
2 be consulting with the Secretary in the development
3 of regulations to carry out this Act. And I would
4 encourage the NAGPRA – the National NAGPRA Program
5 staff to provide us with the information having to
6 do with these regulations at our public comment – or
7 our next meeting if they’re available, so that we
8 can – or so that we can schedule another meeting, so
9 that we can discuss these regulations with the
10 public and amongst ourselves and to receive public
11 input. Tribal consultations are also within the
12 requirement of your agency as well, and I encourage
13 you that those do occur with regard to these new
14 regulations.
15 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
16 HEATHER EDGAR: I imagine the Review Committee
17 in 2011 when these things were first being
18 discussed, when the revisions were being discussed,
19 were consulted then?
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, that’s correct. You can
21 find in the minutes of the Review Committee meeting
22 in June of 2011 a discussion about revisions to the
23 regulations.
24 HEATHER EDGAR: Thank you.
25 HONOR KEELER: I’d also like to state that there
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1 appears to have been quite a length of time between
2 those consultations, when those occurred and today.
3 And for whatever reason, this has – the regulations
4 have not been established. So I still would
5 encourage that these consultations with us as the
6 Committee, because we’re required to consult with
7 the Secretary of the Interior, as well as Tribes and
8 the other constituents that are going to be affected
9 by the regulations, occur. And I don’t know
10 historically, again, whether there was – it seems to
11 me like there may have been meetings by the NAGPRA
12 Review Committee to review these regulations, and
13 then it was entered into a public comment period
14 later. But I think it would behoove us to review
15 best practices in the past in the passing of
16 regulations. These are very important.
17 We’re kind of seeing today new trends, as
18 you’ve demonstrated to us in your report – thank you
19 for that, it was very good – that I think we need to
20 take into consideration after nine years within this
21 process. And so I would encourage as much public
22 comment to occur, but also, perhaps because we have
23 this requirement through the law to consult with the
24 Secretary of Interior on regulations, that that
25 occur with us as well. And those might be different
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1 processes that could – that may have to work a
2 little bit differently than the public comment
3 period.
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Anything else?
6 Madam Chair – oh, Madam DFO, we’re a little bit
7 behind schedule already. However, I wonder if this
8 might be a good time for a break?
9 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. I was going to recommend
10 that we take a break now and come back at 11:00 and
11 move into the presentations that have been
12 scheduled. We can move your discussion of
13 subcommittees either before the lunch break or later
14 this afternoon.
15 PATRICK LYONS: That would’ve been my
16 recommendation. Thank you.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. So we will take a break.
18 It looks like we have 13 minutes before 11 o’clock.
19 And when we come back, we will begin with the
20 presentations. I again would encourage anyone who is
21 interested in making public comment to please see me
22 during the break.
23 BREAK
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Are we ready?
25 PATRICK LYONS: I was going to ask you if we’re
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1 ready.
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: That’s the nice thing about
3 this position. You can’t start without me.
4 PATRICK LYONS: That’s right.
5 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Our next agenda item includes
6 presentations from two Federal agencies. At previous
7 meetings and in your report to Congress, the Review
8 Committee has expressed ongoing consistent interest
9 in Federal agency compliance with NAGPRA. In
10 addition, the Review Committee is interested in
11 addressing the challenging issue of ensuring the
12 identification and NAGPRA compliance of Federal
13 agency collections housed in non-Federal
14 repositories.
15 Several agencies provided regular updates at
16 past meetings, and several are presenting to you at
17 this meeting. This morning’s presentations include
18 information from specifically the Alaska region. I’d
19 like to start by welcoming Robert King and Emily
20 Tarantini, with the Bureau of Land Management in
21 Alaska.
22 PRESENTATIONS
23 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF LAND
24 MANAGEMENT, ALASKA
25 ROBERT KING: Thank you very much for having us
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1 here today to talk about a complicated and still
2 ongoing NAGPRA case involving a large collection
3 from the Point Hope area in northwestern Alaska. I’m
4 Robert King, the Bureau of Land Management state
5 archeologist and NAGPRA lead for Alaska since BLM
6 started with NAGPRA in the early 1990s. And today
7 with me on my left is Emily Tarantini. Emily was
8 hired earlier this year by BLM as an intern through
9 the National Council for Preservation Education, and
10 was tasked by our office in Washington, DC to help
11 with the Point Hope NAGPRA case. I also invited
12 Emily Palus, on my right, with the Interior Museum
13 Program to join us at the table, who until recently
14 served with the BLM in Washington, DC, and has
15 mentored Emily Tarantini and advised on this
16 project. Emily T. will tell you more about the
17 history of the case and her recent progress with it.
18 And I will conclude by pointing out some of the
19 issues involved. We hope to then have time to answer
20 any questions you have. With that, let me turn the
21 mic over to Emily Tarantini.
22 EMILY TARANTINI: Thank you. The Point Hope
23 collections were excavated between 1939 and 1941
24 from Point Hope, Alaska, and surrounding areas. At
25 the time, these were generally unrestricted Federal
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1 lands administered by the U.S. Department of the
2 Interior and, as public domain, were tracked by the
3 General Land Office. Pursuant to the provisions of
4 the 1906 Act for the Preservation of American
5 Antiquities and interdepartmental regulations, the
6 Assistant Secretary Oscar Chapman authorized the
7 excavations in response to an application submitted
8 by Dr. Charles Bunnell, President of the University
9 of Alaska in College, Alaska, here in Fairbanks.
10 The work would be directed by Dr. Froelich
11 Rainey, Professor of Anthropology at the University
12 of Alaska, and all archeological materials were to
13 be curated at its university museum. Additional
14 researchers on the project included Dr. Helge
15 Larsen, with the Danish National Museum in
16 Copenhagen, and Dr. Harry Shapiro, with the American
17 Museum of Natural History in New York, among others.
18 Excavations at Point Hope included work at
19 three main sites, Ipiutak, Tigara, and Jabbertown.
20 Material from this collection dates to at least
21 2,000 years ago, and potentially as recently as 100
22 years ago. An estimated 600 houses were excavated at
23 Point Hope. Additionally, an estimated 500 burials
24 were excavated, as well as areas with multiple
25 individuals from secondary burials.
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1 Shortly after field work ended, the collections
2 were divided among three museums; the University of
3 Alaska in Fairbanks, American Museum of Natural
4 History in New York City, and the National Museum of
5 Denmark in Copenhagen. A portion of the collection
6 that was to be curated at the University of Alaska
7 was first shipped to New York to be photographed and
8 analyzed by the American Museum of Natural History,
9 but was lost on the return trip to Alaska in 1946
10 when the cargo vessel carrying the artifacts sank in
11 the Grenville Channel of British Columbia.
12 In the 1990s, the Bureau of Land Management,
13 successor agency to the GLO, realized the existence
14 of the collection and began to take steps to meet
15 its responsibility under NAGPRA for it, as well as
16 to address Federal collections regulations and
17 Departmental museum policies that had come into
18 effect. The BLM initiated consultation with the
19 Native Village of Point Hope at that time, although
20 the agency had limited information about the
21 collection. Since then, the BLM has been in contact
22 with Point Hope Tribal leadership when the American
23 Museum of Natural History conveyed research or
24 exhibit requests.
25 In the fall of 2018, BLM reached out to the
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1 Native Village of Point Hope to provide more
2 recently learned information about the collection in
3 order to facilitate more focused consultation to
4 achieve NAGPRA compliance. However, although
5 portions of the collection have been documented in
6 publications, and while more archival records have
7 been found, the BLM still did not have a cohesive
8 inventory. Consequently, to help meet this need,
9 earlier this year I was hired as a full-time intern
10 by the BLM to help produce such an inventory. For
11 six months, I worked on the Point Hope collections
12 almost exclusively, and was able to create a
13 singular, densely populated Excel spreadsheet of
14 data from different sources with the known location
15 of each object, including its corresponding
16 accession and catalog numbers, that was excavated
17 from Point Hope, with the exception of what is now
18 in Denmark.
19 This was accomplished in several steps: first,
20 by conducting extensive research of publications and
21 unpublished archival material from numerous
22 archives, libraries, and museums that contained
23 information about the Point Hope collections.
24 Second, by using the original 1948 report published
25 by Rainey and Larsen on the Ipiutak, I created
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1 tables drawing data from each burial described in
2 the report while also identifying other references
3 to burials from the report’s interpretative
4 sections. This table served as a baseline listing of
5 what had originally been collected. The third step
6 was to correlate the original report information
7 with the inventories of collections now housed in
8 museums. The University of Alaska Museum of the
9 North provided their accession and catalog
10 information for six sets of human remains and over
11 900 funerary objects in Excel, which I then merged
12 into the baseline list, correlating the data based
13 on burial designations. For the collections housed
14 at the American Museum of Natural History, I keyed
15 in data for over 700 sets of human remains and 1,500
16 artifacts from PDF lists the museum had provided.
17 I focused on the burial data due to the
18 priority for NAGPRA documentation; however, there is
19 additional work to address other portions of the
20 collections. In the process of incorporating the
21 repository data, there were some inconsistencies
22 which required follow up with the non-Federal
23 repository partners for clarity and explanations,
24 some of which remains to be resolved. In addition to
25 the collections data, associated records, such as
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1 field notes and archival materials, including
2 permanent records and correspondence, have proved
3 invaluable to piecing the collection back together.
4 This information has allowed us to learn more
5 about the nature of the excavation project and
6 involvement of local community members, as well as
7 understanding the roles different parties played,
8 including the Interior Department, the Episcopalian
9 Mission, the University of Alaska, the American
10 Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum
11 of Denmark. The Museum of the North staff fielded my
12 questions, reinforced many of my conclusions, and
13 also recommended others to connect with, in addition
14 to the leads I had found.
15 I also contacted several other external sources
16 such as academic and independent researchers with a
17 wealth of knowledge about the Point Hope
18 collections. These contacts also brought unexpected
19 discoveries. For instance, by doing so, we were even
20 able to locate an inventory of each object that had
21 sunk in the ship wreck. Last month, I was able to
22 access the American Museum of Natural History
23 Library special collections, and the Anthropology
24 Department subsequently provided scans of the
25 archives we identified as relevant to the project. A
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1 thorough review of these materials is needed, but
2 they provide field level information, as well as
3 address an administrative history of the
4 collections’ management.
5 As a result of this work, we are now beginning
6 to see an item-by-item inventory of what was found
7 within each burial and where it is currently housed.
8 Additionally, by then sorting these items by burial
9 number in the spreadsheet, we can begin to digitally
10 reunite, so to speak, items from the same burial
11 that may physically reside in up to four different
12 locations today. The next step of this process would
13 be to add data to the spreadsheet for what is
14 located in the fourth and final collection’s
15 location, the National Museum of Denmark. This
16 process is helping our agency tackle the challenging
17 task of managing a split collection in advance of an
18 eventual NAGPRA inventory publication.
19 Now, I’ll hand this back over to my colleague
20 Dr. King to point out some important matters
21 involved with this case.
22 ROBERT KING: Thank you, Emily, including for
23 your most extraordinary work that’s advanced this
24 case so dramatically.
25 First, let me end by briefly commenting on some
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1 of the more significant issues involved with this
2 case. The collection is in three locations, or four
3 if you count the parts still under water that sank
4 off of British Columbia. There are practical
5 challenges when collections are split among
6 different repositories, including international
7 museums. Gaining physical access can be very
8 difficult given distances, but there are also
9 challenges in scheduling with repository staff.
10 Further, in addition to controlling physical
11 access, repositories have critical records that the
12 BLM does not have, and making BLM thus reliant on
13 museums to share information, including field
14 records, unpublished manuscripts, correspondence,
15 results from research in collections and more, many
16 things that we otherwise don’t even know about. All
17 of which proves essential for documenting and
18 understanding this collection.
19 While research in the National Archives located
20 records and correspondence for the three Federal
21 permits issued to the University of Alaska for
22 excavations for the years 1939, ‘40 and ‘41, the
23 dividing up of these collections seems never to have
24 been authorized by the Federal Government. If these
25 collections had been placed in their designated
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1 repository stated on the permits, all would now be
2 in Alaska, and thus, this NAGPRA case would be much
3 less complicated.
4 With the Point Hope collection now in three
5 museums, just learning about and then obtaining
6 copies of all records and other relevant documents
7 has been a challenge, and in the case of the Danish
8 records, still to be done. This is further delaying
9 our achieving full compliance with NAGPRA for the
10 Point Hope collections. An example, gaining access
11 to see certain records held in the American Museum
12 of Natural History for some of this collection
13 required persistence through several attempts to
14 schedule, and ultimately submitting a researcher’s
15 access request as if a member of the public, and
16 then travel to New York City once granted an
17 appointment.
18 Also, I have traveled from Alaska to the
19 National Archives in Washington, DC, to find Point
20 Hope permit information from over 75 years ago,
21 because it is not otherwise digitized and easily
22 available, even nearly 30 years after the passage of
23 NAGPRA. Another matter is the legal and practical
24 implications of determining and exercising
25 possession or control of NAGPRA materials.
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1 While we appreciate the cooperation of all
2 museums involved with the Point Hope NAGPRA case,
3 and wish to work within their schedules and
4 procedures, it only points out again that BLM itself
5 is not really in control of the records or the
6 collections in any practical way. BLM staff have not
7 yet reviewed the collections at American Museum of
8 Natural History, but hope to next month.
9 Determining control for the purposes of NAGPRA
10 also requires research, sometimes an extensive look
11 at land jurisdiction, which is more fluid than
12 static as people might assume. Triggered by
13 information in the American Museum of Natural
14 History correspondence, we took a second look at the
15 land jurisdiction, and at the time of the
16 excavations much of the land at Point Hope was
17 public domain except for parcels reserved for Native
18 educational purposes, which were managed by the
19 Alaska Native Service within the Office of Indian
20 Affairs. And also, a parcel belonged to the
21 Episcopal Diocese. We are now seeking to overlay
22 maps locating the excavation areas with the plats
23 showing land status at the time of the excavation
24 project. Finally, if nothing else, this case points
25 out that NAGPRA cases can be very complicated,
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1 amazingly time-consuming, and expensive. Even with
2 Emily Tarantini’s dedicated help for a solid six
3 months, there is still much more work to be done,
4 and this has just been to pull sufficient
5 information together for further consultation with
6 Native Alaskan Communities.
7 Thank you for listening to this work in
8 progress, yet complicated, NAGPRA compliance story.
9 We’d be glad to try to answer questions if any time
10 remains. However, Emily Palus is with us, and Emily,
11 would you like to add any further comments?
12 EMILY PALUS: I just want to thank Emily and Bob
13 for their continued work on what is an enormous
14 undertaking, and share that an objective of this
15 presentation was to provide the Committee with a
16 case study that illustrates many of the points on
17 Federal collections and working with non-Federal
18 repositories that Department of Interior Bureaus
19 have presented to this Committee over the years, and
20 in particular since 2012 and forward. So with that,
21 we’re anxious to have an opportunity to address – to
22 hear your comments and questions, and to address as
23 best we can. Thank you.
24 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
25 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Do we have questions?
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 76
1 FRANK MCMANAMON: Bob, maybe you could just
2 quickly summarize what would the Native Communities
3 that you’ve been consulting with, what outcome would
4 they like to see from the work that you’ve been
5 engaged in here?
6 ROBERT KING: The earliest consultation was with
7 Point Hope. That seemed to be the focal community,
8 but we’re also considering if there are other
9 reasons to reach out further. The Ipiutak materials
10 are somewhat controversial in the sense of who are
11 the descendent people. And there have been ideas
12 that perhaps – an earlier idea that perhaps the
13 Ipiutak people were some unusual group from Siberia.
14 There have also been more recent genetic studies
15 that would suggest otherwise, that there’s genetic
16 heritage for descendent Alaskan Communities, and so
17 we’re looking into that as well. There have been
18 genetic studies done, and this also is a point of
19 interest to us, because we are learning now after
20 the fact, that there have been a lot of studies done
21 on these materials, and yet we were not a party to
22 those studies. We did not give permission for those
23 studies. We were unaware of those studies. We are in
24 a finding mode, and the more we have looked, the
25 more we have found.
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1 FRANK MCMANAMON: But have the Village
2 representatives, do they have – what outcome would
3 they like to see?
4 ROBERT KING: We don’t have yet – we haven’t
5 gone to that stage. We are trying to provide some
6 baseline information. And at this point, a lot of
7 what we’re telling you now is very recent
8 information, and we hope to share that with Point
9 Hope. It’s been quite a logistical challenge to
10 assemble what we have now. And to get funding to
11 continue to this work, it is a challenge.
12 HEATHER EDGAR: Hi, thank you for your report. I
13 have a couple of questions. And I’m just going to
14 remind that I’m coming from a museum perspective
15 here, and so I want to kind of frame my questions in
16 that perspective. The first thing I want to say is,
17 Emily, thanks for all your efforts, and I hope
18 additionally you appreciate – I mean this has got to
19 be the coolest internship.
20 EMILY TARANTINI: Oh, yes. It was.
21 HEATHER EDGAR: The difference you get to make
22 here is real. And even though I’m sure retyping a
23 bunch of PDFs wasn’t fun, the experience that you
24 got, I think, is to be envied. So that’s terrific,
25 and great for the BLM for providing that
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 78
1 opportunity.
2 I have one question that’s kind of a historic
3 one. I’m not sure if you can answer it or not. But
4 it seems to me like a whole lot of time passed
5 between the 1990s and 2018, when this became a
6 concerted effort. And the Point Hope collection is
7 certainly a high profile collection that originates
8 from BLM, or seems like now it has some complex land
9 history, but has been associated with the BLM. And
10 I’m wondering if you could give us some kind of
11 historic background on why it took so long for this
12 really great effort to come about.
13 ROBERT KING: I’m not sure I can answer that
14 fully. I do know that we have at times made
15 inquiries for the American Museum, and those had
16 been unsuccessful to be getting a response that
17 would be helpful.
18 HEATHER EDGAR: Could you give like a little
19 more detail? Like when you say an “inquiry,” what
20 was the question that was asked, if you know it, and
21 what was the answer that you got?
22 ROBERT KING: I can’t put a definitive year on
23 it, but about three to four to five years ago, I was
24 inquiring about the status of the Ipiutak
25 collection. And some of that came about with a
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1 request from the museum to have a portion of that on
2 display. They had received a request. And it helped
3 bring focus again to the fact that this was a large
4 collection, and that yet it had not achieved NAGPRA
5 compliance. There had been earlier inquiries in the
6 nineties about it, and it was one of those things
7 that somehow did not receive the focus that it has
8 more recently. And in the – at that time, the
9 response, that is to say three to four to five years
10 ago, was they were just not interested to deal with
11 it at that time.
12 HEATHER EDGAR: But when you say “they’re not
13 dealing with it,” I’m not sure to what extent it’s
14 the BLM’s responsibility versus AMNH’s
15 responsibility.
16 ROBERT KING: Yes, that also is an issue as to
17 the responsibility. And so we certainly are picking
18 this up at this point and going forward.
19 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, it’s good that you’re
20 doing that. Another question about this, just again,
21 this is coming from the museum perspective here. One
22 of the things that you mentioned was that you put in
23 a request to access archives, and you had to go to
24 New York City to access those archives. There’s an
25 implication in the way you phrased that, that some
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1 other way for you to get this information should
2 have been achieved, and I’m not sure what that other
3 way is. It sounds to me like that’s how archives are
4 accessed. Is there something else you’re suggesting?
5 ROBERT KING: Let me turn this to Emily here,
6 Emily Palus.
7 EMILY PALUS: That’s a very good question, and I
8 want to just take a step and address that the
9 Federal Government’s work on this collection did not
10 start in 2018, or didn’t get picked up in the mid-
11 1990s. That there’s actually been a continuous look
12 that has – the intensity has waxed and waned. We can
13 spend time talking about, but a lot of it comes down
14 to the capacity and not having any dedicated staff
15 who could certainly work on NAGPRA full-time, versus
16 a particular project.
17 I joined the Bureau of Land Management in
18 October of 2006. I started making inquiries about
19 this collection shortly thereafter. Talking with
20 Bob, Bob and I talked through the early consultation
21 history with the Native Village. Also in the 1990s,
22 when the Bureau of Land Management, like a lot of
23 other Federal agencies, was trying to figure out the
24 scope of its responsibility for archeological
25 collections in light of NAGPRA, 36 CFR 79, Curation
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1 of Federally Owned and Administered Archeological
2 Collections, and a Department-wide audit by the
3 Office of the Inspector General on museum
4 collections broadly, was trying to figure out what
5 the scope of responsibilities.
6 The Bureau of Land Management contracted with
7 the Army Corps of Engineers, the Mandatory Center
8 for Expertise in Archaeological Collections, to help
9 find material. That work resulted in a report
10 published in – issued in 1999 with permit
11 information. Part of that project also involved
12 staff from Army Corps of Engineers going to New York
13 and documenting the Point Hope collection. So we
14 thought we had an inventory of sorts.
15 I was interested if we could pick that up and
16 move forward with it. In talking with colleagues at
17 the American Museum of Natural History, we learned
18 that they had concerns about the – about that
19 inventory effort and that it could be incomplete.
20 That for instance, that it needed a shelf check done
21 to correlate artifacts, human remains. And I can
22 understand the institution having concerns about the
23 completeness and perhaps integrity of it, and I’m
24 not being critical of the Army Corps. But a museum
25 knows the collections it holds and understands how
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1 items are arranged, understands where to find the
2 documents, and so on.
3 And so at that point, we started like, okay,
4 what do we need to do to accomplish that shelf check
5 and the other things? So we started looking at
6 project costs and looking at ways to support that,
7 as well as because – also, my colleague at the
8 American Museum of Natural History shared that
9 because this was not the museum’s direct collection,
10 they would have to organize the work within their
11 priorities. And they were focused on theirs, which
12 again that’s – so I think that – and then so there
13 were other – so I would say that there’s been
14 communications, kind of, you know, and it has waxed
15 and waned.
16 My colleague Bob King here mentions the
17 requests to exhibit, certainly I think this is
18 around 2008, there were requests to borrow objects
19 for exhibit, and that stirred some new questions and
20 focus in 2008, 2009. And then I’m really, in the
21 interest of time but to be informative, trying to
22 hit some high points here and get to your follow-up
23 question. And then last year in fielding inquiries
24 about Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land
25 Management policies regarding Federal collections,
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1 access, studies, scanning, learned about additional
2 – we asked actually for a list of studies that had
3 been done. And through the course of – then in the
4 fall we got a list of researchers who had accessed
5 the collection. In the course of that, we provided a
6 specific statement on referring requests to the
7 Bureau of Land Management, and actually, there’s
8 four other BLM states involved, so three others in
9 addition to Alaska.
10 In the process of that correspondence, which is
11 mainly by email and some phone conversations, we
12 learned another concern about that 1999 Army Corps
13 of Engineers report, which was that it did not seem
14 that that project referenced the museum’s archives.
15 And that got us interested in the archives, and we
16 made some inquiries about the archives and
17 questioned, we’ll try to get you information. That
18 kind of goes back and forth. Ultimately, it was
19 Google to the rescue. I’ll just share, and I found
20 the finding aids online, and then we were – had had
21 a previous invitation to go up to New York, so we
22 worked on trying to schedule that. It was not
23 possible. Then it really just – how about, because I
24 knew what Emily’s timeline was and wanted to be able
25 to get the opportunity, because we weren’t asking
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1 for anything other than an opportunity to look at
2 the records. I’ll speak for Emily here, I will say
3 that when you arrived you learned that they had all
4 been scanned, and that they would be sent. And they
5 were sent subsequently, following at least one
6 follow-up request. In the meantime, there was other
7 material in another portion of the museum, making
8 that trip extremely worthwhile. But had it not been
9 for the other material -
10 So I also want to share that I’m not
11 interested, I don’t think we’re interested, I’m sure
12 that anyone, you know, can identify fault with the
13 Federal Government – this is hard. And in past
14 presentations, wearing a different hat, but I also
15 acknowledge my colleagues who have presented have
16 been really reluctant to give a whole lot of
17 details. Since 2012, the Department of Interior
18 bureaus have been presenting on what works and where
19 the challenges are but with some generalities, being
20 generalized, so as not to risk relationships. What I
21 observed in the Committee’s conversation in October
22 and again in April is that you were looking for
23 details.
24 So I am hopeful that, because I would like to
25 look at this from the museum perspective for a
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1 moment too. You get an email or a phone call with a
2 list of questions, and then that’s – okay, now are
3 they going to stop what they’re doing and go back. I
4 would – I think that these kinds of projects work
5 best in a collaborative manner. And I’ve said
6 before, if we can get past the “who’s on first” or
7 the “not it” game, because we’re not here to play
8 the “not it” game. We’re playing the – okay, we
9 think we’re it; we need help.
10 I mean, this is just a – yes, like I said, my
11 colleagues aren’t here to share their story. But
12 like again, it is with some reluctance to give some
13 of these more detailed challenges, because we don’t
14 want to throw anyone under the bus. We could get
15 thrown under the bus, too, I guess. Like I said, I
16 don’t think that everyone is not without fault.
17 So I hope – Heather, that was a very, very long
18 answer to your questions.
19 HEATHER EDGAR: If I can just follow up, while I
20 really appreciate the detail, I do. And maybe we
21 don’t need it every single time about every single
22 discussion, but it’s helpful to get that kind of
23 thing. And I guess the reason really I find it most
24 helpful is that sometimes in generalizing a story or
25 trying to draw the big picture, the words that get
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1 chosen imply – they imply blame, whether that’s the
2 intent or not. And there’s no reason to focus on
3 that. You said that things work best when they’re
4 collaborative, I’d argue they only work when they’re
5 collaborative. So that’s the right way to go. But
6 you’re right, it’s the Federal agencies’
7 responsibility, and the museums’ responsibility to
8 help you in fulfilling that.
9 So those are the kinds of things that I want to
10 make sure get clear in the way that presentations
11 are made, is that the collaboration emphasis is
12 there. The emphasis is on collaboration and not on
13 figuring out why things have been slow. I do feel
14 good about asking you this question about what
15 happened between 1990 and 2018, because that’s a
16 really long time. And I figured, since Point Hope
17 especially is a well-known collection, that efforts
18 were happening, at least to the extent possible over
19 time. So I appreciate you filling in some details
20 about that. So I’ll conclude my questions with that.
21 Thank you.
22 JOHN BEAVER: Just a follow-up question, and I
23 just want to say thank you for your continued work
24 on this particular case. I’m pleased to hear the
25 progress. I knew it was going to be particularly
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1 hard. I’ve come from a research background before, I
2 know the difficulty that one can encounter or
3 research can. Kudos to you for the work that you’ve
4 put into this. My comments do reflect a – well, the
5 previous comments, I’m sure it was a great and
6 educational experience, and there were probably many
7 times you felt like you were – and it sounds like
8 many times you were pushed into the deep end of the
9 pool and hoping to swim. So I do want to commend you
10 for your efforts on that.
11 This is just a – my statements are just for
12 clarification for everyone. There is some comment
13 that at one point the collections were – it seems
14 like they’ve been split amongst three to four
15 different – they’ve ended up in three or four
16 different places. And just to follow-up on your
17 comments, we certainly have an interest in this
18 split collections. And so it seems like there may be
19 some question concerning control or possession. You
20 may not be in the position to answer this question
21 right now, but in terms of moving things along, and
22 certainly not to – as has been mentioned,
23 collaboration generally is the – or not even
24 generally, just you want to collaborate to move
25 these things forward. But are you looking at from
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1 this standpoint from where things begin here in the
2 Alaskan Communities that are in the particular point
3 agency, does control stem from here in Alaska? And
4 then how collections – how these split collections,
5 might different institutions or these institutions
6 or involved parties have a view on – their views on
7 control and possession? Is that a particular
8 barrier, do you think, in this process?
9 EMILY PALUS: Yes. Well, Alaska is complicated
10 for actually many wonderful reasons. It’s an amazing
11 place, but tracking land jurisdictions – and there’s
12 certain assumptions. And so here’s what we know. The
13 Office of the Secretary or the Assistant Secretary
14 issued the permit from the Department of Interior.
15 So this was land that were overseen by the
16 Department of Interior. We know from the permit
17 records that, as was the process, the proposal came
18 in, the proposal was then fielded to the Secretary
19 of the Smithsonian, who under Antiquities Act
20 comments on permit applications. It was also sent to
21 the departmental consulting archeologist in the
22 National Park Service, who advised on permits. It
23 was also sent to the General Land Office, who
24 provided information on which lands were
25 unrestricted or reserved. There’s also material with
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1 the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and all weighing in.
2 The permit and then two subsequent renewals were all
3 issued to the University of Alaska. And explicit in
4 the approval and – in the request and approval was
5 that it would be led by the University of Alaska
6 staff, and that the collection would be deposited at
7 the university museum in Fairbanks.
8 That’s what we know from the permit trail.
9 There’s reports about analyses being done at
10 different institutions, other people involved, but
11 no discussion within the permit files, the National
12 Archives, the Federal records about disbursing the
13 collection. However, early on, the colleagues here
14 at the Museum of the North shared information from
15 their archives and correspondence among the
16 institutions, and then also recently with this
17 amazing body of information recently acquired from
18 our colleagues in New York, where we’re starting to
19 see the relationships.
20 I think that from the – so this is getting to
21 like whose control – I don’t – so first, I would say
22 I think it’s a mistake to apply modern land
23 management perspectives of what we have today on how
24 lands were managed. The GLO didn’t manage the lands
25 in the way that we understand the BLM to manage
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1 lands today, basically tracked public domain. The
2 other thing is that I don’t know at what point we
3 started the ownership issue. And so I’m sure that
4 there are museums that up until NAGPRA was enacted
5 thought that they owned the collections they had.
6 And there’s correspondence from the 1970s in which
7 there was some concerns about some of the – only one
8 third of the collection of human remains was
9 published, one third, one half. The other, from a
10 different time period, hadn’t been published. And so
11 there was concern among the researchers that it was
12 now the 1960s, 1970s, that that research hadn’t been
13 published.
14 So the administrative piece of this is that an
15 internal – there’s a memo with the American Museum
16 of Natural History that flat out states that – I
17 can’t say but I would read it to say flat out
18 states, but that indicates or states that this is
19 our property. So I think that the parties involved
20 believed that these collections were their property.
21 And I don’t know much about the Danish piece yet,
22 beyond the records that indicate sort of who was
23 funding the expedition and drawing a connection
24 between who funded the expedition and who owned the
25 resulting collection.
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1 All that is to say, our guidance has been
2 Federal land, Federal control and – these days, and
3 that the museum couldn’t have possession if they
4 don’t have legal authority. However, when I was
5 growing up doing NAGPRA notices, there were several
6 that we did where it was Federal agency control,
7 museum possession, as opposed to physical custody.
8 Again, that was a long answer, because that’s – I
9 mean, I think that’s part of what’s trying to sort
10 out, you know, possession, control.
11 JOHN BEAVER: I want to thank you for your
12 comments. And just as, if not a question, just sort
13 of a follow-up statement to what you presented. This
14 is – I think this is a good example of a split
15 collection. And I also want to say to bring up that
16 while it certainly can be – I don’t want to say
17 confusing, but frustrating, how this is all for this
18 one particular collection, on the other, and I hate
19 to say side, but on the other side of that I think
20 this also – you heard our discussion about split
21 collections right now, of how this sort of fits into
22 the Native peoples and where they fit into the
23 equation of all this. In particular, how this
24 impacts them not for, say, a case like this, but
25 other cases where how these particular – how when
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1 collections get split, sort of the answers that they
2 get from these particular institutions when one of
3 the things they’re trying to do is reunite these
4 collections or these people as well. Because let’s
5 be honest, sometimes human remains get split between
6 different – get split between different entities.
7 And that’s probably another discussion altogether,
8 but it’s not quite a – certainly something not
9 pleasant for those communities who are going through
10 this process.
11 And so this is another layer. To me, this is
12 another layer. The question I’m asking you just so
13 everyone can hear, you mentioned some details. I
14 think some of these details are important for not
15 just our museum community or our Federal partners,
16 but also our Native communities who are directly
17 impacted by the questions that are being posed
18 today. So I want to thank you for your presentation,
19 and thank you for your work.
20 PATRICK LYONS: And I would commend you all also
21 on really good work, and I would say that this is
22 another case study that I think emphasizes the
23 importance of one of the issues and possible – one
24 of the barriers and one of the possible solutions,
25 or responses to barriers that we talked about in our
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1 last meeting, which is requiring non-Federal
2 repositories to make available to Federal agencies
3 all associated records, as well as accession catalog
4 records related to collections. So in those cases
5 where it’s clear where you have a permit, and all
6 those sorts of things, that that has to occur. And
7 then even when you do the kind of detective work
8 that you all have been doing, that when you make
9 these determinations, you’re able to get that
10 information and do your job more easily. So again, I
11 would commend you all and thank you for sharing this
12 really good case study with us.
13 HONOR KEELER: Thank you all for presenting this
14 in front of us. This issue of split collections in
15 my own research here in the United States and across
16 the world is that it is not a rare instance but a
17 common occurrence. And I was interested, and I think
18 John brought this up well about that, the way the
19 collection has been – the ancestors and cultural
20 items have been split. From what I understand, there
21 was a permit that can extend, or maybe you can help
22 answer this for me, can extend the – NAGPRA
23 potentially into an international context.
24 So I did have a question. I know the collection
25 is located here and in New York and I think you said
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1 the University of Denmark, but where the ship went
2 down, I also know – I don’t know if that’s
3 international waters or Canada at this point. And so
4 the accessibility for your research, I think has
5 been – it sounds like it’s been difficult to
6 accomplish. And I commend the intern here for having
7 hunted all of that down, because it takes a lot of
8 time and effort and dedication to do that. But I
9 think it’s also a learning process.
10 So anyway, my question has to do with how to
11 negotiate that international context, if in fact the
12 ancestors and cultural items, the collection is
13 under the ownership and control of the BLM through
14 the permit that’s been mentioned. And I know you’re
15 probably at the brink of kind of finding out some of
16 that information, having those discussions. But this
17 takes NAGPRA into an international context. So there
18 are different, I think, agencies also that kind of
19 help to negotiate that. Could you comment on that as
20 well?
21 ROBERT KING: I will mostly defer to Emily here.
22 I would just say that it’s extremely complicated,
23 probably involves the State Department, and maybe
24 more than that. So I’ll turn it to Emily.
25 EMILY PALUS: That was quite succinct. I mean,
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1 this is an aspect of this project that we’re moving
2 towards next. But I will say, a project that was
3 referenced in the October meeting that also involved
4 a collection from Alaska that we had learned that a
5 portion had gone to Finland, and then also had
6 learned about another collection from Alaska that we
7 located in Switzerland. And so this is – other
8 projects involving collections from Alaska, and
9 working actually closely with our colleagues here at
10 the Museum of the North who have just a wealth of
11 knowledge and often key information in their records
12 about these projects. So we had a – we’re starting
13 with – we had done some work with the Swiss
14 collection and have met with State Department and
15 working through that. And if I will say, one at a
16 time is at capacity.
17 If I might, since I have the mic, I’d like to
18 just say that when we’re talking about information,
19 and I feel, yes, we went the route of any member of
20 the public, but that was after as colleagues and the
21 Federal agency with control. But I will also say
22 just the information that we’re talking about is
23 what would otherwise be required of a museum or
24 agency to provide to Indian Tribes and Native
25 Hawaiian organizations and Alaskan Native
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1 Communities pursuant to 25 USC 3003 and 4. That’s
2 the information that we’re talking about.
3 I’m sorry, the international is kind of bigger
4 than us, but we have an Office of International
5 Affairs in the Department of Interior who we have
6 met with on some of the other projects. And I’m
7 aware that the international – that there is
8 interest and concern about Native American cultural
9 items going overseas.
10 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. Just to also follow
11 up, I found in my research as well through the oral
12 history in Native Communities there’s a lot of
13 knowledge there about who’s come into the Community,
14 and who’s exited, and what things may have been
15 talked about, negotiated or taken away, and also
16 what kind of information has been shared. So I would
17 also – I’m sure you’re doing this, but I would also
18 encourage that you seek that kind of input from the
19 Communities as well.
20 PATRICK LYONS: So in the interest of time, I
21 think we should move on to the next presentation, or
22 perhaps talk about how – Madam DFO, your advice on
23 how we go forward time-wise?
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Certainly. I would like to
25 commend Bob on exactly 15 minutes with the
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1 presentation. Thank you very much. And I do know
2 that we quite often run over with these. But I
3 think, provided the Committee is in agreement, these
4 are opportunities for you to get information that we
5 should devote as much time as possible to.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Absolutely.
7 MELANIE O’BRIEN: So the next presentation is
8 from the Department of the Interior, Bureau of
9 Indian Affairs. You want to go now. Yes, I think we
10 should proceed with that agenda item while they’re
11 assembled, and then we will break late for lunch. We
12 had scheduled a long lunch anyway, so we won’t – as
13 long as none of you are going to faint, I think
14 we’ll just continue.
15 PATRICK LYONS: That would be my recommendation.
16 Thank you, yes.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Our next presentation, as I
18 said, is by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We have
19 with us today Annie Pardo, the museum program
20 manager, along with Matt Ganley and Steve Street.
21 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
22 ANNIE PARDO: Thank you. Good morning, Mr.
23 Chairman and members of the NAGPRA Review Committee.
24 My name is Annie Pardo, and I’m the museum program
25 manager and NAGPRA coordinator within the Bureau of
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1 Indian Affairs. This is my seventh presentation
2 before this Committee, and I know that time is
3 limited. So I want to provide an update of BIA
4 activities and accomplishments since the last
5 meeting in October 2018, but also put this in
6 context with a brief history.
7 Approximately 75 percent of BIA collections are
8 housed in non-Federal repositories. A repository is
9 a museum, historical society, university, or other
10 facility that houses museum collections. Our
11 collections came to these repositories through the
12 requirements of Antiquities Act permits starting in
13 1906. The Secretaries of the Smithsonian Institution
14 and the Department of the Interior approved requests
15 that were submitted by various institutions, and
16 granted Antiquities Act permits to conduct
17 archeological excavations on lands owned by the
18 United States. Later, with the regulations
19 promulgated in 1954, additional conditions were
20 added to these permits, including a requirement that
21 any collected objects had to be housed in the public
22 museum designated in the permit and that collections
23 may not be removed from that museum without the
24 written authority of the Secretary of the
25 Smithsonian Institution.
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1 We have learned over time that collections have
2 been moved without permission and without the
3 knowledge of the Federal agency. One of our
4 challenges is locating all of these collections to
5 document them, provide appropriate care, and ensure
6 compliance with NAGPRA. Because the collections and
7 associated documentation are housed in non-Federal
8 repositories, we do not have ready access to field
9 notes, correspondence, accession records, loan
10 documentation, or catalog files. So we must ask the
11 non-Federal repositories to provide us with the
12 information that we need. And since we do not have
13 physical access to the collections at the
14 repositories, we must fund work for repository staff
15 to assess the collections, complete inventories, and
16 provide assistance for Tribal consultations.
17 BIA has funded many contracts, grants and
18 agreements with non-Federal repositories. We have
19 developed multiphase, multiyear projects that create
20 jobs for students and other assistants, including
21 Native youth, and give them professional experience
22 in museum work. We are grateful to the staff at the
23 non-Federal repositories who give so much of their
24 time to do this very important work, and look
25 forward to continuing our partnerships and to
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1 building new ones.
2 BIA asserts control over archeological items,
3 including those subject to NAGPRA, which were
4 removed from Indian trusts or restricted lands under
5 the authority of the Antiquities Act between June
6 8th, 1906, and October 31st, 1979, when the
7 Archaeological Resources Protection Act, ARPA, was
8 passed. We also include items that were removed
9 without authority during this time.
10 BIA continues to make steady progress in
11 NAGPRA, as we work with a number of our non-Federal
12 repository partners through contracts, grants or
13 cooperative agreements to identify and complete
14 inventories of human remains and cultural items. BIA
15 notifies Tribes of inventory completion and moves to
16 consultation. We then draft and publish notices and
17 proceed to repatriate.
18 Since I last briefed the Committee in October,
19 BIA has published four notices of inventory
20 completion, accounting for a minimum number of 508
21 individuals and 11,043 associated funerary objects.
22 BIA has published two notices of intent to
23 repatriate, accounting for 279 unassociated funerary
24 objects. During this time, we have also repatriated
25 510 individuals and 11,322 objects. Some of the
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1 repatriated individuals and objects came from
2 notices published in past years. To date, we have
3 published notices accounting for a minimum number of
4 2,596 individuals, 36,287 associated funerary
5 objects, 29,481 unassociated funerary objects, and 5
6 sacred objects. We have repatriated nearly all of
7 the individuals and objects.
8 In my presentations to this Committee in 2016
9 and 2017, I talked about the BIA Anchorage office
10 receiving human remains in the mail in December
11 2014, and the hurdles that we faced in trying to
12 repatriate these individuals. We sent letters to 133
13 federally recognized Alaska Tribes, as well as to
14 seven regional corporations, without a single claim
15 or request for consultation. As my colleague Ken
16 Pratt, ANCSA Program manager in our Anchorage
17 office, discussed in his comments last October, it
18 was through the efforts of the Bering Straits Native
19 Corporation that these two individuals were finally
20 repatriated.
21 It is a challenge for small Native Villages,
22 home to federally recognized Tribes, to respond to
23 our letters advising them of completed inventories,
24 which may include their ancestors and cultural
25 items. These Villages have no policies or protocols,
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1 and no funding to travel to repositories to review
2 these collections and make claims. I hope that this
3 meeting in Fairbanks provides for greater discussion
4 regarding how we can all assist Alaska’s Native
5 Communities to bring their ancestors home.
6 Thank you for this opportunity. To ensure some
7 representation of Alaska Native groups at this
8 meeting, I asked Matt Ganley, from the Bering
9 Straits Native Corporation, and Steve Street, from
10 the Association of Village Council Presidents, to
11 join in this presentation. We’re happy to answer
12 your questions following the presentations.
13 MATT GANLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee
14 members, for allowing us to comment. I thought
15 Annie’s discussion with regard to the repatriation
16 in Bering Straits pretty much typifies the situation
17 I think we’ve faced for the last 20-some-odd years
18 in terms of implementing NAGPRA at the ground level
19 in Alaska. And a lot of this has to do – I think you
20 all are aware of the differences in Alaska with
21 regard to Tribal status and corporations, and how
22 that differs from the lower 48. And just to give you
23 an idea of how BSNC – when I say BSNC I mean Bering
24 Straits Native Corporation. I have been with them
25 since 1993, and was originally hired as a staff
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1 anthropologist to work on the Section 14(h)(1)
2 program, the BIA program for cemetery and historic
3 site conveyance to the regional corporations.
4 And about that time, of course, 1993 was when a
5 lot of interest and, of course, the passage of
6 NAGPRA was very recent and new, and a lot of
7 interest in empowering people through the Self-
8 Determination Act, as well as NAGPRA, to return
9 these items and individuals to their rightful place.
10 And so Bering Straits Native Corporation – I was
11 actually working for the nonprofit branch of Bering
12 Straits Native Corporation, Bering Straits
13 Foundation. And I was asked to actually solicit
14 ideas and also resolutions from our region’s Native
15 Villages, or IRA Tribes, and the Village
16 Corporations so that we could actually work as a
17 unified force to make specific claims, primarily
18 with the Smithsonian at that time, because that was
19 where most of these human remains resided.
20 And surprisingly enough, many of the Villages –
21 well, all of the Villages and all of the Tribes
22 provided resolutions to give the foundation that
23 authority. Of course that probably wouldn’t work now
24 with regard to the way that the – what’s permitted
25 under NAGPRA and who can make proper claims, but it
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1 worked very well. Well over 1,000 individuals were
2 repatriated to St. Lawrence Island. We repatriated
3 114 remains – sets of remains to a Community that
4 now only has 104 people living in it. But it’s an
5 example of what can be done if there’s certain
6 flexibility within the Act, which there was
7 initially.
8 So the repatriation of 2018 that Annie
9 mentioned was a later example. But before I get to
10 that, part of the reason that Bering Straits has
11 tapered off, or the region has tapered off both in
12 terms of the Tribes’ or the corporations’
13 involvement in NAGPRA and in the repatriation
14 process, is one of capacity and also the changes
15 within the law. I think through the Indian Self-
16 Determination Act, it was envisioned that individual
17 Villages and Tribes would be taking on greater
18 responsibility for things such as NAGPRA. I think in
19 some cases that has occurred, and in some cases it
20 has not occurred.
21 I have close contact with most of the
22 Communities in the region, and there is ongoing
23 frustration with regard to the imperfections of the
24 Indian Self-Determination Act. Of course, we hear
25 the same thing about the Alaska Native Claim
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1 Settlement Act as well, and the problems inherent in
2 that legislation. But making them work together,
3 that is the Tribal authority and the corporate
4 authority under ANCSA, it’s not as difficult as it
5 might first appear.
6 For the one Village I mentioned that we
7 returned remains to on the mainland, Golovin, that
8 Village was very proactive in cultural resource
9 protection. And we devised, working with both the
10 Tribe and the Village Corporation, a resolution that
11 spelled out their authority for all manner of
12 cultural resources. So in other words, it was a
13 joint resolution by the Tribe and the Village
14 Corporation, who really are the same people, let’s
15 face it; recognizing where their management
16 authority was, and recognizing the other entity’s
17 management authority for both, in terms of human
18 remains and all other cultural resources, as well as
19 land ownership. So that worked really well back
20 then. But again, that’s a generation ago. There have
21 been a lot of years that have rolled on. NAGPRA,
22 after the initial forays and efforts for
23 repatriation, has tapered off because it was assumed
24 that the Tribes would be able to pick up and carry
25 on with that. And it didn’t happen in a lot of
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1 cases.
2 The region is composed of 20 Communities –
3 well, 20 Tribes, 17 Communities, and 20 Village
4 Corporations. And I want you to think about that for
5 a minute. That’s a lot of governance. Right? That’s
6 a lot of positions on boards, and a lot of positions
7 of responsibility. And one of our Villages really
8 sort of shows the problems with having so many types
9 of governance. We have one Village that has roughly
10 over 250 people, give or take, on any given day.
11 They have two Tribal organizations within that
12 Village representing two different Communities, they
13 have two Village Corporations within that Community,
14 and they have one city office to manage. From a
15 standpoint of human resources and human capital that
16 you can throw at any given problem, it really is
17 problematic. And it does get down to capacity,
18 funding and people. And as I say, you’re a
19 generation along, and many of the people that were
20 involved both in terms of the Village Corporations
21 and in terms of the initial – I guess, the initial
22 implementation of the Self-Determination Act,
23 they’re older now. They’re not as involved. There’s
24 a whole generation out there that needs to – that
25 doesn’t need to, but is unaware of some of these
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1 issues that we’ve fought over and cooperated on in
2 the past.
3 And I also think that there’s a certain dynamic
4 involved with the corporate picture that you may or
5 may not be aware of from the regional corporations.
6 If you’re unfamiliar with the land claims, there are
7 12 regional corporations in the state. What’s
8 happened is that, because of ANCSA, anyone born 1971
9 or before became a shareholder. So it’s not Tribal
10 membership per se, but that membership was derived
11 from Tribal rolls. So anyone born after 1971 was not
12 a shareholder in the corporation, but there’s been
13 pressure by the younger generations to open the
14 rolls. So now there are corporations in the state of
15 Alaska that basically reflect all the Tribal members
16 within that region and all the descendants of the
17 original people that were enrolled in ANCSA. So in
18 effect, it is representing a body that is nothing
19 but Tribal individuals from the region. And that’s
20 occurring, and I think it’s going to occur probably
21 with almost every regional corporation, is that the
22 rolls will be opened, and their members will also be
23 Tribal members in the region.
24 So how do we make this work moving forward for
25 something like NAGPRA? I don’t have any major
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1 answers to that, except the recognition that that is
2 the case. I think the regional corporations have –
3 because of their economic success, have the capacity
4 and the personnel to actually make things happen in
5 terms of working with the Communities, Villages and
6 Tribes to make repatriation happen. The example
7 Annie gave is a perfect example of that. We appealed
8 to the elders’ committee at Kawerak, which is the
9 regional Tribal compact organization, those elders
10 represented all of the Tribes in the region, that
11 these individuals really should be repatriated. The
12 best information we had that these individuals
13 probably came from a specific region within the
14 Bering Strait region, and would they consider making
15 the claim, and they did. Interestingly enough, the
16 remains were placed in a 14(h)(1) site that Bering
17 Straits Native Corporation would have owned, but it
18 was on Village land. The interplay between corporate
19 land ownership, corporate cultural resources under
20 Section 14(h)(1), and NAGPRA is something that can’t
21 be ignored. The land base, the ancestral Villages
22 that these remains came from, at least in the Bering
23 Strait region, are for the most part owned by a
24 Village or the regional corporation at this time. So
25 proper reburial and proper interment, if this is
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1 what the Tribe desires, to bring them back to where
2 they came from, it’s paramount that the corporations
3 are involved in this in some way.
4 And so this kind of brings me to the idea that
5 the regulations are being kind of reworked here.
6 Also, I think – I’m not going to belabor it, but the
7 memo of March 18th, 2011, which final recommendation
8 was basically to delete land owned by ANCs, Alaska
9 Native Corporations, from being considered Tribal
10 land. Well, that’s reasonable, I think. However,
11 Section 14(h)(1) sites, these small cemetery
12 ancestral sites that many of these remains come
13 from, they’re owned by the regional corporation.
14 They were conveyed to the regional corporations on
15 the basis of Native cultural heritage there. The
16 requirements for that transfer basically mirrored
17 exactly – well, actually not mirrored, but pretty
18 much directly in line with the National Historic
19 Preservation Act. And the Federal Government
20 maintains the authority and interest for enforcing
21 the National Historic Preservation Act on those
22 properties after they’re conveyed. So in other
23 words, these are the only lands, ANCSA lands, that
24 the Federal Government retains a right under law for
25 enforcement of Federal law on, and it’s a cultural
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1 law. It’s a cultural resource law.
2 So I think what I’m asking is that maybe there
3 needs to be some reconsideration on the exclusion of
4 corporations from actively being at the front of
5 claims. I don’t think any regional or Village
6 Corporation would attempt to usurp the local Tribe,
7 but I think they could work in unison much better if
8 they weren’t excluded in language. With that, I’ll
9 open it up for questions when we’re done.
10 STEVE STREET: Does anybody have any questions
11 for Matt before I kind of reinforce some of what he
12 said?
13 My name’s Steve Street. I’m the director of
14 cultural and environmental sciences at the
15 Association of Village Council Presidents in Bethel.
16 And as far as I’m aware, AVCP’s members are 56
17 federally recognized Tribes, and we have right now
18 48 independent Villages that are within the region,
19 about the size of Oregon probably. The Tribes were
20 kind of defined at about the time of the passage of
21 ANCSA, so a few of those Villages aren’t currently
22 occupied right now. That’s why there are a few
23 additional Tribes than there are occupied Villages
24 today. But as far as I’m aware, that’s the largest
25 Tribal consortium in the nation, with 56 federally
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1 recognized member Tribes, unless somebody can
2 correct me on that. So that’s pretty significant.
3 And in many ways I have to just echo what Matt
4 was saying. Administrating anything with that level
5 of governance over such a long distance, with very
6 few resources, and very limited infrastructure and
7 capacity at the Tribal end is really difficult for
8 everybody involved. And Matt and I sort of got
9 involved with repatriation literally 30 years ago
10 when we were working under the National Museum of
11 American Indian Act to document the collections
12 going back to Golovin Bay and White Mountain and the
13 Bering Straits. And then subsequently, we did the
14 analysis for the Mekoryuk, Nunivak Island materials
15 that were returned from the Smithsonian. So some of
16 our involvement was not really under NAGPRA, which
17 came a little bit on the heels of the NMAI law,
18 which you all know. So what I know is probably not
19 relevant to NAGPRA always.
20 But as Matt mentioned, that’s a whole
21 generation ago. And so when I was thinking about
22 what we were going to say today, that was my major
23 interest was to talk a little bit about the capacity
24 that was kind of ramped up when NAGPRA first hit
25 among Tribes out here, and some of the initial
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1 NAGPRA grants that Tribes got to kind of coordinate
2 the repatriation process. And there was a lot of
3 excitement about it in the early nineties, and I
4 think AVCP even had a couple of NAGPRA grants and
5 they did hire a NAGPRA coordinator for a couple
6 years with one of those grants. And additionally,
7 one of our museum directors a little later on was
8 working on a couple of potential repatriations.
9 But as time’s gone by, there are – a lot of
10 major issues sort of float to the top, like public
11 safety, economic development, all these things the
12 regional Tribal consortia are more involved with.
13 Some of these other issues that were pretty
14 important to individuals early on have sort of
15 floated to the bottom again. And my perspective is
16 that most of the Tribal governments out in very
17 remote Villages with very little staff have zero
18 knowledge about NAGPRA anymore, unless somebody’s
19 taken that as their personal interest and they’ve
20 kind of pushed forward. I think Bob King and his
21 group that were here before really illustrate what
22 level of effort that takes to kind of dig down deep
23 in the archives, figure out where these collections
24 are, where all the human remains have ended up.
25 Even recently, there’s been some interest in
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1 our region because of a large archeological
2 excavation that’s been going on for about 10 years
3 that had been driven by a professor when he was in
4 the UAF system actually. But subsequently, he left
5 for Aberdeen, and most of the money that financed
6 that big excavation on Village Corporation land was
7 actually UK money that came into the project and
8 allowed that all to happen. It wasn’t funding from
9 the United States or for any of the agencies. And it
10 kind of runs into this issue that Matt’s described
11 so well of ownership of some of these properties.
12 Because this site, which is a significant site, it
13 has turned out to be an actual location that’s well
14 known in oral history for a big massacre, a battle
15 site that this men’s house was burned down. It’s the
16 real place, so it’s fascinating.
17 But it’s located on Village Corporation
18 property, so it’s owned by the Village Corporation.
19 And the Village Corporation, because their manager
20 was very interested in that project, was sort of
21 front-loading the financing for all that. There was
22 absolutely no money for any of this for several
23 years. And they, at a very late stage, kind of
24 incorporated the Tribal government into this process
25 because there was very little involvement from the
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1 individuals that were on the Tribal council in this
2 project initially too. Because everybody, like I
3 say, is doing everything all at once and wearing
4 many different hats. And so the Tribe sort of came
5 into this project in the back end rather than at the
6 front end of the process.
7 And so now, at the end of it all, to make a
8 long story pretty short, they’ve hit the point where
9 they have exceeded 100,000 artifacts from this
10 excavation. They have done all the conservation in
11 Scotland. All of the materials have been returned to
12 Quinhagak where this excavation’s happened. They are
13 owned by the Village Corporation, and they built
14 their own repository. So there is now a repository
15 for this world class collection sitting in Quinhagak
16 floating in space basically. So there’s no funding
17 to kind of support the operation of that facility.
18 There’s a lot of voluntary work. The people
19 themselves built the repository. How incredible is
20 that?
21 And so it’s actually the dream of almost every
22 Tribe in Alaska. This is the ultimate idea almost
23 every Tribe has of what they would want to happen to
24 their collections that came from their Community if
25 somehow they got hit by a magic money bullet and
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1 they could have professionals overseeing it. But our
2 concern, being in Bethel, is we’re the regional hub.
3 And at the moment, that has not solved the problem
4 because we don’t have much capacity either, and we
5 don’t have space in our museum.
6 Tribes that are trying to do similar things,
7 talk to other large repositories to repatriate some
8 of their collections, and they’re speaking as if we
9 could be the intermediary repository, which we have
10 no capacity to do. In the meantime, some collections
11 that maybe are being repatriated to the Tribe are
12 kind of stuck in limbo, because the Tribe does not
13 want them back if they have no capacity to take care
14 of them or no place to store them. They have no
15 conservator. They just don’t have any way to do
16 that, and no funding either. So that’s kind of where
17 we’re sitting right now.
18 And so I thought, well, it’s coming up during
19 this meeting that we have to think of some creative
20 ways to deal with these things regionally in Alaska.
21 In our region, there are Tribal units at AVCP that
22 are sort of sub-regional cultural areas that group
23 certain Villages together culturally. We haven’t
24 really explored dealing with it in that way as much
25 as we can. And so we have to have some more
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1 discussions about this.
2 I guess my bottom line before I shut up is, I
3 think having this opportunity to talk to the NAGPRA
4 Committee is wonderful for us, because I want all of
5 you to be aware that these are challenges that
6 remote Alaska is undergoing. And I want to say
7 remote rather than rural, because I don’t know how
8 many of you have been to some of these small
9 Villages in rural Alaska, but remote is a better
10 description, because the best you do is fly from
11 Bethel in a small, a 207 plane to go out to the
12 Village, or you have to go by boat or snow machine.
13 That’s it. That’s the kind of isolation that really
14 exists on a day-to-day basis for people, just like
15 Matt was describing.
16 So we do need to have some more creative ways
17 to do outreach. And I’m hoping that you’ll consider
18 thinking about that a little from now on, and maybe
19 trying to consider more outreach again to Tribal
20 governments in Alaska about NAGPRA, and some of the
21 opportunities that exist. You know, I didn’t dislike
22 the idea that was mentioned about some of the
23 museums maybe proactively reaching out to Tribes,
24 and at least alerting them to the fact that they
25 have collections that the museum is convinced have
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1 cultural affiliation to some of those people in
2 those communities, because I know for a fact that
3 that’s the case in our region. In some respects –
4 you know, I’m a physical anthropologist by training,
5 and did a lot of the skeletal documentation for this
6 project, and I’ve never been the best person to take
7 NAGPRA on as one of my big issues for the Tribe. It
8 really needs to be a Native spokesperson at the
9 Tribal government who pushes some of those things
10 forward, but the time is probably now.
11 Does anybody have any questions for any of us?
12 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
13 FRANK MCMANAMON: I just have a comment really,
14 and it’s that one of the responsibilities of the
15 Review Committee is to make recommendations to the
16 Secretary regarding the future care of NAGPRA items
17 that have been repatriated or are about to be
18 repatriated. So I think what you just asked fits
19 quite nicely in terms of what we can do. Now, what
20 we can do about that is another matter, but it’s
21 certainly within the purview.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, I guess the comment that I
23 would make is I think that we’ll have an
24 opportunity, and we’ll be talking about our annual
25 report later. But we do have an opportunity, if not
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1 this time around but perhaps next time after we
2 learn more, about making specific recommendations
3 about barriers, about addressing barriers. It’s
4 something I think we need to consider. We’ve been
5 hearing for a long time about the different
6 situation in Alaska, and the complexities that you
7 all face. And so we’re grateful to you for coming
8 today and talking to us about these issues, and we
9 look forward to helping in the ways that we can.
10 HONOR KEELER: Thank you for your presentation.
11 Some of the things I heard in addition to allowing
12 the Corporations to – the Alaska Native Corporations
13 to repatriate are that there need to be more
14 resources, potentially more training available for
15 Communities. You’ve mentioned the remoteness of some
16 of the Communities, and I wonder if it’s similar
17 also to some of the Tribes on reservations in the
18 United States, if there is an internet connectivity,
19 and to take that into consideration as well. Patrick
20 and Frank, thank you for speaking on this as well.
21 I’m wondering if there’s a way that the Program
22 staff could put together some kind of report or
23 survey that’s done out to the Communities so that we
24 could have a better understanding of the
25 difficulties that the Villages are facing with
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1 regard to NAGPRA and NAGPRA compliance. I’m
2 particularly concerned because I’m hearing also a
3 lot about split collections, and coupled with I
4 think the remoteness of some of the Villages and
5 these difficulties that you’ve been expressing, that
6 there might be a burden up here in Alaska that we
7 need to pay special attention to. Thank you. And I
8 don’t know if you have any other additional comments
9 to what I’ve just said.
10 MATT GANLEY: Yes, as far as Communities
11 desiring to have objects returned and not having the
12 capacity to take care of them, that happened with
13 Golovin where they basically did have the funerary
14 objects returned with the human remains, hoping that
15 it would provide a visual education for the kids in
16 the Community. Within a few months, they realized
17 they didn’t have the proper storage or the care for
18 that. And so there was an arrangement made with this
19 museum for housing those. So the desire is there,
20 but again – in some cases, but not the capacity.
21 I would also like to – at least in the Bering
22 Strait region, there is no protocol. There’s no
23 known – at least that I don’t know of, and as far as
24 any elders I’ve talked to, known protocol for the
25 return of human remains. And I think this is what
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1 really sometimes stops some of the Communities is
2 that they’ll get a letter, and it will say, here you
3 go. And it’s just they – I don’t want to read what
4 they’re thinking or not into it, but it may be that
5 there just isn’t – how do we handle this? Right?
6 Where are we going to get the money to do this? How
7 are we going to deal with the human remains coming
8 back in a respectful manner? I think that’s part of
9 it too. Some Communities and different Tribes have
10 some pretty specific protocols for that in terms of
11 which clans, and the relationship to the human
12 remains, and who can do that kind of thing and
13 handle that type of thing. But as far as I
14 understand, that’s not in existence in any or all of
15 the Communities in the Bering Straits region.
16 Oh, one last thing. I know everyone’s getting
17 hungry. I mentioned the resolution that Golovin
18 brought up. And it is kind of interesting, because
19 if the human remains or artifacts that might be
20 located in corporate – Village Corporation lands is
21 that most – I think most of the Village Corporations
22 or regional corporations certainly recognize is that
23 there’s certain Tribal authority there or Tribal
24 rights that go with those objects. This is what
25 makes it really complicated.
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1 And we had one case in the Bering Straits
2 region in the early nineties. There was a Federal
3 project partly funded, a Village safe water program
4 where they were excavating a water main in the
5 Village of Koyuk, and they encountered human remains
6 with some artifacts that probably, if somebody sold
7 them on the market, the black market or gray market,
8 depending on how you want to phrase it, could bring
9 some money. And so people were concerned that those
10 objects would disappear and what to do with the
11 human remains. And so I was called in, and what we
12 ended up doing is we had all of the parties in the
13 room. We had the elders committee, the Tribe, all
14 the members of the Tribal committee, the Village
15 Corporation, the city office, and they hammered out
16 an agreement to reinter the remains with all of the
17 objects that were found on Village Corporation land.
18 So the land ownership thing is kind of critical, I
19 think, in these discussions, both in terms of
20 Federal projects on Village Corporation lands that
21 might encounter human remains and how that’s dealt
22 with, and also for these past things.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much.
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Are there any other questions?
25 Okay. Yes.
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1 FRANK MCMANAMON: This is really just another
2 comment more than a question. When we were talking
3 earlier about the Program, the National NAGPRA
4 Program activities, we talked about the grants
5 program and we talked about dealing with culturally
6 unidentifiable. And so in, I think, both of the
7 presentations we’ve just heard, which were excellent
8 and informative, we heard about situations that
9 apply there. And we got some general idea of what is
10 needed, and in some cases specific ideas of what is
11 needed. But I would encourage both of the groups
12 that did the presentations, and others here who
13 either are going to do presentations or just have
14 similar kinds of situations, to identify specific
15 things that we might try to do to help out. And
16 there were some – there were a couple of specific
17 things that we heard just now. Whether or not this
18 Committee, or the recommendations we make, can
19 address those or solve some problems in an effective
20 way, I think the more specific ideas we get about
21 what might be helpful, the better for us in
22 reporting to Congress or in recommending things to
23 the Secretary, or things like that.
24 I will say that finding facilities to curate
25 collections and maintaining them is really
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1 difficult. I spent a lot of my career working on
2 trying to do that. Even within the Federal
3 Government, which has enormous resources, it’s hard
4 to find resources for that. But it doesn’t mean that
5 they can’t be found, and it doesn’t mean that we
6 can’t recommend for that kind of thing. So I would
7 encourage the people here at the meeting and others
8 who may be listening to think about those kinds of
9 things that we might try to help with.
10 PATRICK LYONS: And I would say also – I would
11 follow up on what Frank was saying. Because your
12 situation is complicated legally, and because – and
13 I’ll speak for myself, I won’t speak for my
14 colleagues, I’m no expert on what your situation is,
15 but you guys are. I think that we can – you can help
16 us help you if, for example, we were to get written
17 comments that laid out – is that where you were
18 going, Frank, kind of – that lay out for us in a
19 layperson’s understanding of the barriers and the
20 possible solutions, and then we can do a better job
21 of helping you.
22 HONOR KEELER: I know that a lot of Tribal
23 communities also in the lower 48 and Hawaii have
24 experienced these difficulties in finding resources.
25 I wonder if there is some way we may help facilitate
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1 a network that would help each community maybe to
2 talk to each other. If that’s something that if
3 communities would like to volunteer to be able to do
4 that, to share how they’ve worked through some of
5 these problems and to help make those connections.
6 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. So we are a little bit
7 behind, but I think that’s all right. We do have
8 some more time this afternoon. At 1:30, the
9 chancellor for the University of Alaska Fairbanks is
10 coming to welcome you. He was unable to come this
11 morning, but wanted to come after the lunch break.
12 So we do need to reconvene right at 1:30, which
13 gives us just under an hour for lunch. So I guess at
14 this time we will break for lunch, and encourage
15 everyone to please be prompt in returning at 1:30.
16 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
17 LUNCH
18 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay, we’re ready to
19 reconvene. Welcome back, everyone. To get us started
20 after the lunch break, we have with us Daniel White,
21 who is the chancellor for the University of Alaska
22 Fairbanks, to bring you a welcome and a greeting
23 from the university.
24 GREETING
25 DANIEL WHITE: Thank you. (Native American
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1 language.) That is “Welcome” in Lower Tanana, which
2 is the language that was spoken here on this hill,
3 which is named Troth Yeddha’. And I always welcome
4 people to this place in Lower Tanana as a – to
5 introduce how important it is to recognize the place
6 and to – also to embrace Alaska Native and
7 Indigenous studies here at UAF. We are on Troth
8 Yeddha’. We are right next to the future home of the
9 Troth Yeddha’ Indigenous Studies Center, so we – our
10 number one fundraising priority here at UAF is the
11 Troth Yeddha’ Indigenous Studies Center, which will
12 be a cultural learning center, a sharing center. And
13 we have been working on that project for some years.
14 It is still a couple of years out, but it is part of
15 our goal here at UAF to be the global leader in
16 Alaska Native and Indigenous studies.
17 We have made some changes to our curriculum
18 recently. This year will be the first year all of
19 our students will take, as part of their core
20 classes, a Alaska Native and Indigenous themed
21 course. That was a request by our Indigenous
22 students and our Indigenous faculty, and was widely
23 accepted and praised by our faculty. We also had a
24 motion – I have a Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on
25 Native Education and had a recommendation that we
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1 onboard – part of all of the onboarding for faculty
2 and staff at UAF include a several hour session on
3 Alaska Native and Indigenous culture, to ensure that
4 we are – every faculty staff at UAF is conscientious
5 about the different cultures and different ways of
6 learning and knowing.
7 Part of that, you know, part of all of our
8 effort, too, towards being an environment of where
9 people see themselves in our leadership. We have a
10 vice chancellor for rural community and Native
11 education, Evon Peter, who’s a real leader in
12 Alaska, and he’s becoming really a national leader,
13 and that has helped us grow the stature of our
14 Alaskan Native and Indigenous studies here at UAF.
15 And he is, of course, proceeded by great leaders,
16 and of course we were honored as a university last
17 year to have Reverend Anna Frank accept an honorary
18 Ph.D. from UAF.
19 We had – just looking at some data the other
20 day, had four Alaska Native Ph.D. students 20 years
21 ago. Today we have almost 40. And I was in – myself
22 and Evon Peter, who is, as I mentioned, our vice
23 chancellor for Rural, Community and Native
24 Education, go to the home community of any
25 Indigenous student who receives their Ph.D. from
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1 UAF. And so we were last year at Gwichyaa Zhee,
2 which is Fort Yukon, and we were at Fort Yukon the
3 year before that for two Ph.D. hoodings, and we will
4 be at Fort Yukon again next year. And if you’ve been
5 to Fort Yukon, it’s a very small community, and I
6 remarked last year at commencement that I am pretty
7 sure at this point that Gwichyaa Zhee, Fort Yukon,
8 has the highest concentration of Ph.D.s per capita
9 in the country. So we are proud of that, and proud
10 that we can and continue to serve as a circumpolar,
11 at this point and hopefully in the future, global
12 leader for Alaskan Native Indigenous studies.
13 So a big part of what we do here, I welcome
14 people to our commencement and talk to you in – just
15 a welcome in Lower Tanana at commencement. And I
16 welcome people in Gwich’in, because that is where
17 many of our – what many of our students speak. And
18 then, of course, yesterday I was in Emmonak, which
19 is out on the west coast, and I was given the
20 opportunity to welcome people in Yupik, which is a
21 great honor for me to do, as I traveled around to
22 the homes of many of our students. Do I still have
23 another minute? Okay, thanks.
24 One of our – we have been, for many years, the
25 leader in the world in Arctic research. UAF, if you
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1 look at kind of the measures of leadership in
2 scientific study, it frequently is number of
3 publications. And we’re way above the charts of any
4 other university, not University of Washington, they
5 do some stuff there, and University of Colorado,
6 they do some, but we’re way ahead in Arctic
7 research. If you take the next step and you say the
8 number of citations, and citations is kind of a
9 better measure because that says who cares about it.
10 If people cite it, it’s a recognized work. And we’re
11 way ahead of any – it’s not just any U.S.
12 universities, it’s any university in the world, and
13 it includes Federal governments. So more than any
14 Federal government in the world, including the U.S.
15 It’s things like NCAR in Colorado does a lot of
16 Arctic research.
17 Anyhow, how do we take all of that Arctic
18 research and put it to practice? And what we have
19 done over the last year and are working towards, is
20 this center. We have now a Center for One Health
21 Research, and our Center for One Health Research is
22 designed around the Indigenous worldview of
23 connectedness between animals, humans and the
24 environment, that you can’t disconnect those two,
25 and those three together create resilience.
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1 The CDC has a One Health focus, and CDC’s One
2 Health focus is on zoonotic disease; what are the
3 diseases? Here we are focusing our One Health by
4 applying all of this skill that’s been accumulated
5 in Indigenous ways of knowing, in Arctic observing,
6 in climate change, and putting that together in a
7 One Health framework so that we can solve some of
8 the world’s great challenges. And for us, substance
9 abuse, suicide, climate change are big issues. And
10 we are – across the street, Anna Frank was over
11 there this morning, as was I, we have a number of
12 program managers, around 15 program managers from
13 the National Institutes of Health, here as part of a
14 10 million dollar project that they gave us to look
15 at suicide and addiction in rural communities. And
16 so that’s why we were in Emmonak yesterday –
17 Emmonak, again, out in the Delta of the Yukon –
18 looking at this project site that our team is
19 working on, in collaboration with many others. And
20 of course, our leaders of this One Health initiative
21 just submitted a MacArthur Foundation, 100 million
22 dollar challenge grant, so we’re really hopeful
23 about that.
24 Thank you for choosing UAF today, for this, and
25 tomorrow. And thank you for the great work that you
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1 do. It means a lot to us. And this museum, and I
2 look over at Josh Reuther, is really an important
3 place. This is a research museum. This is not a
4 museum where things come to be put in cabinets. They
5 come here to be studied and researched and learned
6 about and learned from.
7 So important that you’re here. Thank you for
8 being here. I had the pleasure all day of saying
9 thank you for coming to UAF to the NIH folks, but
10 today is our day that all new students move into the
11 dorms, and this is my favorite day of the whole
12 year. Because everybody’s coming in, and it’s the
13 first day of the rest of their life. And the first
14 day of the rest of the life of the parents, too. And
15 some are crying and some have got their foot out and
16 they’re ready to get that person out the door. But
17 for everyone it’s a day of change, and it’s a new
18 beginning for many students and many parents. And so
19 thank you for being here, thank you for choosing
20 UAF, and thank you for the important work that
21 you’re doing. Thank you.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Thank you for having
23 us.
24 DANIEL WHITE: Unless there are questions?
25 PATRICK LYONS: Do we have questions? No.
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1 DANIEL WHITE: Okay, thank you.
2 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you again.
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you again, and I just
4 want to say, yet again, what a wonderful partner the
5 museum has been for this meeting.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Absolutely.
7 ACTION ITEM: RECOMMENDATION ON DISPOSITION REQUESTS
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next item on our agenda is
9 an action item for the Review Committee. You are
10 being asked for a recommendation on a disposition.
11 We have Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, from the University
12 of California at Santa Cruz. Before I turn this over
13 to Diane, I would just like to say that as a little
14 bit of background, I’d like to explain the purpose
15 of these kinds of requests.
16 If cultural affiliation of Native American
17 human remains cannot be established pursuant to
18 Section 5 of NAGPRA, and the procedures at 43 CFR
19 10.9, then the human remains are considered
20 culturally unidentifiable. Section 10.11 of the
21 NAGPRA regulations sets forth a procedure for the
22 disposition of culturally unidentifiable human
23 remains that were removed from Tribal lands or from
24 aboriginal lands of an Indian Tribe.
25 For human remains for which a Tribal land or
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1 aboriginal land provenience cannot be determined,
2 museums and Federal agencies must seek a
3 recommendation from the Review Committee on any plan
4 for the disposition or reinternment of those
5 remains. The Review Committee’s recommendation is
6 then submitted to the Secretary of the Interior, who
7 does an independent review of the disposition
8 request, and either concurs or does not concur with
9 the Committee’s recommendation. With the Secretary’s
10 concurrence, though, and the publication of a notice
11 in the Federal Register, the museum or Federal
12 agency may proceed with the disposition plan as
13 presented to the Committee.
14 So the request today is from the University of
15 California at Santa Cruz. There were materials
16 related to this request available in your materials,
17 as well as available to the public. And I will leave
18 it to Diane to tell you more about the proposal.
19 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ
20 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Thank you. Honorable
21 chair and members of a NAGPRA Review Committee, DFO
22 O’Brien, National NAGPRA staff, ladies and
23 gentlemen, good afternoon. My name is Diane Gifford-
24 Gonzalez, and I am an emerita professor currently on
25 recall at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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1 Like Professor Frank, I just don’t seem to have the
2 time to retire. Henceforth, I will be referring to
3 my campus as “UCSC.”
4 I want to thank you all for hearing our
5 disposition request today. And on behalf of my
6 campus, I want to thank Ms. O’Brien and Ms. Sarah
7 Glass, who’ve been a great help to us in preparing
8 our request. I also want to thank the many UCSC and
9 UC Office of the President compliance personnel,
10 who, in the interest of time, I will not name.
11 UCSC was founded in 1965, and is one of the 10
12 campuses in the University of California system. It
13 is located 45 miles south of San Jose, California,
14 on the northern coast of the Monterey Bay, on the
15 traditional and unceded lands of the Uypi Tribe of
16 the Awaswas Nation, today represented by the Amah
17 Mutsun Tribal Band, who are descended from the
18 people taken into Missions Santa Cruz and San Juan
19 Bautista. Today the campus has about 18,000
20 students, having grown from 7,000 in 1976 when I
21 arrived on the campus.
22 I’m a zooarcheologist with a sort of grad level
23 qualifications in human skeletal biology, so I did
24 not do the primary analysis in NAGPRA compliance
25 with these remains. I have worked with museum
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1 collections from Eastern Africa and the Monterey Bay
2 region. I have been curator at the Monterey Bay
3 Archaeology Archives, henceforth MBAA, and again on
4 – from 1977 to 2017, and now again on an interim
5 basis this academic year, 2019-20.
6 Since 1991, I served as – have served as a
7 NAGPRA compliance officer for UCSC. I also
8 represented UCSC on the UC President’s Advisory
9 Group on Cultural Affiliation and Repatriation of
10 Human Remains and Cultural Items for 12 years. All
11 UC campus requests for repatriations to federally
12 recognized Tribal entities or Native Hawaiian
13 organizations or disposition requests must pass
14 through this review group, which – much like this
15 group advises the Secretary of the Interior, that
16 particular advisory group advises the vice president
17 for Research and Graduate Education of the
18 University of California. Too many electronic
19 devices in front of me.
20 The UCSC disposition request before you
21 specifically asks that the Review Committee
22 recommend to the Secretary of the Interior that our
23 campus, under 43 CFR 10, Section 10.11, be permitted
24 a disposition to transfer the human remains and
25 associated funerary objects in our possession to the
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1 Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Costanoan Indians, a
2 nonfederally recognized Native group. The UCSC and
3 UC Office of the President administration support
4 the finding that none of the remains and associated
5 funerary objects in question are culturally
6 affiliated with any federally recognized Indian
7 Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization, nor were they
8 removed from the Aboriginal or present-day
9 territories of any federally recognized Indian Tribe
10 or Native Hawaiian organizations.
11 In our final updated July 2019 notice of
12 inventory completion, which I understand you did not
13 receive earlier than this meeting, UCSC has
14 acknowledged that a disposition under 43 CFR Section
15 10.11 provides that representatives of any federally
16 recognized Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian
17 organization not identified in this notice, which
18 wants to request a transfer of control of these
19 human remains and funerary objects, can submit a
20 written request during the 30-day comment period.
21 UCSC further understands that should no request be
22 made, the disposition of these human remains and
23 associated funerary objects to the Amah Mutsun
24 Tribal Band of Costanoan Indians may go forward.
25 Now here’s where I sort of rip up my prepared
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1 notes for a moment, because this morning we saw some
2 issues brought forward regarding the maps that were
3 shown, showing holdings of remains pending
4 consultation and notice. And of course, California
5 is a glaringly big area for those sorts of remains.
6 And I want to talk to you about recent developments,
7 and then make a distinction between this disposition
8 request and others that you may be seeing in the
9 future.
10 Many such remains, the vast preponderance of
11 them really, in California, university or other
12 museums, are culturally unidentifiable by virtue of
13 being affiliated with nonfederally recognized Indian
14 groups. You may recall that in 2001 the California
15 legislature passed, and our governor signed into
16 law, the so called Cal-NAGPRA to facilitate
17 transfers to nonfederally recognized California
18 Indians. However, very little actually happened as a
19 result of this law for a variety of reasons. And
20 some of you may know that in late 2018, the
21 California legislature passed, and Governor Brown
22 signed into law, Assembly Bill 2538, which
23 specifically mandates the University of California
24 begin such transfers expeditiously. University of
25 California President Janet Napolitano, and UC
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1 Provost Michael Brown are now stating that
2 repatriation will be the rule henceforth for human
3 remains held by UC campuses. 43 CFR Section 10.11
4 will vastly facilitate this, of course.
5 Now I’m happy to answer questions about this as
6 far as my knowledge goes at the end of my
7 presentation, but I do want to stress that this
8 disposition request started – is not a result of AB
9 2538. Our process started in 2016, before this
10 assembly bill was passed. And the UC Office of the
11 President did not want to delay our process while
12 the details of UC’s implementations of the new law,
13 and its coordination with the California State
14 Native American Heritage Commission’s certification
15 of California Indian Tribes, are worked out, which
16 may take quite a while more.
17 So to assist the Review Committee in
18 understanding the nature of UCSC’s small
19 collections, our pattern of consultations, and the
20 situation of the many nonfederally recognized Tribal
21 people in California, I will present a brief history
22 of the MBAA, our consultations therefrom, in the
23 context of central California Indians’ colonial
24 history in the mid to late 19th century, and into
25 the 20th.
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1 In comparison with the extensive holdings of
2 human remains and other objects covered under NAGPRA
3 at UC Berkeley, Davis, Santa Barbara and UCLA,
4 UCSC’s holdings are relatively few. Today the MBAA
5 has 116 accession numbers, comprising 104 or so
6 precolonial, aka prehistoric materials, from Santa
7 Cruz and Northern Monterey counties, i.e. around the
8 Monterey Bay north to south, plus some historic
9 materials from our campus and its Landels-Hill Big
10 Creek Natural Reserve in Big Sur.
11 Our disposition request involves a minimum of
12 29 individuals and 29 associated funerary objects
13 and, believe me, there was some recounting to try to
14 make sure that these two numbers were truly
15 identical. All the remains and associated funerary
16 objects covered in this disposition came into UCSC’s
17 collections before 1990, in fact before 1976, and
18 they constitute the totality of UCSC’s NAGPRA-
19 related remains, human remains and objects.
20 The MBAA came into existence as a named entity
21 over a decade after archeological collections began
22 to accumulate, before my own time at UCSC. From my
23 hiring in 1976 until 1989, I was the only
24 archeologist on the then small campus. My
25 predecessor in this post, as well as the founder of
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1 the Anthropology Department before him, had
2 accumulated archeological collections from several
3 sources. These included those from two UC Berkeley
4 archeological failed schools on a site on the UCSC
5 campus in the mid-1960s; those from a salvage
6 excavation of a local site on private land,
7 undertaken after the owner had been red-tagged by
8 Santa Cruz County for development without a permit,
9 and coincidentally bulldozing a Native site with
10 human burials; and from small cultural resource
11 management or CRM projects by my predecessor.
12 All these collections contained human remains.
13 The only associated funerary objects came from the
14 two burials excavated by the UC Berkeley field
15 schools. Also before 1976, my predecessors, contrary
16 to State law, accepted from local Santa Cruz city
17 residents, isolated human remains that these
18 residents found while building or gardening on their
19 private property. These lack detailed provenience,
20 other than Santa Cruz City. Because no one else was
21 available in 1977, and no other UC campus consulted
22 wanted to receive these materials, I began curating
23 them.
24 Students in my lab courses helped produce
25 several site content reports for our State Historic
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1 Preservation – State Historic Information Center.
2 From 1982 to 2015, the MBAA served, as well, as the
3 only fee-based UC nonprofit repository for CRM
4 related collections between Sonoma, 120 miles to the
5 north of UCSC, and San Luis Obispo, about 165 miles
6 to the south. The MBAA also accepted a few small
7 collections from Cabrillo Community College, our
8 local two-year educational partner. And the MBAA has
9 never housed, nor does now, any Federal collections.
10 The MBAA has never had exhibit space, and the
11 only public use of its contents has been showing
12 school children Native artifacts in connection with
13 their California history units. Human remains and
14 associated funerary objects were never subject to
15 display or research, other than necessary for NAGPRA
16 requirements, nor to any teaching uses. Tribal
17 members have always been welcome to visit the
18 collections on request. Other types of artifacts,
19 with the consent of a small faculty advisory group,
20 have been used by student and faculty researchers
21 from UCSC and other institutions. For example, a
22 UCSC toxicology professor tested the lead isotope
23 levels in pre-contact sea otter teeth from some
24 sites, to establish a pre-industrial lead baseline
25 for the waters of the Monterey Bay.
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1 No new research excavations were carried out by
2 UCSC on regional sites that might have added to the
3 MBAA collections after I arrived there. My
4 archaeological colleagues and I have either worked
5 outside California, as I did for the first 25 years
6 of my career, or we have dealt primarily with
7 existing museum collections, as I personally have
8 done for about the second 25 years in my career. The
9 department’s most recent archeological hire,
10 Professor Tsim Schneider, is a Californianist who
11 studies the mission period from an Indigenous
12 perspective. He is enrolled Coast Miwok member of
13 the federally recognized Federated Tribes of Graton
14 Rancheria. He uses noninvasive methods for site
15 prospection, and his excavations remain mindful of
16 Tribal provisions for his research, as well as State
17 and Federal law.
18 When our department moved into its present
19 building in 1994, Social Sciences 1, there seen on
20 the slide, the social science division allocated two
21 small office and storage spaces totaling somewhere
22 between 600 and 700 square feet. Compacting
23 shelving, which we really needed in that small
24 space, free data and phone lines, and $1,500 a year,
25 now down to $1,388 due to the state budget cuts, for
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 142
1 running the MBAA. This income was supplemented by
2 those one-time only repository curation fees, which
3 allowed hiring a part-time work-study student,
4 assistant curator, and student internships for
5 academic credit provided the labor force for
6 curation and data management under my and the
7 assistant curator’s supervision. For lack of an
8 immediate successor curator, when I retired in 2015,
9 the MBAA has now at least temporarily closed down
10 its repository function.
11 After the 1990 passage of NAGPRA, all MBAA
12 curation contracts required that the depositing –
13 required that the depositing company or agency
14 perform all NAGPRA-related obligations before
15 depositing the balance of the archeological
16 materials in the MBAA. Thus, collections deposited
17 between 1990 and 2015 have no known human remains or
18 funerary objects. However, between 1978 and the
19 present, some additional remains were inadvertently
20 found during the zooarchaeological research I’ve
21 been conducting with the MBAA’s collections. These
22 were mainly from CRM excavations. But rather than
23 interpreting this as the firm’s lack of compliance
24 with NAGPRA, or our MBAA contract, we should bear in
25 mind that most CRM project sample and report on
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 143
1 perhaps 10 percent of what they excavate during that
2 kind of an archeological mitigation, isolated and
3 fragmentary human remains would, of course, not be
4 identified in the unanalyzed segment of the fauna.
5 Not every CRM firm or lab team has personnel trained
6 in both human and nonhuman osteology, so small human
7 bones, especially children’s, may not be recognized
8 for what they are.
9 Now for your information, the likelihood of
10 finding isolated human remains is higher in our
11 region, because many Native central Californians
12 ritually interred their dead in mounds containing
13 plant remains, seashells, animal bones, discarded
14 lithics, and other byproducts of daily life.
15 Professor Schneider, whom I mentioned before, has
16 shown that Native people continued to use such so-
17 called middens as places for birth, death, and
18 burial, into the mission period, when some missions
19 actually gave Indians passes to return to their home
20 places for such critical transitions. Through
21 hundreds, if not thousands of years of use, some
22 human bones would come to be mixed with other
23 remains of daily life.
24 A few such finds of isolated human remains,
25 from sites that entered our archives before 1976,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 144
1 were found and are included in this disposition
2 request. Others such finds from CRM deposits, per
3 our curation contracts, have respectfully been
4 returned to the depositing agency to be handled
5 through their established processes with descendent
6 communities.
7 Due to the small size of our collections, UCSC
8 met both the 1993 and 1995 NAGPRA inventory
9 deadlines, and we never sought a NAGPRA grant
10 because, until 2011, we could not proceed with
11 formal consultations or transfers of human remains
12 and associated funerary objects to nonfederally
13 recognized groups, as permitted with the addition of
14 Section 10.11.
15 In 1991, I did request and receive, from the
16 UCSC chancellor, a modest amount to temporarily hire
17 a person with a master’s level certification in
18 archeology to conduct a thorough records
19 reorganization and search for all our curated site
20 collections, seeking those sites that might
21 potentially be subject to NAGPRA’s inventory
22 provisions. And I personally went through all the
23 faunal collections then in the MBAA, looking for
24 human remains. At that point, my skills were up to
25 at least finding the human remains, although
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 145
1 sometimes I couldn’t tell what metatarsal it was. So
2 these, as I said, were the faunas that were
3 deposited before 1976.
4 We hold no ethnographic objects, but we
5 researched and consulted on the possibility of what
6 sacred items or items of cultural patrimony, such as
7 the so-called big head abalone ornament that was
8 used in ceremonies around the time of historic
9 contact, could exist in archeological materials,
10 perhaps in fragmentary form. We found none in our
11 searches.
12 Between 1991 and 1995, we communicated by
13 letter about our collections to interested parties,
14 including other UC campuses and organized descendent
15 groups representing the Melakwa Tamyen, Mutsun
16 Rumsen, as well as Esselen speaking peoples who
17 circled the San Francisco and Monterey Bays – these
18 were the organizations that were then in existence –
19 informing them of our inventories, their contents,
20 and the provisions of the law, or lack of it, for
21 transfers to nonfederally recognized Native groups,
22 and all of these groups are not federally
23 recognized.
24 By invitation, on March 26, 1995, I met with
25 the heads of the Indian Canyon Mutsun Ohlone, Pajaro
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 146
1 Valley Indian Council, who self-identified as Rumsen
2 Ohlone, the Monterey Band of Rumsen of Chico,
3 California, the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County,
4 the Salinan Nation, and several Native individuals
5 representing themselves. I informed these groups
6 about the terms of the law, as it stood then, and
7 distributed copies of inventories, supplementing
8 those that had already been sent. Until Section
9 10.11 was added, the MBAA did not further engage in
10 any consultations.
11 Because the colonial history of nonfederally
12 recognized groups in California, such as the Amah
13 Mutsun Tribal Band, may not be widely known even
14 within the state of California, much less outside
15 it, I feel it’s important to briefly outline general
16 aspects of their history, especially during the
17 American period that affect our disposition
18 requests. Many of us are familiar with the
19 precedent, for example, early on in the NAGPRA era
20 of the repatriation request by the federally
21 recognized Gay Head Wampanoag Tribe, for human
22 remains and associated funerary objects, on behalf
23 of their then nonfederally recognized kin, the
24 Mashpee Wampanoag. This might lead one to ask why
25 this precedent could not be followed in our
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 147
1 situation. In our case, there’s absolutely no
2 federally recognized group within several geographic
3 and linguistic divisions of the Costanoan language,
4 family, and cultural group.
5 This is a map showing the many Tribal groups at
6 historic contact by the Spanish and later other
7 European explorers, and the inset map shows the
8 Indigenous language families. And this close-up map
9 now shows those areas of most concern to us with the
10 San Francisco Bay. Do we have – oh yes, there it is.
11 The San Francisco Bay is up here. The Monterey Bay
12 is down here. And you can see that a very large
13 proportion of the San Francisco Bay and all of the
14 Monterey Bay were areas in which resided Costanoan
15 language speakers.
16 Descendants of all these groups today still
17 endure. Some call themselves “Ohlone.” I will stick
18 to the term “Costanoan” to refer to the language
19 group, and then use specific Indigenous names for
20 the local subdivisions of the group. The red
21 lettering on this map shows the Tribal headquarters
22 towns of geographically nearest federally recognized
23 Tribes. And I’m going to discuss that in more detail
24 when I talk about our consultations.
25 Now, some families or even Villages were
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 148
1 enrolled as Indians during the late 19th and early
2 20th centuries of the American period, but then
3 disenrolled by the 1930s, not as part of any
4 nationwide scheme to disenroll and relocate Indians
5 as in the fifties, but rather locally by Indian
6 agents who in retrospect are widely seen to have
7 been unscrupulous in fulfilling their duties. The
8 Amah Mutsun, along with nearly all other groups
9 within the Costanoan language family, have applied
10 for Federal recognition or re-recognition.
11 Central Californian Indians’ identities as
12 former mission Indians did not translate either into
13 treaty status or even personal safety during – from
14 1850 onward when the state of California came into
15 being as part of the United States of America. From
16 1850 to 1870 California’s new state government by
17 legislation, congressional lobbying and other means,
18 undermined the Federal Government’s efforts to
19 negotiate 18 treaties with California Indians, which
20 would have covered at least a third of the Indians
21 in the state, effectively nullified most Indians’
22 perfectly legal Mexican land titles, and passed a
23 law that took away human – that took away living
24 children, Indian children from Indian parents and
25 put them into slavery basically, apprenticeships in
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 149
1 white families from which most never returned.
2 After the failure of the 18 unratified
3 treaties, the Federal Government never again engaged
4 in treaty negotiations with California Indians. I
5 think this is really important that we all
6 understand this. All federally established
7 reservations in California result from
8 individualized acts of Congress, Executive orders,
9 or outcomes of litigation. Moreover, the first
10 American governor of California and many local
11 settler governments supported extermination as a way
12 of dealing with California’s Indian problem,
13 distributing up-to-date Federal weaponry acquired
14 from the Federal Government to local militias, and
15 offering bounties on Indian body parts. Estimates of
16 California Indians killed from 1849 into the 1870s
17 vary up to the tens of thousands.
18 So not surprisingly, many Indians survived and
19 kept their children with them by identifying
20 themselves as Mexicans and most had Mexican surnames
21 because of the mission period, and by never engaging
22 in public displays of their Native identity and
23 religious practices for most of the 19th and 20th
24 centuries. And I know that you on this panel know
25 better than I the stipulations of Bureau of Indian
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 150
1 Affairs laws regarding criteria for Federal
2 recognition. As a result of these American era
3 dislocations and persecutions, no Indian group
4 within the Costanoan language family is federally
5 recognized, nor do they have close cousins from whom
6 to seek help, as did the Mashpee Wampanoag.
7 With this historic background, let me turn to
8 our disposition request. In 2012, after the passage
9 of Section 10.11, we began further research into the
10 affiliations and human remains and associated
11 funerary objects in the MBAA. In the intervening
12 time between our initial inventory and land-based
13 affiliation, many books, dissertations, articles,
14 and computer databases had emerged concerning
15 central California history in the 19th and into the
16 20th centuries, and I just list some of them there.
17 But for us, probably the most critical is the now
18 digitized Spanish mission records and the articles
19 that have been written from them listing the
20 Villages of origin of people taken into Missions
21 Santa Cruz, San Juan Bautista, and San Carlos
22 Borromeo, located near the present-day city of
23 Monterey and on Rumsen speaking lands. And these
24 were especially compelling.
25 By 2015, UCSC had established that
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 151
1 archeological, linguistics, and ethno historical
2 evidence all indicated that these human remains and
3 associated funerary objects are from the ancestral
4 lands of the Amah-Mutsun Tribal Band of Costanoan
5 Indians, who are the lineal descendants of Awaswas-
6 speaking Indians taken into Mission Santa Cruz and
7 the Mutsun-speaking Indians taken mainly into
8 Mission San Juan Bautista, as both missions were
9 established in their ancestral lands.
10 In 2015, we began informal discussions with the
11 Amah Mutsun leadership revisiting our inventory and
12 outlining options for transfer. By 2016, the Amah
13 Mutsun set this disposition process in motion by
14 sending the UC Santa Cruz executive vice chancellor
15 and provost a formal letter requesting the transfer
16 of the human remains and associated funerary objects
17 in the MBAA to them.
18 And we began in 2016, with the advice from
19 National NAGPRA Program, a wider consultation with
20 Tribes reaching out to two categories of Indian
21 groups. First were the federally recognized Tribes
22 who were closest geographically to Costanoan
23 speakers, but with whom the Amah Mutsun have no
24 close cultural affiliations. Yet, they do have
25 working relationships today. The second were the
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1 geographically nearest nonfederally recognized
2 descendent groups of Costanoan-speaking Indians,
3 simply as a gesture of courtesy.
4 So this map again shows several things. One is
5 the distance from the Awaswas and Mutsun homelands,
6 which are here and here, of the Coast Miwok
7 headquarters and the Yokut-speaking Chukchansi
8 headquarters and the Chumash-speaking Solvang
9 Indians down here. And this map is – there are some
10 other federally recognized groups to the northeast
11 and south farther away, but it gives you a sense of
12 how many Tribal groups that are in existence today
13 were not federally recognized because of the history
14 that I’ve recounted.
15 The nonfederally recognized groups, in addition
16 to the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria,
17 the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, and
18 the Santa Inez Band of Chumash Indians, nonfederally
19 recognized groups were the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of
20 the San Francisco Bay area and the Ohlone Costanoan
21 Esselen Nation, or OCEN as they call themselves,
22 known also historically as the Monterey Band of
23 Monterey County, who are both descendants of Rumsen
24 and Costanoan speakers and Esselen, which is a
25 distinct language, speakers. But as you can see,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 153
1 they were sort of cheek by jowl on the map.
2 So we’d sent two letters to either the Tribal
3 historic preservation officers or, if none were
4 identified on the National NAGPRA or Tribal
5 websites, to Tribal leadership outlining the
6 intended disposition, offering to send supporting
7 evidence, and to confer by phone or for nearby
8 Tribes to come and visit. In summer of 2017, we sent
9 a follow-up letter stating that we would assume that
10 a lack of response indicated a lack of objection, in
11 some cases followed again with phone calls or
12 emails.
13 Graton and Picayune Rancherias sent letters
14 supporting the disposition, which you have before
15 you, copies of which have been circulated. And Santa
16 Inez did not object to the disposition. OCEN Chair
17 Ramirez and I spoke on the phone twice, and OCEN
18 sent a letter supporting the disposition. Although,
19 they had some concerns about the Elkhorn Slough or
20 the Monterey County remains. However, our findings
21 are that those five human remains from Elkhorn
22 Slough and Monterey County are smack dab in the
23 middle of the Coastal Mutsun territory, based on
24 linguistic and ethnohistoric documents.
25 We then sent our request up the chain of
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 154
1 chancellors, delegates, through our campus to the
2 office of the president, and it took several years
3 for everybody to get it on their docket and to
4 review it thoroughly, because there are independent
5 reviews at each level, which led us finally to be
6 able to submit our documentation. After Vice
7 President for Research Ellis approved the
8 recommendations in January, we sent our packet into
9 National NAGPRA this same year and are happy to be
10 on the docket with you now.
11 So to sum up, UCSC and the UC Office of the
12 President hold that the preponderance of evidence
13 affiliates the human remains and associated funerary
14 objects in the Monterey Bay Archaeology Archives
15 with the ancestral lands of the Awaswas and Mutsun
16 peoples represented today by the Amah Mutsun Tribal
17 Band of Costanoan Indians. These remains and
18 associated funerary objects all entered the MBAA
19 well before 1990. Skeletal biologists have
20 established they’re all Native American. They are
21 not culturally affiliated with any federally
22 recognized Tribe, nor are they from lands that were
23 ever aboriginal territories of any federally
24 recognized Indian Tribe. We therefore respectfully
25 request that the Review Committee recommend approval
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 155
1 of this disposition to the Secretary of Interior.
2 Thank you. Happy to take questions.
3 PATRICK LYONS: Any questions?
4 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
5 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, of course I have a
6 question.
7 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Sure.
8 HEATHER EDGAR: Thank you very much for your
9 thorough presentation. I have a question. I’m not
10 going to ask you about the extent to which the UC
11 system’s byzantine system is a burden and not a
12 help, but maybe that will – I don’t think I need to
13 really ask that question.
14 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Well, let me just say
15 this about that, as a former president used to say,
16 I have found that our byzantine system actually has
17 been very supportive. And I really wanted to call
18 out all the names, but it would’ve taken quite a
19 while. And we understand now from our UC president
20 and our provost that this is the sort of attitude
21 that we should be coming in with generally, which is
22 a more positive attitude toward transfer of remains
23 to Tribes.
24 HEATHER EDGAR: Attitude’s great. It’s really
25 important, and keeping a good attitude in the face
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 156
1 of bureaucracy is something I find challenging. So I
2 wish you a lot of luck with that. I just have a
3 couple of really technical questions. They’re just
4 small. One of them was about the MNI. And so you
5 didn’t do the biological anthropology yourself –
6 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Okay, so let me – let
7 me just stipulate these human remains have been gone
8 through twice; once by Alison Galloway, a very
9 famous forensic anthropologist, skeletal biologist,
10 very rigorous, and she did the initial NAGPRA
11 inventory, human. I did the associated funerary
12 object descriptions. She did the human remains
13 descriptions for each and every one that we had.
14 Then before – well, in the process leading up to
15 this disposition, I took out all the collections
16 which were in a locked cabinet and locked room and
17 went through them all again. And as I said before,
18 you know, I’m a zooarcheologist. I know bones, and I
19 have a reasonable sense of human remains. And in the
20 meantime, those isolated human remains that were
21 found, I either showed Alison Galloway or one of her
22 advanced graduate students, who’s now a forensic
23 anthropologist and other things for our county
24 sheriff’s office. So if I thought something was
25 potentially human, I always had it validated by
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 157
1 somebody whose bailiwick that really was.
2 I also, in that second review, though, found
3 some materials that had never been counted, never
4 been described. And I also found one or two that had
5 been described as human that weren’t. And because I
6 know my seals and because I know my bears and so
7 forth, I was able to say, okay, these need to come
8 out. And actually I sent some corrections to
9 National NAGPRA at that point that some of our – and
10 I did send this spreadsheet that I developed, which
11 had all of the number of identifiable specimens, as
12 well as how I derived MNI, which I’ll discuss with
13 you a little further in a moment. Plus a lot of
14 these sites, radiocarbon dating never happened, but
15 artifacts and especially shell beads and projectile
16 points can sort of zero us in on general timeframes.
17 And the local descendent groups never wanted any
18 inclusions to the graves, such as a shell bead, to
19 be radiocarbon dated. So I didn’t do it, and there
20 wasn’t any money anyhow. You saw the budget.
21 So as far as reckoning MNI on that second go-
22 round, of course, burials are usually MNI of one,
23 but two of our burials had extra legs. You know,
24 there were three. So that was interesting. So we
25 gave MNI of two to those. And then with other
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 158
1 specimens such as the five human remains that could
2 actually fit in my hand from Elkhorn Slough, I
3 assigned an MNI of five because there was no
4 distinctive proof that these were associated with
5 one human skeleton. There was a worn human molar and
6 some fragments of post cranial bones, a phalanx, and
7 so forth that – I was conservative and said MNI
8 five. And most other cases we didn’t do that. Does
9 this help?
10 HEATHER EDGAR: It does. I think you may have
11 already answered my question, but I just want to
12 make sure. This last thing you talked about, the MNI
13 of five. Those are five fragments of human remains
14 that are found in kind of one big location, but five
15 locations?
16 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: It was a very small
17 test excavation and in a private property that the
18 owner wanted to develop along the Elkhorn Slough as
19 sort of a sportsmen’s – and it turned out, now, it’s
20 – as far as I know, it’s either in nature
21 conservancy or it’s part of the Elkhorn Slough
22 National Research Reserve. And those – it was a very
23 limited excavation and this is one of the ones I
24 received from Cabrillo College. And they said, oh,
25 here’s the fauna. And as I went through the fauna,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 159
1 when I did that 1991-92 review, I went, no, these
2 aren’t fauna, and that’s how they came to be. They
3 were from two excavation units. They were sort of
4 one by ones and from several layers – levels in
5 each.
6 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay. I understand and certainly
7 your qualifications I know about, and I know Dr.
8 Galloway’s qualifications, as well. The question
9 that I had had from the report was about a
10 particular case – and I wish I could remember which
11 site it was. I was looking and trying to find it –
12 where you have a partial skeleton that’s female, and
13 then you also have some tibia fragments that are
14 supposed to be an adult male. So that I’m going to
15 assume from what you just said, that the partial
16 skeleton of the female included at least one tibia,
17 so that we have a total of three -
18 PATRICK LYONS: Three tibia.
19 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes.
20 HEATHER EDGAR: Or at least two lefts or
21 something like that.
22 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes, yes. You got it.
23 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay. It was unclear from the
24 paperwork, and I just was like, oh, I don’t know how
25 you know these are male and female from – I still
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 160
1 don’t know how you know how a partial tibia is a
2 male or female, but that’s okay. That’s not really
3 the important part.
4 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: This is Alison. This is
5 Alison, you know? I went by her – well, what I know
6 is that the one tibia was – I’m a short person, but
7 it was much longer than mine and very robust. And
8 the partial burial was of a much more petite
9 individual without a lot of, you know, brow ridges.
10 HEATHER EDGAR: If you’ve got three, that’s the
11 end of the conversation.
12 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: The end of the
13 conversation. We’ve got at least – I think it was
14 like two lefts, or I should have brought the Excel
15 spreadsheet and I didn’t.
16 HEATHER EDGAR: It’s okay. I just wanted to make
17 the point that the reason I’m asking this, it may
18 seem picayune, but MNI is important. We talk a lot
19 about what’s been reported, what’s been returned,
20 all those kinds of things, you know. We spent a lot
21 of this morning counting numbers of burials or of
22 human remains that are outstanding, human remains
23 that have been repatriated. And it’s these numbers
24 or these kinds of things that those numbers are
25 built on. So that’s why I bothered to ask the
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1 specific questions.
2 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes.
3 PATRICK LYONS: Well, it was on my list too, but
4 just to sum it up, so it’s the difference between
5 the 22 reported here in the NAGPRA database in ‘03
6 versus the 29 is accounted for by the two extras –
7 the two multiple burials, and then the five that
8 you’ve just discussed?
9 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: No.
10 PATRICK LYONS: Oh, not that simple.
11 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Not that simple. And
12 when – this is – we don’t want to be throwing people
13 under buses, you know.
14 PATRICK LYONS: No.
15 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: So I sent in the
16 updated review, which I knew enlarged MNI. It was an
17 Excel spreadsheet. I did a total at the bottom and
18 compared it to what we had before, and went, oh,
19 this is different.
20 PATRICK LYONS: Sure.
21 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: So you know, I sent it
22 in and said, our page should be updated. And so far
23 as I know that didn’t happen. And then the first NIC
24 CUI pulled numbers that were not borne out by that
25 second review’s count of AFOs, associated funerary
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1 objects. So this is why there’s a lack of accordance
2 between what was, at least until recently,
3 accessible on the website and what was reported in
4 our disposition request. If anybody’s interested, I
5 can email them the Excel spreadsheet. It’s pretty
6 easy to read.
7 PATRICK LYONS: Well, I do have a couple more
8 tiny questions. So in the updated reports – well,
9 actually in the draft notice -
10 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes.
11 PATRICK LYONS: Let’s see. On page four, when
12 there’s the report on Burial 1, it looks like we’re
13 listing 16 associated funerary objects. And then for
14 Burial 2 on the following page, on page five, we
15 have 12 associated funerary objects. So that’s 28,
16 but then the summary paragraph indicates 29 funerary
17 objects.
18 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: That’s an error then,
19 and I would be delighted to change the double 29 to
20 29/28. Yes.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. It just looks like the one
22 pestle got listed twice maybe in the summary
23 paragraph.
24 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: I didn’t count enough.
25 Yes, thanks.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 163
1 PATRICK LYONS: Again, I’m not playing “gotcha.”
2 Like Heather said, we just trying to make sure that
3 we do -
4 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: No, don’t worry. I’ll
5 make a note.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. Thank you. And then I
7 guess – and this is, again, my ignorance in dealing
8 with – forgive me, so this is my ignorance in
9 dealing with the names of the different groups with
10 whom you were in consultation. And so the Form B –
11 and again, this may be my mistake, but on page two
12 of Form B, it looks like the Costanoan Esselen
13 Nation is referred to as the Costanoan Esselen
14 Nation, but also the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen
15 Nation.
16 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Okay. And again, an
17 error. It’s the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you.
19 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Should – just for my –
20 since I’m the compliance officer, should I change
21 these and resubmit anything or how do we want to
22 work that?
23 MELANIE O'BRIEN: With the changes to the
24 numbers, we can work that out with you on the
25 notice. That’s fine.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 164
1 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Okay. Great.
2 PATRICK LYONS: Do we have other questions on
3 the panel?
4 JOHN BEAVER: Yes, just to follow up. I want to
5 thank you. This was a very informative presentation
6 in terms of the history of this particular
7 collection, the human remains. I thought it was
8 great content in terms of the history of the region.
9 Certainly gave me more understanding of that.
10 With that, I do want to – like I said, in your
11 presentation, you certainly laid out the process
12 that seemed that it’s gone on for quite some time.
13 You laid out how it seemed it had gone through the
14 process at the university as well. And so while the
15 question is before this Review Committee, the
16 question that I have for you is so what is your
17 confidence level, along with the university’s
18 confidence level, in this determination that you’ve
19 reached to return – or these items will go to this
20 particular community? I just want to have an
21 understanding of what your confidence level outside
22 of, say, in the absence of there wasn’t a Review –
23 you know what I mean? There wasn’t a Review
24 Committee or this wasn’t part of the process.
25 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Well, I hope I don’t
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1 offend anyone in the room by saying that I think our
2 confidence level is such that were the Amah-Mutsun
3 federally recognized, we wouldn’t be sitting here
4 today having this conversation. We would have done
5 what we would do with a federally recognized – a
6 Tribe with Federal recognition standing.
7 There are various Costanoan-speaking descendent
8 groups with various different levels of
9 organization, but people have – they have Tribal
10 historians. They have genealogists. Our particular
11 group that we’re requesting a disposition to has not
12 – the elders have not felt it proper to do DNA
13 either on themselves or the remains, but other
14 people farther north, such as some in the Monterey
15 Bay who belonged to the Tamyen group, have done this
16 and established – by something that’s outside of
17 NAGPRA, they have established pretty strong
18 continuity despite all these horrors of the past 200
19 years.
20 So as I said, our confidence is quite high, in
21 the high nineties. The main thing I would say is the
22 reason I’m saying it’s not a 100 percent is there
23 are some people who have not deigned to join the
24 Amah Mutsun. Just like I’m familiar a little bit
25 with different Tribal dynamics in different parts,
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1 but I believe that the majority of descendants who
2 can trace their genealogies back to a named ancestor
3 taken into one of these two missions who had a named
4 village recorded by the padres is strong. And they
5 are really right now the majority of those
6 descendants in this area.
7 JOHN BEAVER: Once again, I want to thank you
8 for the thoroughness of the presentation and the
9 research and how you’ve been working with the
10 communities in that region. And thank you for
11 answering that. I thought it was a very thoughtful
12 answer to the question posed. And it seems like you
13 went – to me anyway, it seems like you’ve gone
14 through the process of contacting, say, local
15 communities, potentially impacted communities in the
16 area, in the region, previously interested parties
17 that live in that region. And have gone through your
18 own process at the university, which not only just
19 answering the confidence question, but also the
20 university has great confidence in the
21 recommendation that’s being put forward. So it
22 sounds like everyone there is all on the same page
23 in this process.
24 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes, I mean we were
25 having trouble contacting the Picayune Rancheria of
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1 Chukchansi Indians. It was just – they were moving,
2 and their phone lines weren’t working, and mail got
3 returned. And in your packet you will have the Vice
4 President Ellis’ letter where he says, try again to
5 reach Yokut-speaking peoples, and so we did. And I
6 finally found a number that worked and their THPO
7 was just right on it. And very, very – if you look
8 at the date of the letter from the Picayune
9 Rancheria, it is very recent, and they turned that
10 around really fast.
11 And all the federally recognized Tribes who had
12 talked to us about it are really supportive of all
13 repatriations, as they would call it. Although I
14 know under NAGPRA, we can’t call this that. So it’s
15 been a generally very good, if rather slow, process.
16 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you.
17 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, I would also commend you
18 all on being very conscientious on this process. And
19 I just – we have to ask this kind of question, but
20 are there any objections to the disposition plan
21 that we don’t know about?
22 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: No, not that I know
23 about.
24 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. Well, you would know.
25 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes. And we’ll find
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1 out, if it does go to the 30-day comment period,
2 whether there are any objections that we haven’t
3 known about yet.
4 PATRICK LYONS: Great. Thank you. Thank you. So
5 any other questions?
6 FRANCIS MCMANAMON: Diane, thanks for a really
7 thorough job here, what appears to be very thorough.
8 I have a comment, which is, it seems to me that we
9 have here an example of a museum or a repository, in
10 this case, actually getting out ahead of things in
11 terms of taking action to deal with culturally
12 unidentifiable. At least as we currently understand
13 them, they’re culturally unidentifiable. And so it’s
14 another good case study, provided everything goes
15 smoothly from here on, that we can point to as an
16 example. So that’s the comment.
17 The other question is, in terms of
18 documentation, there was original documentation when
19 the human remains and the funerary objects were in
20 many cases excavated. So there’s some documentation
21 that the university has. You’ve done some additional
22 research to identify other fragments of human
23 remains, and those – how are those documented? And I
24 ask the question for two reasons. One is, at some
25 point, knowing what was found and where it was found
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1 might be important for other reasons. And at some
2 point, again, if everything goes smoothly, these
3 remains will be returned, disposed of to a proper
4 group. And at some point, it may be years from now,
5 decades from now, the university or the repository
6 might be asked, what did you return? And sort of
7 what sort of documentation exists or has been
8 created?
9 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Okay. There’s layers
10 here. I keep referring to the great Excel
11 spreadsheet, but there are many columns on it. And
12 the isolated remains that were found in faunal
13 remains, as well as those few – I think it’s five,
14 I’m not sure – again, I didn’t bring this
15 spreadsheet with me and should have. The remains
16 that residents brought in – you know, Santa Cruz is
17 an incredibly rich area, and the west side of Santa
18 Cruz especially has very fertile ground and was
19 great farming area before it got all built up. And
20 people have archeological sites on their properties
21 that never – way before any legislation. So they
22 found human remains, and there was a new university
23 and they took them out. So we know it was Santa Cruz
24 in general. The rest are from archeological sites.
25 They were either – there were one or two radiocarbon
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1 dates done or they were dated by the shell bead
2 shape, which in California archeology can kind of
3 nail you within pretty narrow hundred-year periods,
4 spans of hundreds of years or artifact types. And
5 all of those isolated finds, I took the original
6 site reports, whether they be CRM or write-ups by
7 archeologists about the salvage site or whatever,
8 what time period was this site attributed to or what
9 span of time periods? And then I linked that
10 information with the isolated finds.
11 The other thing is that each one of those as
12 found was put in a packet. And in California there’s
13 a preference for not to use any petrochemicals, so
14 we’re using paper packets, but we have a data card
15 on each one. And then there also was a duplication
16 of these, so that there’s sort of – attached to each
17 packet or box, there’s some information on where
18 it’s from and what kind of a bone it is, if it’s an
19 isolated specimen of a human remain. So that there’s
20 some information traveling in cardboard boxes and
21 paper bags and a proposed disposition. And then
22 there are the original data cards, as well as what
23 was collated from that into the spreadsheet, in our
24 inventory collections. And I would be happy to
25 supply anybody and everybody with that spreadsheet
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1 after checking the addition.
2 The other thing I wanted to say in response to
3 your comment was that my sense is that this is –
4 even though it’s not connected to the sea change in
5 the University of California, regardless of the
6 outcome of this, it’s a model either way, this
7 particular disposition request. I have a feeling
8 that future Review Committees are going to be seeing
9 a lot more of these. And I realize we’re really
10 running over.
11 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you.
12 PATRICK LYONS: Well, we were asking you
13 questions, so thank you.
14 So do I hear a motion? Do you have a question?
15 HONOR KEELER: I just wanted ask a question. If
16 you could just describe what’s in the packet that
17 you handed out and the letters.
18 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: The letters were
19 requested. These are the letters from the two Tribe
20 – sorry, federally recognized Tribes, the Graton
21 Rancheria, the Federated Indians of Graton
22 Rancheria, who are both Coast Miwok and Pomo, and
23 these were individually created federally recognized
24 group. And we asked them as a geographically near
25 neighbor from the map, the Coast Miwok are right up
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1 against the Costanoan language speakers of the San
2 Francisco Bay area, if they had no objection to this
3 disposition. And we did not – I did not include our
4 letters of request in the packet, I just included
5 their lack of – but we did send two letters about a
6 year apart.
7 And the last letter is from the Ohlone
8 Costanoan Esselen Nation, which is the Rumsen-
9 speaking and Esselen-speaking peoples. And on the
10 back there, I neglected to see that I had it on
11 print both sides, and it’s the beginning of my
12 letter to Ms. Rodriguez, the Tribal chair of the
13 Ohlone Costanoan, so that was sort of what the
14 letters looked like. They were all sort of pretty
15 much the same, but tailored to whether the Tribe was
16 federally recognized or not.
17 HONOR KEELER: My follow-up question with that
18 is I think you were just asked if there were any
19 folks who opposed the repatriation, and are there
20 any other nonfederally recognized Tribes that may be
21 also seeking the same repatriation, or is the
22 current Tribe in the Federal recognition process?
23 How is that coming along?
24 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Yes. Well, all of the –
25 as far as I know, all of these groups that are in
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1 green on this map, which I realize that you guys
2 can’t see because it’s behind you, but they are all
3 in the process of having applied for Federal
4 recognition. And I know maybe Chair Lopez could talk
5 about this a little bit because he’s asked to make
6 some remarks under public comment on when their
7 petition for Federal recognition went in.
8 And all I can tell you about the Tribes to the
9 north and the south are the following: I spoke with
10 Rosemary Cambra, who is the chair of one of the two
11 groups that we contacted, and this – I’m at that
12 point after giving a public presentation where you
13 don’t have a brain anymore, so I have to look it up.
14 So this is the Muwekma group that is now the Muwekma
15 Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco area. And I spoke
16 to the chair about the time we started. We went to a
17 Society for California Archaeology meeting together.
18 I came. I saw her. She knows who I am. I said we’re
19 petitioning to have the remains at Santa Cruz in a
20 transfer to the Amah Mutsun. And she said, well,
21 that’d be fine with us. That belongs to your side of
22 the hill, because there are mountains in between
23 these areas. You have to drive over a rather scary
24 road to get to Santa Cruz from San Jose. But they
25 did not respond to either of our letters or a
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1 follow-up email. And the second letter stipulated,
2 this was one of my colleagues suggested, why don’t
3 you say, we’ll assume that lack of response is lack
4 of objection. So this is all we know.
5 And as I said before with regard to the OCEN
6 letter, Chair Ramirez does raise the question about
7 the remains from the Monterey County area, and
8 indeed the state – the Native American Heritage
9 Commission is a State body. It’s composed of
10 appointed federally recognized Indian Tribes, mainly
11 lawyers, who then decide who else in the state is an
12 Indian, and that determines this most likely
13 descendant status, and I’m unfamiliar whether that
14 term is used in much of the rest of the country. But
15 in California it means if you have most likely
16 descendant status, you can work as an Indian monitor
17 on archeological mitigation, CRM work, when the
18 bulldozers are out there. And sometimes people’s
19 certification, especially the nonfederally
20 recognized people who are certified by the
21 Commission, are revoked for reasons unknown. But so
22 indeed it’s possible that OCEN monitors have been
23 working, and what we see based on linguistics and
24 ethnohistory in the mission records as Mutsun
25 territory or Mutsun ancestral lands, to use NAGPRA
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1 terminology.
2 And therefore, despite the fact that OCEN
3 believes they have a claim in that area – remember,
4 no – I’m sorry, no treaties, now I’m beginning to
5 act Spanish, no treaties mean that people draw the
6 boundaries as they will because – and the issue here
7 is that OCEN and the Amah Mutsun draw their
8 nonfederally recognized Tribal boundaries slightly
9 differently. But we believe – you know, we’re the
10 people that had to do the academic side of things,
11 and we believe that the preponderance of evidence is
12 that those human remains come from an area that was
13 inhabited by people speaking the Mutsun language.
14 PATRICK LYONS: Okay.
15 REVIEW COMMITTEE MOTION
16 HEATHER EDGAR: In the interest of time, I’d
17 like to go ahead and make a motion, but I might need
18 some help in wording it to make sure I get it right.
19 I’d like to recommend – I’d like to call for a vote
20 on recommending that the Secretary accept this
21 request for disposition.
22 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Excellently worded. That’s
23 fine.
24 PATRICK LYONS: Do I hear a second?
25 BARNABY LEWIS: Second.
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Any discussion?
2 HONOR KEELER: I was wondering if there were
3 also any representatives here from the Tribe that
4 could speak.
5 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: The Chair is going to
6 speak during the public comment period.
7 HONOR KEELER: Would the Chair like to say
8 anything now?
9 VALENTIN LOPEZ: First of all, good afternoon,
10 Mr. Chairman and members of the NAGPRA Committee.
11 Would you like me to – I did have a presentation,
12 but I don’t know if that’s what you want. Would you
13 just like to answer some questions or just comment
14 on what the discussion has been so far?
15 HONOR KEELER: I was wondering if there’s
16 anything you’d like to say to the Committee before
17 we come to a vote.
18 VALENTIN LOPEZ: I would like to say a few
19 things. Our Tribe is recognized as an historic and
20 continuous Tribe of the San Juan Bautista and Santa
21 Cruz areas. And this recognition is by the City of
22 San Juan Bautista, the City of Santa Cruz, and the
23 diocese of Monterey, which includes both Santa Cruz
24 and San Juan Bautista. In 2012, Bishop Garcia
25 actually held a mass where he apologized to our
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1 Tribes for the atrocities that occurred at San Juan
2 Bautista and Santa Cruz. Furthermore, our Tribe is
3 recognized as a continuous and historic Tribe of
4 Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista, by the Hearst
5 Museum, by Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz, and
6 believe it or not, Fowler Museum in Los Angeles, and
7 many others as well. Our Tribe is currently
8 recognized by the State of California. We are a
9 State recognized Tribe, but that recognition applies
10 to SB 18 and AB 52, consulting with local
11 jurisdictions. So it’s a very, very specific kind of
12 recognition that they have.
13 I’ve been an advisor to the University of
14 California Office of the President as an advisor to
15 their NAGPRA Committee since 2007. And I’ve tried
16 pursuing NAGPRA since that time in 2007 through
17 Berkeley on three different occasions, and that
18 ended up going nowhere.
19 This – returning the remains, whenever our
20 ancestors are disturbed, that right there is
21 recognized as one of the highest violations of our
22 spiritual belief that you can have, when you bring
23 them back you bring their spirit back with them.
24 When you disturb the remains, you bring the spirit
25 back. And their spirit cannot be at peace again
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1 until there is a full reburial. And so, this right
2 here is a very difficult and spiritual priority for
3 us. I wanted to say that.
4 As a member of the NAGPRA committee with the
5 UCOP, I’ve heard people talk about our – say that
6 our – they talk about ownership and our ancestors
7 being their property. They want to do – they’ve done
8 DNA and carbon dating on unaffiliated Tribes without
9 seeking Tribal permission before, and I learned
10 about that about a year ago. And I raised a big
11 issue with both UC Berkeley and with the Office of
12 the President. And I’ve heard it said that the
13 current director of the museum at Berkeley has said
14 that they don’t want to give the remains – they
15 don’t want to return the remains because they say,
16 “You don’t know what you don’t know.” And so for
17 that reason, they don’t want to return the remains.
18 And these are all very difficult for a Tribal
19 representative to hear. These are very difficult
20 words.
21 I am thankful to you today for listening to the
22 claim presented by Dr. Gifford-Gonzalez. I ask that
23 you give full consideration to this. As I said, this
24 is the most important priority to our Tribe is
25 getting our ancestors who have been disturbed back
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1 so that they can be at peace. And we pray that this
2 action will go through and I’ll say, finally (Native
3 American language) with my heart. Thank you.
4 HONOR KEELER: Thank you.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Can we take a vote?
6 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Does anyone need to have the
7 motion restated? Is everyone clear what you’re
8 voting on?
9 Okay. I will go ahead and call a voice vote
10 then. If you agree with the motion before you, you
11 can respond by saying “yes,” you can respond by
12 saying “no,” or you may respond by abstaining.
13 Heather Edgar?
14 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Frank McManamon?
16 FRANCIS MCMANAMON: Yes.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Honor Keeler?
18 HONOR KEELER: Yes.
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Patrick Lyons?
20 PATRICK LYONS: Yes.
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Barnaby Lewis?
22 BARNABY LEWIS: Yes.
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: John Beaver?
24 JOHN BEAVER: Yes.
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: With that recommendation then
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1 from the Review Committee to the Secretary of the
2 Interior, we will proceed with the Secretary’s
3 review, followed by a letter with the Secretary’s
4 decision to the University of California at Santa
5 Cruz.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much, both of
7 you.
8 DIANE GIFFORD-GONZALEZ: Thank you very much for
9 your time and for your decision.
10 VALENTIN LOPEZ: Thank you. Thank you.
11 MELANIE O’BRIEN: So we have about an hour left
12 today. We have two presentations, as well as one
13 additional request for public comment today. I have
14 checked with both of the presenters and they are
15 available tomorrow, if we would like to adjust our
16 schedule today.
17 PATRICK LYONS: My concern was making sure that
18 we could accommodate public comment if the
19 presenters, the formal presenters, are flexible. And
20 so what’s your thinking, Madam DFO?
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I thought perhaps we should
22 move on to the public comment that we have to be
23 sure that we allow that time, and then we can see if
24 there’s time for the presentations this afternoon or
25 we can reschedule them for tomorrow. We do have,
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1 again, some flexibility.
2 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you for your flexibility,
3 folks. We appreciate that very much. Let’s do that.
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. We had a request for
5 public comment from Bob Sam. Bob Sam is with the
6 Sitka Tribe.
7 PUBLIC COMMENT
8 BOB SAM, SITKA TRIBE OF ALASKA
9 BOB SAM: Hi, good afternoon, NAGPRA Review
10 Committee. I just want to say thank you for allowing
11 me some time here. My name is Bob Sam. I’m a Tribal
12 Council member for Sitka Tribe of Alaska. I have
13 been involved with repatriation my whole life. I am
14 a caretaker for my Tribe. I take care of sacred
15 sites, ancient Village sites, fort sites,
16 cemeteries. It’s something that I’ve done my whole
17 life. I personally have restored over 100,000 graves
18 of my ancestors. I’ve helped other Tribes with
19 repatriation. I’ve reburied approximately 5,000
20 bodies of Native Americans all over Alaska, even
21 internationally.
22 I just returned from Japan helping the Ainu
23 people of Hokkaido. We just completed the – started
24 the reburial of 1,300 bodies of Ainu in Hokkaido,
25 with the Hokkaido University where the bodies were
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1 stored. I just want to thank the U.S. Government and
2 the NAGPRA for that project because they patterned
3 their – the University patterned their policy after
4 United States, and it was the largest repatriation
5 in Japanese history.
6 So what we’re doing here in America has a
7 really lasting effect in other countries. The Ainu
8 are indigenous to Japan. They’ve only been recently
9 recognized in 2008, so they really have a long ways
10 to go for human rights of Indigenous people. But
11 they are well on their way, and I’m very happy about
12 it.
13 I just wanted to mention about this morning –
14 and I’ve been involved with the Sitka Tribe and
15 Tribal government my whole life. And before,
16 corporations couldn’t get involved with NAGPRA. They
17 didn’t work with Tribes. They didn’t feel they had
18 to work with Tribes. They felt that they were on the
19 same level as Tribes, even to the point of being a
20 government. They’re not. They’re corporations. And
21 the recent ruling of them not being eligible to work
22 with NAGPRA was a good one.
23 I just wanted to provide the other side to it
24 as well. Our corporation, since they don’t – weren’t
25 able to work with NAGPRA, they recognize the Tribal
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1 governments now today, and they recognize there is a
2 difference between a corporation and a Tribal
3 government. A Tribal government, it was mentioned
4 that we don’t have the resources or the staff, we
5 do. We have our Tribal judges. We have Tribal
6 lawyers. We have – we have Tribal entities that work
7 with repatriation, and we do quite well.
8 Since the corporations aren’t able to work
9 directly with NAGPRA, they have been reaching out to
10 the Tribes, recognizing that there is a difference.
11 And since they’ve been reaching out to the Tribes,
12 we have been able to share our resources together.
13 And our resources as a Tribe is our government-to-
14 government relationship, our trust relationship with
15 the Federal Government. That’s our asset that the
16 corporations do not have. So the corporations have
17 been reaching out to Tribal governments, and we’ve
18 been talking for the first time. And as a result, we
19 are working out our issues. Many Tribes have
20 memorandums of agreements, memorandums of
21 understandings on how they work with other entities.
22 The corporations will do this; the Tribes will do
23 this.
24 So I have a lot of experience working in Alaska
25 with repatriation. It’s too complicated when you
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1 have a corporation and a Tribe both putting in
2 claims, and they start to compete with each other.
3 So it’s very difficult to work together, back then.
4 Now, the way it is now, the corporations are
5 reaching out to us and respecting us. So I would
6 rather keep it the way it is now. So please respect
7 the authority of a government-to-government
8 relationship that Tribes have with the Federal
9 Government. Please respect that.
10 I just want to say thank you for living in the
11 best time in American history where the Tribes are
12 getting their ancestors back, and we are healing
13 from that. Our culture is coming back. Our language
14 is coming back. Our way of life is coming back. We
15 are in a Renaissance time, all because of
16 repatriation and NAGPRA. This is a positive thing,
17 and I’m so, so proud of being here at this moment,
18 talking to you in official capacity as a Tribal
19 Council member. Government-to-government is very
20 important for Tribal people, so let’s keep it that
21 way.
22 The other thing is, not just anybody in our
23 Tribe can come to this microphone, not just anybody.
24 It should be a Tribal leader, a Tribal chair, or
25 somebody that was authorized by the Tribe to come
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1 here and speak. It’s very important. Not just
2 anybody can do that. So you’re right, it’s very
3 complex, but please respect our government-to-
4 government relationship that we have with you. Thank
5 you.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
7 Do we have questions?
8 HONOR KEELER: You had mentioned the Ainu a
9 moment ago as well and that you were assisting with
10 some repatriations internationally. Do you have any
11 recommendations here in the United States? I know
12 we’re going through – there’s a bill in Congress
13 called the Stop Act, and we’re seeking – well, we’re
14 going through – we may be having new regulations
15 that will go through a public comment period. Is
16 there any recommendation you would like to make to
17 the Committee that we might be able to include in an
18 annual report to Congress regarding Indigenous
19 peoples elsewhere and repatriation and NAGPRA and
20 repatriation here for our Indigenous peoples in the
21 United States?
22 BOB SAM: I’ve been helping the Ainu for a
23 little over 10 years, and we had to be very careful
24 working with the Japanese government to not overstep
25 authority. And quite often the money that’s
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1 appropriated by the country of Japan for the Ainu
2 oftentimes it doesn’t reach the Ainu. And a large
3 amount of money was appropriated for this
4 repatriation of 1,200 bodies to be returned to
5 Hokkaido next year. The Japanese government is
6 complying with NAGPRA because the Olympics is going
7 to start next year. So as a gesture of good faith,
8 they decided to repatriate 1,200 bodies of Ainu.
9 But it’s very complex in Japan to recognize
10 sovereignty of Indigenous people. They don’t want to
11 recognize the Ainu because of the emperor being seen
12 as a God. So anyone that that was living in Japan
13 before the emperor’s family didn’t exist, and they
14 collected all the bodies and they put them in
15 museums. The lineal descents of the Ainu sued the
16 Hokkaido University, and this lawsuit lasted about
17 10 years until Tim McKeown came to Japan and met
18 with the Hokkaido University. And a question was
19 brought up at the conference about the lawsuit. If
20 this lawsuit went forward would the university win?
21 And the lawyers for the university asked this
22 question. And the answer was no. So the lineal
23 descents won the case. Two hours later, the
24 university dropped the lawsuit, and it set a
25 precedent – of those hundred bodies that had direct
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1 lineal descent, it set a precedent for the rest of
2 the thousand bodies. So now the Hokkaido University,
3 the Kyoto University, and we just received word that
4 remains are coming back from Germany as well.
5 So when the university dropped the case, it
6 really set a precedent, and more and more bodies are
7 coming back. So it’s really – this is really
8 positive, and the Ainu are not prepared for this.
9 They’ve never done this before. They’d asked if I
10 would help them, but I kept encouraging them that
11 you’re the ones who are – your voice is what’s going
12 to be the most important to get your ancestors back.
13 So America really can play a big role in
14 helping Indigenous people with – from other
15 countries who – like Japan, who are wanting to do
16 the right thing. So it’s a matter of providing the
17 dialogue, the research, and the expertise to these
18 other Indigenous people in other countries. Thank
19 you.
20 JOHN BEAVER: I just want to say thank you for
21 your comments. Thank you for sharing with the
22 Committee and those present at the meeting and also
23 to those who may not be familiar with how Tribes and
24 what corporations are for here in Alaska, and for
25 those of us – those of us that are from Tribes in
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1 the lower 48 who may not have an understanding of
2 what that looks like and what that means. So thank
3 you for sharing your information on that. And also I
4 want to thank you for bringing up and sharing a
5 point, too, about the Tribes’ relationship with the
6 Federal Government and what that means. Thank you
7 for sharing your thoughts on that as well. So thank
8 you, and thank you for the work that you’ve done. I
9 just want to commend you for it. It looks like
10 you’re doing great work in your community and here
11 in Alaska. So I want to thank you for sharing that
12 as well. So thank you.
13 BOB SAM: Thank you.
14 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you, sir.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I did not have any other
16 requests for public comment, but if there is anyone
17 at this time who wanted to make a public – we will
18 have some more time tomorrow to make public comment.
19 PATRICK LYONS: Seeing as we have no one else
20 asking to take advantage of the public comment, may
21 we go back to our scheduled presentations perhaps or
22 should we maybe do something related to the
23 Committee work?
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I thought perhaps this might
25 be a good opportunity to go back to the subcommittee
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1 discussion that we missed this morning. Before we do
2 that though, I’d also like to remind the Committee
3 that you did receive one written comment and to
4 remind both the Committee and those in the audience
5 that written comments are also an opportunity to
6 provide information to the Review Committee for
7 their review during a public meeting. I don’t know
8 if the Committee wishes to discuss the public
9 comment or -
10 PATRICK LYONS: Does anyone on the Committee
11 wish to discuss the written comment? Okay.
12 MELANIE O’BRIEN: There’ll certainly be time
13 tomorrow as well.
14 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
15 ACTION ITEM: SUBCOMMITTEE DISCUSSION
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: So to go back to a
17 subcommittee discussion and action items for the
18 Committee, we do like to provide time on the agenda.
19 There’s time both today and tomorrow for the Review
20 Committee to review its current subcommittees. Under
21 the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Review
22 Committee can use subcommittees to gather
23 information and develop recommendations for the full
24 Committee’s discussion and consideration.
25 Subcommittees can include non-Review Committee
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1 members and can have nonpublic meetings, but
2 subcommittees cannot make recommendations or take
3 action.
4 The Review Committee has time on the agenda
5 each day to discuss the status of these
6 subcommittees and their membership, to propose any
7 new subcommittees, and to report to the full
8 Committee on progress made or recommendations of
9 those subcommittees. In addition, we’ve scheduled
10 some subcommittee worktime during lunch breaks to
11 provide you with more opportunity.
12 Before opening the discussion of subcommittees,
13 I’d like to provide a brief review of the Review
14 Committee’s four standing subcommittees as of the
15 October 2018 meeting. The first is a subcommittee on
16 the Review Committee’s annual report to Congress,
17 and its current members are Heather Edgar, Honor
18 Keeler, and Patrick Lyons. As a reminder, the Review
19 Committee should begin work at this meeting on a
20 report to Congress that will cover the Federal
21 fiscal year for 2019; that is October 2018 to
22 September 2019. This would cover the October 2018
23 meeting in Washington, DC, the April 22nd telephonic
24 conference, and this meeting.
25 The second is a subcommittee on split
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1 collections, and its members are Honor Keeler, John
2 Beaver, and Patrick Lyons. This subcommittee was
3 formed at the October 2018 meeting to examine NAGPRA
4 issues concerning collections from the same site
5 that are split among different museums and Federal
6 agencies, and to develop recommendations for the
7 full Committee’s consideration. This subcommittee
8 would also look into the Federal agency collections
9 that are in non-Federal repositories.
10 The third is a subcommittee on the
11 administration of NAGPRA, with members Honor Keeler
12 and Barnaby Lewis. This subcommittee was also formed
13 in October of 2018 to consider the administration of
14 NAGPRA through the National NAGPRA Program,
15 including issues related to funding, grants, and
16 staff capacity. At the October meeting, I stated
17 that I would provide you with an update on the work
18 of the fully staffed NAGPRA Program at your next in-
19 person meeting, which I did this morning, so that
20 you could determine the scope of work for this
21 subcommittee.
22 And fourth is a subcommittee of the whole,
23 which can communicate to discuss outstanding issues
24 and report back to the regular Review Committee
25 meetings.
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1 With that as a summary, I can turn this
2 discussion back over to you, Mr. Chair.
3 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. So in terms of the
4 annual report committee, we do actually have a
5 finished document, as I think was mentioned in the
6 Program update this morning, but that’s not a public
7 document yet. It’s at Interior. We have a report for
8 2017-2018. And as you just discussed, we’re working
9 on a report for 2018-2019 at this meeting. And so
10 just in terms of the Committee logistics, I will run
11 through each of the four. Does that make sense?
12 So in terms of the annual report committee,
13 Heather Edgar has been chair, was chair this last
14 time, and I’m wondering – and Honor Keeler has
15 served and I have served, and I’ll start with you,
16 Madam Chair. Would you like to talk about the annual
17 report committee and your feelings about continuing
18 as chair possibly?
19 HEATHER EDGAR: Sure. First, I would say I would
20 be willing to continue as chair. Very fortunately,
21 the end of my term comes just shortly after the time
22 that the report is due, so it’s something that I can
23 do and I’d be happy to, unless there’s somebody else
24 on the Committee who’s just really excited about the
25 possibility of becoming the chair of this committee.
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
2 And Honor, are you willing to continue to be on
3 the annual report committee?
4 HONOR KEELER: Yes.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. I’m willing to stay on,
6 and at this point I would open it up to the other
7 members, if anybody’s interested in joining the
8 three of us.
9 JOHN BEAVER: I’d be interested in joining the
10 Committee, the committee –
11 PATRICK LYONS: John.
12 JOHN BEAVER: – the subcommittee.
13 BARNABY LEWIS: This is for the annual report?
14 PATRICK LYONS: Annual, yes.
15 BARNABY LEWIS: Yes, I’d also be interested.
16 PATRICK LYONS: Barnaby as well.
17 Frank, no peer pressure.
18 FRANK MCMANAMON: Where do we need somebody?
19 PATRICK LYONS: Well, that’s the next thing I
20 was going to say. So is anyone willing to serve as
21 chair other than Heather? Do we need a competition
22 that way, or are you willing to just ride it out?
23 HEATHER EDGAR: I think I can handle it.
24 PATRICK LYONS: You’ll handle it. Okay. Thank
25 you.
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1 So moving on to split collections, I have down
2 here that that’s Honor, so we’ll turn it over to you
3 Honor.
4 HONOR KEELER: Thank you, Chair. I think that
5 something we’d like to do currently, and I’m going
6 to have John speak a little bit about this, with the
7 subcommittee on split collections is we’re very
8 fortunate to have the opportunity for public
9 comments, and I think we’re figuring out how to –
10 what to address in this subcommittee. And I think
11 John had a few things he’d like to say about that.
12 JOHN BEAVER: Yes, and this – it’s probably
13 directly about how this – if not the structure, how
14 we might be moving forward with this committee. And
15 so with another plug for public comment and written
16 comment as well, I just want to pass that along to
17 those who may be here, who may be watching us on the
18 internet. Those comments – it’s my understanding
19 that the comments that we’ve received do not fall on
20 deaf ears and they certainly inform, not just the
21 work of this Review Committee, but also the work of
22 your National NAGPRA office that’s here to serve you
23 and help you in the repatriation process.
24 And so with that being said, and about the work
25 or the proposed work of this subcommittee on split
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1 collections, we’ve had – this came – really came to
2 – or at least it peaked my interest at the October
3 meeting, from somebody who works with one of the
4 Tribal communities in Oklahoma, in the Kansas area,
5 and about the barriers that those communities, that
6 our Tribal communities face when collections are
7 spread across multiple institutions and either, we
8 say, repositories or things like that.
9 But what I’m really interested in – we’ve heard
10 a lot from our Federal agencies and how their
11 collections and sort of the barriers they encounter
12 and sort of piecing together the information about
13 their collections when they’re spread across these
14 particular places. But what, at least for me, where
15 I’m really interested in it is our Native and our
16 Tribal communities and sort of their perceptions and
17 the barriers that they’re having at this time,
18 because I think that this could really inform the
19 work of this Committee. I think it might have some
20 meaningful input into how repatriation or the
21 research into these collections is pieced together
22 going forward. So I’m really interested in perhaps
23 this – I don’t want to speak too much for the work
24 of this subcommittee, but really interested in
25 hearing sort of where Tribal communities are in this
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1 process. If they really have sort of specific
2 answers.
3 I think it was pointed out this morning that we
4 seem to be interested in some of the details about
5 some of these things. Without digging too deep into
6 that and certainly not wanting to cross over too
7 much into – I think we’ve heard a lot of comments
8 about throwing people under the bus and things like
9 that, and that’s certainly not the intent for the
10 work of this committee. But I think it’s to raise a
11 certain awareness about what split collections mean,
12 because from what I’ve heard, not just in the last
13 meeting, but in this meeting, split collection seems
14 to cover a lot of things for different agencies and
15 also for the Tribes.
16 Certainly, I’m really interested in hearing,
17 and I’m going back to the public comment and written
18 comments that we can receive, really interested in
19 hearing from the Tribal communities, because I think
20 that will add – if we’re looking to make a change,
21 some sort of change or bring something to light, I
22 think if we have a really healthy Tribal perspective
23 in this part of the process, I think that will add a
24 very rich detail to this.
25 So I’m certainly interested as we’re moving
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1 forward, I want to – I’d certainly like to hear from
2 the Tribal communities and their perspectives on
3 what they think or maybe what we’re thinking of what
4 a split collection means. Maybe they have a totally
5 different – I don’t want to say “definition,” but an
6 idea on what that is and how that’s a potential
7 barrier in the repatriation process or the
8 interpretation of how those collections exist in
9 these communities. Because I’ve heard from some
10 comments about the difficulties in when say a
11 collection is split between – one institution may be
12 willing to or looking at – very open to their
13 return, and when it comes from the same side or
14 something particularly like that, that another
15 institution is not quite there on that return.
16 And so I’m very interested hearing those
17 comments from those Tribal communities. And
18 certainly being respectful to the process that those
19 separate institutions have, but I think this will
20 add to certainly the work of what we’re able to
21 present in this subcommittee. So this is my sort of,
22 I don’t want to say, impassioned call out to our
23 Tribal communities out there to certainly help us
24 along in the work of this subcommittee.
25 HONOR KEELER: Thank you, John. And so I think
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1 some of the details also that we might be looking
2 for would have to do with institutions who have
3 varying findings on returning or repatriating
4 individuals and cultural items; how extensive these
5 split collections are; is this limited to just the
6 United States or does it go beyond that; and how
7 does that complicate things? I think earlier we
8 heard about archives and the non-Federal
9 repositories and things like that; confidentiality,
10 so how the Freedom of Information Act may come in
11 and how things remain confidential; and experiences
12 of Tribes and museums and the agencies, as well. So
13 thank you.
14 At this time, I wanted to know, Barnaby, I
15 don’t know if you have anything else you’d like to
16 add to that discussion, or if there’s anyone else
17 who would like to join the subcommittee?
18 PATRICK LYONS: I would just make a comment
19 about – just from an administrative standpoint in
20 terms of the subcommittees, and I think it will be
21 useful – the main tool that we have, as the NAGPRA
22 Review Committee, is making recommendations to
23 Congress. And I think that – and the main tool for
24 that is, of course, our annual report. And so it may
25 be that a meaningful focusing product for this
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1 committee might be that this is the group of people
2 who focus most on the issue of split collections to
3 feed information into the annual report, that that
4 would be one specific goal. I would propose that.
5 And I’m interested in other ideas from other members
6 of that committee about what the specific goals or
7 work products would be from that committee.
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: If I might, I just wanted to
9 remind everybody of the current membership of that
10 subcommittee is Honor Keeler, Patrick Lyons, and
11 John Beaver.
12 PATRICK LYONS: So Honor and John, what do you
13 think?
14 HONOR KEELER: Thanks, Patrick. I think this
15 would be a good way to funnel information into the
16 report to Congress every year. And I don’t know how
17 long this committee may last, but I think it may
18 have some longevity given the current issue.
19 Something else that I’d like to request of our
20 staff is if they would be helpful also in collecting
21 information that they understand has come forward
22 from the museums and from Tribes and the agencies,
23 as well. And then hopefully we can work together on
24 compiling something to provide for the annual
25 report.
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1 JOHN BEAVER: I would support the addition of
2 the information that’s gathered in the coming – the
3 coming year to the annual report.
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The Program can certainly work
5 to provide you with minutes or transcripts from past
6 Review Committee meetings, not just the October
7 meeting where you did hear specifically on this
8 issue, but I can – within my own personal memory,
9 can think of a few other times in which the Review
10 Committee has heard about this issue, and we could
11 do some work on even older transcripts and minutes
12 and pull that information for you where this issue
13 has been addressed.
14 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you.
15 PATRICK LYONS: Anybody else have anything else
16 to say about that one, split collections? Okay.
17 HEATHER EDGAR: I’ll just say I’ll talk maybe
18 tomorrow a little bit more about the format of the
19 report, but I already have a little space plotted in
20 to stick something from the committee in.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Great. This may make it easier
22 for us to divide and conquer, in some ways, while
23 we’re working together, especially here and working
24 on the report.
25 So how about administration of NAGPRA? I have
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1 down for that as Honor and Barnaby. Is that correct,
2 Madam DFO?
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. That is what we have.
4 HONOR KEELER: Thank you, Patrick. The
5 subcommittee on administration is something else
6 that we’re formulating ideas about, and I would hope
7 that throughout this Committee meeting that we could
8 also hear ideas of suggestions of things that might
9 be able to come forward about NAGPRA’s
10 administration.
11 Something that had been brought up earlier had
12 been kind of surrounding the grants and
13 understanding how the percentages, I guess, of costs
14 come off from universities and museums and Tribes
15 and what those percentages are, but also overall
16 kind of the administration.
17 Melanie, I can’t remember if you had mentioned
18 this or not, but I think we want to see more Tribal
19 participation in meetings, and maybe there are
20 easier ways to facilitate that. Also with the staff
21 and Committee trainings, I think we heard about up
22 here in Alaska and what kind of information might be
23 helpful to the Villages, Alaska Native Villages, and
24 I have to think a minute for a couple of more items.
25 But please, during the public comment period, please
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1 help to add things to our subcommittees so that we
2 can take a look at it.
3 As far as reporting in, I think we can also
4 report in annually for the report to Congress. Thank
5 you.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. And that leaves the
7 Committee of the whole, which I think you described,
8 but maybe we need to remind people.
9 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Certainly, so the subcommittee
10 of the whole was established to allow the Committee
11 to discuss any outstanding issues. But again, as a
12 subcommittee, while you may all participate, there
13 can be no action or decision making in a
14 subcommittee meeting. It would be an opportunity for
15 you to be able to discuss any outstanding issues
16 before coming back to the Committee as a whole.
17 PATRICK LYONS: How do people feel about moving
18 on to talking about the annual report?
19 Would that be okay?
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: It’s your Committee, sir.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Annual report chair.
22 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay, so as Madam DFO stated,
23 what’s to be covered in this annual report are the
24 events that took place and the – the events that
25 took place in our October 2018 meeting in DC, our
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1 April, earlier this year, phone meeting, and this
2 meeting as well. And our plan is to discuss this
3 report, have a draft available to you in advance of
4 the meeting that’s tentatively scheduled for the
5 30th of October of this year, so that we can prepare
6 it. It’s a new schedule for the annual report to
7 Congress in the hopes to have it available to
8 congressional members by January and to coincide
9 with the fiscal year for the Federal Government,
10 which seems like a good idea.
11 So one – the things that I want to mention now,
12 we can talk about this again tomorrow when we have
13 subcommittee business as well, is first of all, the
14 format of this year’s report was a little different.
15 It’s kind of been going through modifications the
16 last couple of years. In previous years, the report
17 had been quite extensive with a lot of detail and
18 maybe a little more chronologically oriented. Where
19 as opposed to this one that is currently, would you
20 say it’s in review? We’re just waiting for it to
21 become public, be made public.
22 It starts – so it only has just a few
23 components to the report. It starts with an
24 executive summary of the events that are covered. It
25 has a very brief and punchy to the point, bullet
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1 pointed series of recommendations, and then a longer
2 and more extended conversation, but still pretty
3 brief, section on barriers that were encountered, a
4 similar set of information on progress that was made
5 during that time, and then a list of activities. And
6 this is more hearkening back to the previous format
7 of the report where we discuss what meetings
8 happened and who spoke and those kinds of things,
9 but more brief than it had been in previous reports.
10 And then in this report was a graphic presentation
11 of statistics that were prepared by the National
12 NAGPRA office that is really excellent and adds to
13 the report in a punchy way that’s easily digestible.
14 And those are some of the graphics that you saw
15 earlier this morning.
16 So before I – I have more to talk about, but
17 that’s the report format that we had for the report
18 that’s about to be finalized. Does anybody have any
19 substantive changes that they think should be made
20 for the coming year?
21 PATRICK LYONS: I would just say that I’m really
22 happy with the new format. As you said, it has less
23 detail, but it’s more thematic and less narrative.
24 And so I think it does more of what we want it to
25 do, which is to get some key ideas across to
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1 decision makers rather than this is what we did all
2 year. And so I’m very much in favor of the new
3 format, and I would be interested to hear what other
4 people think as well.
5 JOHN BEAVER: I like the format, and I like
6 getting to the point in reports. And I think that
7 this does that.
8 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, good. I want to stop just
9 for one second and say thank you to Honor and
10 Patrick for working on this report. Everybody worked
11 really hard on this report and the new format. I
12 think it’s better. It’s more modern, but it takes
13 more work to reinvent something. It’s not a total
14 reinvention, but it’s a pretty heavy modification.
15 And so there were some bumps along the road, a lot
16 of conversation about wording and about format and
17 stuff. So I really appreciate your efforts on the
18 report.
19 PATRICK LYONS: And we appreciate yours. Thank
20 you.
21 HEATHER EDGAR: We are all very appreciated. I
22 would like to – this is something I’m going to bring
23 up to talk about now, but that we should talk about
24 again tomorrow to give you a chance to review. So
25 when we wrote the report, as I said, it starts with
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1 a series of recommendations. And one of the things
2 that we’re going to want to consider is whether we
3 think the recommendations should be the same in the
4 upcoming report or if they should be substantively
5 different.
6 One thing I would caution against, if it’s at
7 all possible, is making a whole bunch of
8 recommendations. We need to figure out what are our
9 greatest priorities and make that effort at the
10 front, because we could come up with a thousand
11 recommendations but what we really want is somebody
12 to read the recommendation. So please, when you have
13 time sometime between now and tomorrow afternoon,
14 take a look through the recommendations that we made
15 and see if you think one needs to be replaced. If
16 you want to make an argument for adding more, I will
17 hope that you’d be willing to make a really strong
18 argument for that.
19 Some things that I think we should consider
20 would be some arguments for greater training and
21 maybe a more, wider – this is kind of under
22 recommendations, things to consider would be like a
23 wider range of training. So for example, there’s
24 some training available. The BLM has some training
25 available that I hear is really nice. I don’t know
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1 anything about training that’s specifically oriented
2 toward Tribal groups, but I’d love to hear what’s
3 there and how well it’s working.
4 Under the section on successes, I don’t know if
5 this is really under successes, but we’ve heard some
6 successes for split collection issues. This might or
7 might not be a place to put the recommendations
8 discussed at this meeting or that are being brought
9 up by the subcommittee. We’ll have to figure out
10 where to put that, if this is the year to do it. You
11 may decide that you really need to think about it
12 for more than one year. That’s up to you.
13 And then there are a couple of new topics.
14 Something that’s been really prevalently discussed
15 today is the laws governing who may or may not
16 participate in NAGPRA in Alaska. And you know, I’m
17 mind boggled by the complexities and not able to
18 comment in any kind of intelligent way about whether
19 things are good, bad, worse, terrific, but that’s
20 something I’d like to understand better. And if it’s
21 possible for the Review Committee to have a better
22 understanding of that, it might be nice, but it’s
23 certainly something we should think about as a new
24 topic.
25 And then finally, if there is a product of the
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1 subcommittee on administration of NAGPRA, there
2 might be a place for that in the report as well.
3 Again, that may be something you want to wait until
4 next year or not. You might have – just because you
5 would have some this year, it wouldn’t preclude you
6 from having something else in the future.
7 So I bring all this up now so that tomorrow
8 afternoon we can spend some time having more of a
9 substantive conversation about what goes in these.
10 So those of you on subcommittees are forewarned that
11 I’ll ask you about how you want to proceed, not
12 expecting you to provide actual real wording yet.
13 Just maybe some topics and plans.
14 PATRICK LYONS: And related case studies maybe
15 of things that we’ve heard that matched the topics.
16 HEATHER EDGAR: Sure, that would be fantastic.
17 Do you guys have any questions or need a
18 clarification or anything?
19 PATRICK LYONS: That sounds great. Thank you.
20 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay, thanks.
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: If I might, I would also
22 encourage those in the audience who might have some
23 perspective to bring to any of these issues or
24 additional issues that they feel you should be
25 addressing in your report to Congress that the
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1 public comment time is their opportunity to do that.
2 PATRICK LYONS: You took the words right out of
3 my mouth. Thank you.
4 HONOR KEELER: Can I add one more thing?
5 MELANIE O'BRIEN: Yes.
6 HONOR KEELER: Also we’re reviewing this again
7 in October. I would also encourage written comments
8 to come in, should folks not be able – will it be a
9 telephonic conversation? But that should be
10 considered as well. Thanks.
11 PATRICK LYONS: So let me clarify that. Can we
12 receive written comments in October?
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, we can. So if there are
14 any – if there is anyone who would like to provide
15 you with a written comment as opposed to a public
16 comment, they can certainly submit those to the
17 National NAGPRA Program, and we will provide those
18 to you for your consideration in October.
19 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Just so it’s clear to
20 everyone why you’d have to wait till October. It’s
21 because it’s a public meeting and everyone would
22 have to have access to it at the same time that we
23 do. Thank you.
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I would also like to take this
25 opportunity to again ask the Committee and the
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1 public gathered here for any input on how the report
2 to Congress might be distributed. We are certainly
3 looking for better ways of reaching a broader
4 audience with this report other than what I had
5 described earlier, which is available on our website
6 and other avenues.
7 HEATHER EDGAR: Thank you. I was going to say it
8 and forgot.
9 HONOR KEELER: Something I would like us to do
10 in the future, if at all possible, is to actually
11 report to Congress, to the Senate Subcommittee on
12 Indian Affairs and to the House, if at all possible.
13 I feel sometimes that our Committee reports may not
14 be read or considered as they need to be by
15 Congress. And so I think we should also talk about –
16 I would like to see distribution to all members of
17 Congress in some manner and their staffers who deal
18 with the Native issues and who deal with NAGPRA. I
19 feel that there’s current legislation in Congress
20 that could have an effect on NAGPRA, and it’s very
21 important to do that at this point. And if at all
22 possible, if there’s a way for our Committee to come
23 in front of Congress and like I said, report
24 directly to them, I would like to see that. Thank
25 you.
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Does anyone else have anything
2 to say about the annual report at this time?
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay, as it is nearly four
4 o’clock at this point, I would like to just take a
5 few minutes to talk about a revision to tomorrow’s
6 schedule. And I would ask that the two presenters
7 that were not able to present this afternoon, please
8 let me know if what I outline is a problem for you.
9 I propose that we continue with the
10 presentations as scheduled in the order on the
11 current agenda, but add the two presentations
12 beginning at 10:15 tomorrow. So we would start again
13 at 9 o’clock tomorrow with a call to order, and we
14 would then proceed with the three presentations that
15 are on the current agenda followed by a presentation
16 from the Forest Service and then the University of
17 Denver.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
19 MELANIE O'BRIEN: That will still provide us
20 with plenty of time for additional public comment
21 before lunch, as well as after lunch, and more time
22 for subcommittee discussion tomorrow. As I think you
23 can see that the agenda for tomorrow afternoon is a
24 little more open and flexible, so I would rather
25 stack the presentations in the morning for you so
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1 that you have time to consider those presentations
2 and work on any resulting issues.
3 PATRICK LYONS: This is exactly what I was
4 hoping that we could do. This will serve us well, I
5 think. Thank you.
6 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Certainly.
7 HEATHER EDGAR: Pardon me? I have a suggestion
8 just to put forward. We have a section for
9 outstanding meeting items and we have a section for
10 subcommittee discussion. And the section that’s for
11 subcommittee discussion is right before lunch, but
12 I’m thinking that that’s probably when the
13 subcommittee will meet. And so before lunch we won’t
14 have anything to say. It’ll be a very brief
15 discussion. Is it possible to either switch those
16 items or join them together or something like that?
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, certainly. I think some
18 of the outstanding items that we need to address are
19 things like your future meeting locations. We could
20 do that before lunch instead and -
21 PATRICK LYONS: That’s what I was going to say,
22 maybe switch. Yes, good call. It’s like she’s done
23 this before.
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. Again, I would encourage
25 anyone who would like to make a public comment to
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1 please see me so I can put you down for tomorrow at
2 either time. And if the presenters have any issue
3 with the revised schedule, please let me know, and
4 we can figure out what will work for you.
5 With that, I think we will adjourn for the day.
6 We will start again tomorrow at 9:00 am.
7 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you, everyone.
8 MEETING RECESS
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1 CALL TO ORDER – AUGUST 22, 2019
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: We’re going to get started in
3 just a minute here. It looks like we’re going to be
4 able to proceed this morning, but we will not have
5 the screen available.
6 Good morning, everyone. I’d like to go ahead
7 and call the meeting to order and welcome everyone
8 back to the second day of our meeting. To begin, I’d
9 like to start by a roll call of the Committee
10 members.
11 John Beaver?
12 JOHN BEAVER: Here.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Heather Edgar?
14 HEATHER EDGAR: Here.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Honor Keeler?
16 HONOR KEELER: Here.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Barnaby Lewis?
18 BARNABY LEWIS: Here.
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Patrick Lyons?
20 PATRICK LYONS: Here.
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Frank McManamon?
22 FRANK MCMANAMON: Here.
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you.
24 I’d like to again remind the Committee and
25 everyone in the audience that the meeting today is
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1 being webcast. You can find links on the National
2 NAGPRA website and on our Facebook page to the
3 specific session for today, if you want to share
4 that information with anyone who couldn’t be here
5 today. Also, I’d like to remind everyone in the
6 audience that we do have time, both this morning and
7 this afternoon for public comment. The Committee
8 would very much like to hear from anyone present on
9 issues related to NAGPRA implementation.
10 To begin this morning, we have a presentation
11 from the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural
12 History. With us today are Marc Levine, Heidi Davis,
13 and Susie Fishman-Armstrong. Marc?
14 PRESENTATIONS
15 SAM NOBLE OKLAHOMA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
16 MARC LEVINE: Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
17 We’re very pleased to be here and enjoying the cold
18 air of Alaska, coming from 100 degrees in Oklahoma.
19 We have a prepared statement and when I finish,
20 we’re happy to take questions and comments.
21 First, I want to say thank you to Chairman
22 Lyons and the members of the Review Committee for
23 the opportunity to submit a statement here today. My
24 name is Marc Levine. I’m the curator of archeology
25 at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
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1 at the University of Oklahoma. To my right is Susie
2 Fishman-Armstrong, collections manager of the
3 archeology area of the museum, and Heidi Davis,
4 NAGPRA research fellow. Heidi’s recently joined us.
5 She’s a bioarcheologist and ABD Ph.D. candidate at
6 the University of Arkansas.
7 Our museum was included in the 2015 report by
8 National NAGPRA entitled “Museums and Federal
9 Agencies Whose Culturally Affiliated Inventories
10 Include the Human Remains of Individuals that are
11 not yet Represented in Notices of Inventory
12 Completion.” As a result of that report, the NAGPRA
13 Review Committee had asked our museum to provide
14 annual updates on our NAGPRA compliance activities.
15 And this is the fifth time in which we have done so.
16 Following some brief background information, this
17 statement focuses on our most recent progress
18 towards NAGPRA compliance at the museum.
19 I began work at the Sam Noble Museum in 2013.
20 Soon thereafter, I hired Susie Fishman-Armstrong,
21 collections manager, and we soon discovered that
22 previous and well-meaning NAGPRA compliance efforts
23 had been almost completely abandoned at the museum.
24 We’ve discussed the details, many of them
25 unfortunate, in previous comments that we’ve
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1 submitted to the Review Committee. But in short, we
2 needed to initiate a complete reboot of our NAGPRA
3 compliance work at the museum.
4 In 2014, we began by carrying out a self-study
5 of NAGPRA collections, and then produced a long-term
6 strategic plan with the help of NAGPRA consultant
7 Jan Bernstein. This plan includes a 12-year timeline
8 for publication of notices of inventory completion
9 for approximately 4,000 individuals and over 115,000
10 associated funerary objects in the control and
11 possession of the Sam Noble Museum.
12 After receiving our first NAGPRA
13 documentation/consultation grant in 2015, we began
14 ramping up our NAGPRA program. This included hiring
15 a physical anthropologist to help us prepare human
16 remains for repatriation. We also reinitiated Tribal
17 consultations, cataloged and indexed our physical
18 NAGPRA files, redesigned our NAGPRA database
19 management system, and developed an effective NAGPRA
20 workflow process for our team.
21 We’ve learned that this meticulous and detailed
22 collections work requires a considerable amount of
23 time and labor. To meet this end, we’ve continued to
24 add to our NAGPRA team by hiring part-time
25 collections assistants, interns, and volunteers. And
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1 I’ll note for those latter two categories, we do
2 this with permission of the Tribes, with
3 supervision, and only students and volunteers that
4 have significant experience working with us.
5 I want to mention an important detail of our
6 inventory process, which represents a large portion
7 of our grant-funded activities. Our multifaceted
8 inventory process has led to significantly revised
9 MNI and AFO counts for most sites that were
10 originally reported from paper records alone. These
11 discrepancies arise from a great variety of factors.
12 For instance, we commonly find misidentified human
13 bones mixed in with faunal material and also
14 discovered many AFOs that had been overlooked or
15 misplaced. For example, on the recently published
16 McLaughlin site, the original draft identified an
17 MNI of 44 and zero AFOs. After our inventory, the
18 MNI number remained the same, but we identified
19 nearly 8,000 previously unreported AFOs. Many of
20 those are small items, I should note.
21 In other cases, our inventory has led to
22 drastically revised MNI counts. Our original draft
23 for another site, the Macklemore site included a
24 minimum of 279 individuals, but our physical
25 anthropologist identified only 66. We found that
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1 some of these discrepancies are due to inconsistent
2 cataloging methods at the museum over the years,
3 many, many decades. Sometimes, the counts of human
4 remains in the database represent MNI, whereas under
5 other cases, it represents individual bones present
6 so you can see the problem there. In sum, we found
7 that carrying out these physical inventories of
8 NAGPRA material prior to the publication of notices
9 is critically important.
10 Our current project, supported by a 2018 NAGPRA
11 documentation/consultation grant, includes an
12 estimated 318 individuals and 558 AFOs from 25 sites
13 in Oklahoma. As part of this project, we’ve engaged
14 in consultation with the Caddo Nation, the Choctaw
15 Nation, Osage Nation, and the Wichita and Affiliated
16 Tribes. To date, we’ve completed entering the
17 catalog information for over 35,000 artifacts and
18 have finished reviewing all the archeological
19 material for 17 of 25 sites to ensure no human
20 remains or AFOs are missed. In addition, all faunal
21 bone collections from the 25 sites have been
22 reviewed for possible human remains, and we
23 regularly find them. We estimate that we will finish
24 this project and publish the associated notices
25 within the allotted timeframe.
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1 Most recently, we were awarded a 2019 NAGPRA
2 documentation/consultation grant for an estimate of
3 209 individuals and over 1,000 AFOs from 8 sites in
4 Oklahoma. This award ensures that we will be able to
5 continue our NAGPRA projects into the future and
6 without a break in funding. We hope this will help
7 us to keep our momentum moving forward. As you know,
8 it takes years to ramp up and build our team, get
9 our internal process set. And so this is great that
10 we’ve been able to chain together grants.
11 Overall since 2014, we’ve received a total of
12 five NAGPRA documentation/consultation grants, and
13 we’re very grateful for this support. Simply put,
14 without these grants, we wouldn’t have the resources
15 to carry out NAGPRA compliance at the museum. I
16 can’t stress how important these grants are to our
17 success, given that we receive very little funding
18 from the University of Oklahoma. I’d also like to
19 note that we lose approximately one third of our
20 grant awards to institutional overhead charges
21 assessed by the University of Oklahoma, something
22 mentioned yesterday. If there’s any way that
23 National NAGPRA could restrict or cap the assessment
24 of overhead charges, it would free up a considerable
25 amount of money to carry out the NAGPRA compliance
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1 activities that these grants were intended to
2 support. And I’ll just note that it’s difficult to
3 negotiate with our vice president of research about
4 overhead charges, and I’m also a member of the
5 faculty in the anthropology department, and so we’re
6 not totally separate from campus. So I won’t belabor
7 that, but it’s important to us.
8 I’d like to now highlight the major
9 accomplishments of the NAGPRA program at the Sam
10 Noble Museum. Since 2014, we have published 6
11 notices of inventory completion, including a total
12 of 461 individuals and over 20,000 AFOs from 87
13 sites. We’ve also submitted an additional two draft
14 notices to the National NAGPRA office for the
15 publication of 102 individuals and nearly 3,000 AFOs
16 from 4 sites and these are pending review, these
17 drafts. And I will note in about a week or two,
18 we’re planning to submit another notice. And
19 finally, we submitted summary letters with
20 disposition requests for 5 individuals and 130 UFOs
21 from 5 sites. So in total, we’ve prepared 568
22 individuals and over 21,000 AFOs or UFOs for
23 repatriation to date, since 2014.
24 Although we’re pleased with this progress, we
25 also understand that much work remains. I also want
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1 to acknowledge and extend our deep gratitude to our
2 Tribal partners who have provided significant
3 support to the aforementioned NAGPRA projects at the
4 museum. In particular, I want to thank our
5 colleagues at the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, the
6 Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Chickasaw Nation,
7 Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, United Keetoowah Band of
8 Cherokee, the Osage Nation and the Wichita and
9 Affiliated Tribes.
10 In closing, we remain committed to NAGPRA
11 compliance at the Sam Noble Museum. And we thank you
12 for your attention and continued support. And if
13 there are any questions, we’re happy to field those.
14 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
15 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you so much for coming,
16 and you’re to be commended on doing really, really
17 terrific work. And I, as someone who works at a
18 university museum, can appreciate the difficulties
19 associated with indirect costs and how that affects
20 your ability to do things. So well done.
21 HONOR KEELER: Just a quick question, what is
22 your indirect cost percentage?
23 MARC LEVINE: It’s just over 36 percent right
24 now.
25 HONOR KEELER: Thank you.
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1 FRANK MCMANAMON: Continuing on this theme of
2 indirect costs, is there a range of indirect costs
3 that the university uses? I know, at Arizona State
4 University, there was a wide range and different
5 categories of organizations fit into different
6 amounts.
7 PATRICK LYONS: And different kinds of
8 activities fit into different amounts, yes.
9 MARC LEVINE: Yes, there are a number of
10 different categories; on-campus research, off-campus
11 research. And those range from 25 percent to, I
12 think, 52 percent overall.
13 FRANK MCMANAMON: Just to follow up, we did have
14 the experience in a different program not related to
15 NAGPRA, but related to a Federal agency where we
16 were working on their curation – digital curation of
17 their records. And the agency program determined
18 that there was a particular overhead rate that above
19 which they would not go. And our administrative
20 office accepted that just on the face value in terms
21 of – with a letter. I don’t know, within the Park
22 Service, how that – how indirect rates are viewed or
23 whether that’s possible. But in the instance of ASU,
24 it did, in fact, work. And we reduced the indirect
25 rate on those particular contracts by about 50
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1 percent.
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I can provide you with a
3 little bit of information on this issue. What you’re
4 describing under a contract situation is different
5 than financial assistance. The rules in financial
6 assistance are fairly clear, and there is no ability
7 for the Park Service to restrict or cap the indirect
8 cost rate for a grant unless it is statutory. So for
9 example, many people are familiar with the Historic
10 Preservation Fund, which in its legislation has an
11 indirect cost rate cap. So for that, for funds that
12 are awarded from the Historic Preservation Fund,
13 there is an ability to restrict indirect cost rate.
14 NAGPRA grants do not have that provision in the
15 legislation.
16 PATRICK LYONS: If I could add really quickly,
17 just one way that at the University of Arizona, how
18 we’ve been able to address this issue of indirect
19 costs is similar to I think what Frank was getting
20 at, in that the normal indirect cost rate at the
21 University of Arizona right now is 53 and one-half
22 percent. But there are ways through cooperative
23 agreements and contracts, as Melanie got into, but
24 also there are other Government programs, whereby
25 lower indirect cost rates have been negotiated with
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1 universities. And so we at times have been able to
2 get IDC as low as 20 percent on NAGPRA-related
3 contracts directly with agencies outside of the
4 National Park Service.
5 MARC LEVINE: Yes, I would just note that, as
6 many of you know, these numbers are creeping
7 upwards. They’re never going to get lower than what
8 they are right now. So it could become a problem
9 that increases in the future. And in the past, we
10 have been able to negotiate down to 25 percent. But
11 we have a new vice president of research and a new
12 regime change, and then we make that argument all
13 over again and not always successfully.
14 PATRICK LYONS: Do we have other comments and
15 questions?
16 Thank you all very much.
17 MARC LEVINE: Thank you.
18 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Our next presentation is Kara
19 Hurst with the Department of the Interior, Bureau of
20 Reclamation.
21 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
22 KARA HURST: Good morning. Thank you for having
23 me. My name is Kara Hurst, and I’m the national
24 curator and NAGPRA coordinator for the Bureau of
25 Reclamation, and I’m pleased to be speaking to all
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1 of you today. The last time I was before this body,
2 I had recently joined Reclamation after having been
3 at the National Museum of the American Indian for
4 almost four years. Since I’ve been at Reclamation,
5 I’ve worked to lead Reclamation’s museum and NAGPRA
6 programs forward, building upon past successes and
7 learning from challenges.
8 On behalf of my cultural resources colleagues
9 in Reclamation, I’d like to share with you our
10 forward efforts. We recognize there is always room
11 for improvement but our intentions are good, and I
12 feel we are making efforts in the right direction. I
13 hope you agree with me.
14 Reclamation’s Cultural Resource Management
15 Program has annual internal control reviews, and
16 rotates these reviews through different programs.
17 These reviews allow us to assess the effectiveness
18 of our internal controls such as our policies,
19 directives and standards documents, and standard
20 operating procedures. Last year, we reviewed
21 reported repatriated NAGPRA items against the
22 Federal Register notices. I discovered typographical
23 errors that made numbers of repatriated items less
24 than clear. With my colleagues in Reclamation’s
25 Lower Colorado region and in conjunction with the
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1 National NAGPRA staff, we were able to resolve the
2 questions. Out of this, with our CRM staff support,
3 Reclamation wrote an internal standard operating
4 procedure for the Federal Register notices to
5 provide for additional reviews by myself and our
6 Federal Register liaison prior to field staff
7 submitting their draft notices to the National
8 NAGPRA office for publication.
9 This year, Reclamation’s internal control
10 review focused on inadvertent discoveries. What we
11 learned is that in two of Reclamation’s five
12 regions, we need to: one, improve timeliness and
13 efforts concerning communications internally and
14 consultation with Tribes and with repositories that
15 are temporarily holding NAGPRA items; and two,
16 improve notice and recordkeeping practices so as to
17 better substantiate the work being accomplished. I
18 received comments from regional staff that these
19 internal reviews help them bring additional interest
20 and support from management to their work.
21 From the field, policy has received requests
22 from our regional and area offices for additional
23 NAGPRA training. With 43 Reclamation cultural
24 resource staff members spread across 21 cities in 17
25 western states, we wanted to ensure the training was
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1 consistent, timely, and reached all the cultural
2 resources staff as well as their managers. To this
3 end, I have been working with Reclamation’s internal
4 training staff and Reclamation has contracted with
5 Jan Bernstein of Bernstein & Associates to develop
6 an online on-demand video training on NAGPRA that
7 incorporates Reclamation’s policies and directives
8 and standards. I’m also very honored that Betsy
9 Chapoose, the cultural rights and protection
10 director of the Ute Indian Tribe, and Timothy Begay,
11 the Navajo cultural specialist of the Navajo Nation,
12 have agreed to assist with our training. All
13 Reclamation cultural resources staff and their
14 managers will be encouraged to make use of this
15 training video, as well as the training handouts we
16 developed. Where Reclamation staff still have
17 questions or request in-person training, I will work
18 closely with those offices to further assist them.
19 I also wanted to give a brief update from
20 Reclamation’s five regions. The Lower Colorado
21 region has successfully contributed to the data
22 calls and internal control reviews and in general
23 has little NAGPRA activity.
24 The Upper Colorado region, in collaboration
25 with museum partners, had three notices of inventory
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1 completion published February 8th, 2019, that
2 represents 499 ancestors and 620 funerary objects.
3 Since publication, there have not yet been any
4 claims made, although one Tribe with whom
5 Reclamation has been consulting with since 2002 on
6 these items, asked to reinitiate consultation and
7 has asked for copies of all past consultation notes
8 and photographs.
9 In fiscal year 2019, the Mid-Pacific region had
10 two new inadvertent discoveries, wrote two plans of
11 action, prepared five discovery plans for
12 programmatic agreements, and completed one
13 disposition. The Mid-Pacific region continues to
14 complete physical inventory for Reclamation
15 controlled collections, both in Reclamation’s
16 possession and in non-bureau repositories.
17 Currently, this region is conducting Tribal
18 consultations on four separate collections,
19 completed the repatriation of four collections,
20 drafted one inventory, and are awaiting claims for
21 an additional four collections.
22 The Great Plains region, Nebraska Kansas area
23 office, in collaboration with History Nebraska, had
24 two notices of inventory completion published July
25 15th, 2019, that represent 39 ancestors and 37
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1 funerary objects. The Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma has
2 submitted a claim for the repatriation of these
3 items and Reclamation is moving forward with that.
4 The Pacific Northwest region, Grand Coulee
5 Power office, recently completed a third field
6 season using historic human remains detection dogs
7 in collaboration with the Colville Confederated
8 Tribes, Spokane Tribe of Indians, and Bonneville
9 Power Administration at Lake Roosevelt in Washington
10 State. The program began on the Spokane arm of Lake
11 Roosevelt in 2017 and expanded to the main stem of
12 the reservoir in 2019. Use of the dogs to identify
13 both disturbed and intact burial features at Lake
14 Roosevelt is an important and non-invasive
15 management tool for the cooperating agencies and
16 Tribes as they work together to identify, monitor,
17 and protect unmarked grave sites that are in danger
18 of eroding from the Lake Roosevelt shoreline.
19 Thank you for the opportunity to present on
20 Reclamation’s NAGPRA efforts. This concludes my
21 prepared remarks, and I’m happy to take questions.
22 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
23 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much. I have to
24 say that I’m pleased to see the effort going into
25 training and consistency of training. That’s one of
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1 the barriers that we’ve heard discussed many, many
2 times at our meetings, that we’ve heard about in
3 agency reports and public comments. And so that’s
4 really encouraging. And one of the things that we
5 like to do, when folks have not explicitly made
6 barriers a focus of their presentation is to give
7 you the opportunity to address whether there are
8 other barriers or successes you’d like to talk
9 about.
10 KARA HURST: Thank you. I think we’re working on
11 the successes, and I hope to have additional
12 information in future years towards that end.
13 Barriers that are unique to Reclamation are
14 kind of based on our organizational structure, I
15 feel. We have – Reclamation operates in the 17
16 Western lower states, and we are within five
17 regions. Those five regions are quite autonomous in
18 their work and report up through a regional
19 director. So my work in working with the regional
20 archeologists and area office archeologists is
21 really through a collaborative process. There’s no
22 authority. I should say that I have to ask them to
23 do anything. So it’s very much a collaborative
24 process and developing collegial relationships.
25 And I recognize that all of those regions have
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1 different reporting structures. In Reclamation, we
2 have delegations of authority. And for some of those
3 regions, the delegation of authority has extended
4 from the regional offices down to the area offices.
5 In some regions, it has not. So depending on what
6 region I may be working with, the regional
7 archeologist who’s implementing NAGPRA for their
8 region, or I may be working with multiple area
9 offices within the same region in implementing
10 NAGPRA. So I think our barriers are truly our
11 organizational structure. But through the training
12 that I’m developing, so that it’s an online, on-
13 demand training, I really wanted to be consistent
14 with it and provide consistency for them across the
15 board. I’m also going to be encouraging the
16 archeologists’ managers to take this training so
17 that they can become better informed about NAGPRA
18 and the responsibilities of their staff and our
19 bureau as a whole, and how they can support those
20 archeologists trying to continue the work.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much. That’s very
22 helpful to understand. Other comments, questions?
23 FRANK MCMANAMON: How does the funding work? You
24 summarized a lot of activity, and I take it there’s
25 no central fund for NAGPRA-related activities within
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1 the bureau that you control or your supervisor
2 controls. So how does it – how are these activities
3 funded, through the – at the area level or at the
4 regional level, or is it a mix?
5 KARA HURST: It’s usually a mix. And in
6 Reclamation, we have different projects, so
7 different dams or reservoirs or laterals; a certain
8 project, right? And so if something – so NAGPRA work
9 will be funded out of that project budget. So
10 hopefully, there’s always continuing funds from
11 project budgets. But you’re right, it’s a challenge
12 on the funding, it comes from many different
13 sources.
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: And does some of that money
15 come from the irrigation district? Once the project
16 is completed, it’s managed in certain ways.
17 KARA HURST: Right, and this is probably getting
18 out of my realm of knowledge on how exactly the
19 money comes from all the different irrigation
20 districts and the payment contracts. It’s quite a
21 complex system from what I understand.
22 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay. If I could ask a few
23 more questions just about the nitty gritty,
24 literally of this, most of the collections, most of
25 the archeological and anthropological collections
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 234
1 that Reclamation is responsible for are managed in
2 non-Federal repositories.
3 KARA HURST: That is correct. We only hold 2
4 percent of Reclamation’s collections within
5 Reclamation facilities; 98 percent is managed in
6 other non-bureau repositories.
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: And how does that – I don’t
8 want to lead you into an answer, but it seems, given
9 this dispersed nature of responsibilities that
10 exists – which is not uncommon, at least in Interior
11 it’s not uncommon, I know – are funds provided to
12 those repositories or museums that hold collections
13 so that when one of your area archeologists or
14 regional archeologists is trying to make some
15 progress on creating an inventory or having a
16 consultation, that the museum has some funding or
17 the repository has some funding for their staff to
18 participate in that?
19 KARA HURST: We try to give funding to all of
20 our repositories. We’re not always able to. Some
21 projects have more money than other projects, just
22 the nature of things. And so where we have funds, we
23 are able to give funds. Myself having a museum
24 background, I’ve always pushed that we need to
25 support the museum work, so I’ve really tried to
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1 push that if we are asking museums to go above and
2 beyond what we normally have agreed to do, that we
3 have funding for that.
4 FRANK MCMANAMON: And presumably, that will also
5 be for Tribal members to consult as part of this as
6 well, similar kind of support.
7 KARA HURST: So I think we can only do so much
8 as far as supporting the Tribal efforts to come and
9 consult. Again, it’s challenging. I don’t have
10 control of any of the funds from any of the regions
11 or area offices. So I don’t know exactly how they
12 are dispersing their funds.
13 FRANK MCMANAMON: I ask some of these detailed
14 questions because I know one of the recommendations
15 in the Committee’s report to Congress mentions the
16 importance of Congress supporting these necessary
17 kinds of activities to effectively implement NAGPRA
18 by Federal agencies. And with my own experience and
19 observations and the Federal system, I know that
20 that’s complicated, just as you’re describing for
21 us. Is there some way that – something that this
22 Committee could include in its recommendations that
23 would make it a little clearer or would point to
24 some kinds of funding that might actually make it
25 into a Department of Interior budget request to
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1 Congress? Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on
2 that?
3 KARA HURST: We’re able to provide funding on
4 certain things, and especially for repatriation,
5 we’re able to provide funding for a cemetery plot or
6 a means of fulfilling a repatriation. And I know our
7 offices do that because they want to do as much as
8 they can.
9 FRANK MCMANAMON: Sure.
10 KARA HURST: I think our challenge right now is
11 mostly having enough staff to do the work, not
12 necessarily funding. I should have said earlier, one
13 of Reclamation’s challenges is our public conduct
14 rule, where it prohibits reburial on Reclamation
15 lands. So we have a lot of Tribes that want to move
16 forward with reburial close to the original site.
17 But because of our public conduct rule, we’re unable
18 to do that. So we often try and buy a burial plot as
19 close as possible to a site.
20 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay. Reclamation as a Federal
21 agency isn’t eligible for NAGPRA grants, grants from
22 the NAGPRA Program that we heard about yesterday.
23 KARA HURST: Right.
24 FRANK MCMANAMON: But do you know whether your
25 area offices or your regional offices that carry out
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1 these NAGPRA responsibilities have partnered with
2 Tribes or with museums on their seeking grants to do
3 consultation or update inventories that include or
4 are Reclamation collections? Has that been tried?
5 Are there any stories you could tell us of successes
6 or problems with that?
7 KARA HURST: Not that I know of offhand. Again,
8 I’m still relatively new to Reclamation. I’m trying
9 to recall to memory something that happened last
10 year where there was a request to put in a grant and
11 I offered to write a letter of support. I don’t
12 recall it going through because I did not – I was
13 not asked to provide that letter. But we would
14 definitely be open to that and supportive of that,
15 of any efforts along those lines to do grants.
16 FRANK MCMANAMON: Thank you and thanks for your
17 presentation.
18 PATRICK LYONS: It occurs to me that maybe the
19 Fort Lewis College presentation that we heard about
20 recently would be an example of an institution that
21 had BOR collections that maybe were – there was
22 assistance from the grant program.
23 Madam DFO, does that ring a bell with you?
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I definitely know that Fort
25 Lewis did receive a NAGPRA consultation grant. I
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1 would like to clarify, though, that the grants are
2 limited to work on non-Federal collections. So a
3 consultation grant could bring a Tribe to a museum
4 to consult on a museum collection but the purpose of
5 the grant could not be to consult on a Federal
6 collection. The exception to that would be
7 repatriation grants, where a Tribe could apply for a
8 repatriation grant to go and collect a Federal
9 collection and rebury or bring it back. I think the
10 importance of what Reclamation has informed you of
11 is that there is a limit on the NAGPRA repatriation
12 grants. You could not use those funds to buy a
13 burial plot, for example, but you could use the
14 grant to purchase supplies or materials for the
15 reburial.
16 FRANK MCMANAMON: Thanks for that. I didn’t
17 realize that, or I had forgotten that.
18 PATRICK LYONS: And I’d confused two things in
19 my head, so thank you for clarifying, Melanie.
20 And then just to follow up on what Frank was
21 getting at with his questions, I guess I wanted to
22 clarify. So your line is a dedicated line within
23 your agency, specifically for museum functions and
24 NAGPRA? So that’s all you have to do. You don’t have
25 to do other stuff?
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1 KARA HURST: That is what I do.
2 PATRICK LYONS: You know, 106? No?
3 KARA HURST: I don’t do 106, no. I do the museum
4 program and NAGPRA program.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Okay, that’s great. But there’s
6 only one of you?
7 KARA HURST: There is only one of me. I’m in the
8 Policy and Administration Division for Bureau of
9 Reclamation. So I’m more at the policy level than
10 the implementation level.
11 PATRICK LYONS: Got you. And then just to maybe
12 clarify or sum up, maybe some of the stuff that
13 Frank was getting at, please correct me if I’m
14 wrong, what I think I’m hearing from you is that you
15 wind up having to do a lot of your implemented –
16 help things get implemented, pardon me, through
17 collaboration and cooperation, in part because of
18 the organizational structure, but also because there
19 are no centralized funds for a NAGPRA program that
20 you control. Is that right?
21 KARA HURST: That is correct.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Okay. So that, to me, that might
23 be one of the things that I think maybe that’s where
24 you’re trying to go, Frank. Is that correct?
25 FRANK MCMANAMON: It could be a solution. That
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1 was, sort of what I was – is are there things that
2 Kara would recommend or would have thought about,
3 you know, if we only had funding to do this, that I
4 could provide this sort of thing. So I think there’s
5 a variety of ways of doing it. But that would be a
6 simple fix.
7 PATRICK LYONS: As a practical recommendation.
8 FRANK MCMANAMON: Yes, although getting it into
9 the budget, I think, would be – potentially be a
10 hard thing.
11 KARA HURST: I think so. Again, I’m at the
12 policy level, not at the implementation level. I do
13 have funds available for my programs. So I am
14 funding the training component, so that where I have
15 funds, I’m able to do things at that level at the
16 kind of broader overarching level. If we could have
17 staff, a staff person in every region that managed
18 museum property and NAGPRA, that would be fantastic.
19 But I don’t necessarily see that happening. Often
20 for our archeologists, museum property and NAGPRA
21 compliance is on top of all their other NHPA and
22 Section 106 responsibility.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Which is why I asked that
24 question of you.
25 KARA HURST: Yes.
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Yes.
2 KARA HURST: We also have a Federal preservation
3 officer in my division, so he manages all that work
4 with the regional archeologists.
5 HONOR KEELER: I kind of have a two-segmented
6 question. You said that a staff person in every
7 region would be helpful to you to help with
8 implementing NAGPRA. About how many staff altogether
9 would that be, or what would your recommendation be?
10 KARA HURST: Right now, aside from myself,
11 dedicated to museum and NAGPRA programs, in our Mid-
12 Pacific region, we have a dedicated NAGPRA
13 individual who’s actually here in attendance as well
14 today, Melanie Ryan, and then we have a dedicated
15 museum property person in that region. And in our
16 Great Plains region, we have a dedicated museum
17 property person. In our other three regions, those
18 museum and NAGPRA duties are undertaken by the
19 regional and area archeologists.
20 HONOR KEELER: Okay, thank you.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Do we have other questions or
22 comments? Thank you very much.
23 KARA HURST: Thank you.
24 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next presentation this
25 morning is Emily Palus with the Interior Museum
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1 Program.
2 PATRICK LYONS: Good morning.
3 U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, INTERIOR MUSEUM PROGRAM
4 EMILY PALUS: Good morning, Mr. Chair and
5 distinguished members of the Review Committee. My
6 name is Emily Shillingburg Palus. And I’m here to
7 represent the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum
8 Program, which is in the Office of the Secretary
9 under the Office of Management – under the Office of
10 Policy, Management and Budget, and within the Office
11 of Acquisition and Property Management. I’m
12 delighted to be joined by two interns who are
13 working with the program, Victoria Beadle and Kyla
14 Cools.
15 I’ll pause for a moment and apologize to the
16 Committee and the Program and people in the room and
17 watching about I’m going to have some slides that
18 I’ll refer to in my presentation that will be made
19 available online shortly. Technology is a wonderful
20 thing but it doesn’t always go well or in this – but
21 I do want to note that how fantastic I think it is
22 that these meetings are livestreamed, that you reach
23 a much broader audience. And Melanie, it was very
24 sweet yesterday when you said, “Hi, Mom.” So I want
25 to pause and say hello to my family, who I bailed on
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1 family vacation to be here this week, and I’m
2 looking forward to joining them tomorrow. So hello
3 to my kids who are watching, who don’t always
4 understand what it is I do. They’re ages four and
5 six. But in this aspect of my job, I try to talk
6 about it with them, especially when it means I’m
7 going to be far away and they ask, is this about
8 granny? I said, yes, this is about everybody’s
9 granny. So again, good morning to my family and
10 thank you. I’d rather have the livestream than the
11 slides.
12 But with that, so I’ve been in my current
13 position with the Interior Museum Program for four
14 months, but have nearly 20 years of experience
15 working with the Department of Interior museum
16 programs, cultural resource programs, and NAGPRA,
17 with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of
18 Land Management, and have advised, trained, and
19 served on internal control reviews for the Bureau of
20 Reclamation, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish
21 and Wildlife Service.
22 The purpose of this presentation today is to
23 apprise the Committee of the role that this office,
24 the Interior Museum Program, plays in addressing the
25 Department’s responsibilities for museum collections
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1 and to highlight information, resources, and
2 insights the program offers in relation to successes
3 for and barriers to Federal agency compliance with
4 NAGPRA. In particular, the program is poised to
5 address specific topics that appear to be of
6 interest to the Committee based on your prior
7 meetings and reports to Congress, including
8 coordination with non-Federal repositories,
9 situations of split collections, where materials
10 from the same sites and locales are in different
11 repositories and in some cases under different
12 administrative authorities, as well as resources
13 available to agencies to address NAGPRA
14 responsibilities, including funding and capacity,
15 training and technical assistance, and records
16 management and data – records access and data
17 management. I’ll touch on these topics briefly and
18 offer some examples.
19 So just quickly about the program, the Interior
20 Museum Program provides policy oversight and
21 coordination and offers technical assistance,
22 training, tools, and resources across 10 bureaus and
23 offices that manage an estimated 211 million
24 objects, specimens, and archives that are housed in
25 over 2,000 bureau facilities and 1,000 non-Federal
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1 museums and universities. I also oversee the
2 Interior Museum located in the Main Interior
3 Building in Washington, DC, which presents a robust
4 schedule of public programs, a small permanent
5 exhibit, a gallery, and a soon to be opened new
6 gallery space that will feature a range of changing
7 exhibits.
8 An emphasis of the program in recent years, and
9 one I will continue, is working with non-Federal
10 repositories managing Interior collections. Prior
11 presentations by the BIA and the BLM have addressed
12 why this is so prevalent for archeological
13 collections to be in non-Federal repositories;
14 presentations in March 2015, July 2016, March 2017,
15 and October 2018. So I won’t repeat here, but will
16 add that repositories also curate a host of
17 disciplines, not just archeology, but for instance,
18 here at the Museum of the North, there are
19 collections representing archeology, paleontology,
20 mammalogy, entomology, ornithology, and ichthyology
21 from Interior bureau lands.
22 With collections in so many facilities, this
23 aspect of the program is critically important and
24 sometimes fairly complicated. The need to increase
25 effectiveness of control over museum collections
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1 held at non-DOI facilities was identified by the
2 Interior Office of Inspector General in a 2008
3 audit. And before and since actually, the Department
4 and bureaus have continued to identify all
5 organizations that hold DOI collections and identify
6 all objects held in those collections to ensure
7 they’re properly managed.
8 This initiative is being accomplished with new
9 policy, procedures for working and partnering with
10 repositories, as well as additional guidance and
11 training materials. A slide that I’ve provided you
12 has a whole list of those projects completed and
13 underway. I’ll highlight one in particular, to
14 support bureaus as a new module for – hey, this can
15 go on the record, but Lesa is awesome. So just give
16 me a moment and I’ll just catch up.
17 So one tool I’ll mention in particular to
18 support bureaus is a new module for our museum
19 collections management system, which is specific to
20 organizing and managing information about
21 repositories, including collections information and
22 NAGPRA information, as a container for any
23 information we can glean and compile, even without
24 more detailed catalog records. This module, in
25 addition to other enhancements for this IT
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1 investment, should associate collections in multiple
2 repositories and perhaps administered by more than
3 one bureau but are related. Victoria Beadle has been
4 doing incredible work compiling and cross
5 referencing information the bureaus have reported on
6 repositories, which we need for annual reporting and
7 coordination, but will also serve as the initial
8 migration dataset into this new module next spring.
9 Another tool the program has provided bureaus
10 and partners is a specific funding line for cultural
11 and scientific collections, which has supported
12 projects and internships. Between 2014 and 2018,
13 specific appropriation of one million dollars for
14 improving stewardship of the nation’s cultural and
15 scientific collections was included in Interior’s
16 annual budget, and over the course of those five
17 years, nearly 3.5 million was awarded to collections
18 projects, 39 of which supported NAGPRA compliance.
19 The Bureau of Indian Affairs has made the most of
20 this funding, and Annie Pardo has mentioned in her
21 prior presentations.
22 I will mention two other projects relevant to
23 our locale here in Alaska. Funding for the Chirikof
24 Island collection recovery project was requested by
25 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and coordinated
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1 with the Alutiiq Museum, an archeological
2 repository. The purpose of the project was to
3 consolidate collections including human remains
4 removed from Chirikof Island in the 1960s by William
5 Laughlin, who was then associated with the
6 University of Wisconsin. The collection was
7 dispersed among multiple institutions and two
8 individuals, so the objective was to bring the
9 collection back to the Alutiiq, a nonprofit Tribal
10 repository in Kodiak. After intensive negotiations
11 and planning, ultimately, the effort included
12 retrieval of 109 sets of Native American human
13 remains and 44 associated funerary objects, among
14 other material. A NAGPRA notice of inventory
15 completion was published in March 2018 and a
16 repatriation shortly thereafter.
17 Another project funded in part with CSC funds
18 also involved recovery of collections tied to
19 William Laughlin, which were part of his
20 dissertation research in 1948 while he was studying
21 at Harvard University, and two other collections
22 historically removed from Federal lands in Alaska.
23 The BLM partnered with the Museum of the North as a
24 receiving repository, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
25 Service, which also had a small collection at the
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1 Peabody, and the National Park Service, which
2 provided much needed local logistical support.
3 With advanced planning over a few days, the
4 collection was inventoried and shipped to Fairbanks;
5 38 boxes holding 38 individuals and over 1,500
6 artifacts that were subsequently documented here.
7 NAGPRA consultation is ongoing for inventory for the
8 initial two collections, with additional efforts
9 underway to identify and retrieve other Chaluka
10 collections in or retrieved from Connecticut,
11 Wisconsin, Michigan, and Oregon, prior to preparing
12 a notice correction.
13 In addition to funded projects, the CSC funds
14 also provided support for internships at the
15 National Council for Preservation Education. And
16 over the last five years, this funding line has
17 supported 102 internships, 18 of which have been
18 dedicated to NAGPRA or with a heavy NAGPRA
19 component. The cultural and scientific collections
20 account, excuse me, was a welcome and well-utilized
21 funding source, which helped advance critical NAGPRA
22 work.
23 While on the topic of funding, I note that
24 during your April 2019 meeting and your conversation
25 just now, there was discussion about agency funding
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1 for NAGPRA compliance. And in April, you had a good
2 discussion about how valuable it is to have figures,
3 but none were immediately available, and referred to
4 appropriations bills and reports, prior
5 presentations, and the Government Accountability
6 Office Review of Federal agency compliance with
7 NAGPRA.
8 So let me start with the latter. For media
9 reference, here is the budget information from the
10 Department’s response to the GAO recommendation that
11 key bureaus prepare a needs assessment on the time,
12 tasks, and resources to assure full compliance for
13 NAGPRA. This information shows – this shows
14 dedicated NAGPRA funds – again, this is 2011,
15 dedicated NAGPRA funds, other funds that were
16 available, and other information. While this
17 information is aging, it still may be informative to
18 the Committee.
19 For appropriations, let’s say navigating budget
20 documents is not for the fainthearted, and I’ve
21 worked on budget formulation and research
22 appropriations in my career, so I thought I would
23 share a few tips. First, I would direct you to the
24 President’s budget, which presents the agency’s and
25 Administration’s priorities. And our budget
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1 justifications offer descriptions of agency
2 programs, and in some cases, some detail on planned
3 performance at a level that you won’t necessarily
4 see in the congressional bills and reports. Within
5 several of the Interior bureaus, NAGPRA is funded by
6 cultural resource programs. Without a specific line
7 item, it may be difficult to get the granular
8 information on appropriations for NAGPRA collections
9 compliance. However, some bureaus may have internal
10 coding and methods to track obligations.
11 But I offer a proxy or not a proxy, rather a
12 hint for getting a sense. And so in this table, I’ve
13 listed the five bureaus managing large collections
14 and provided the activity and subactivity, which is
15 the umbrella account under which the NAGPRA work
16 most likely falls. For instance, the Bureau of
17 Indian Affairs Museum Program is under Trust — Real
18 Estate Services/Environmental Quality. For the BLM,
19 under Land Resources/Cultural Resource Management.
20 And the next column I’ve given the amount requested
21 in the fiscal year 2020 President’s budget for that
22 overall subactivity, and in the parenthetical, the
23 total budget request for the bureau. These
24 subactivities host a – these subactivities fund a
25 host of activities described in the budget
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1 justifications.
2 NAGPRA funding does not have its own identity,
3 neither does mean museum collections for the most
4 part, although the two are often linked. So in this
5 last column, I’ve provided the amount reported by
6 bureaus for obligations to museum collections work
7 during fiscal year 2018. This information is part of
8 annual reporting that the bureaus provide to the
9 Interior Museum Program. This is not a proxy. This
10 just gives you a sense of information.
11 Agency presentations are another source of
12 information, although not systematic since not all
13 bureaus have provided budget information, or in the
14 same way, as the information might be provided in
15 response to a question. So for instance, budget
16 information was provided by the BLM in November 2012
17 and a response to a member inquiry in July 2016. For
18 Park NAGPRA, you heard information during your
19 October 2018 meeting.
20 So you might be picking up on a trend in my
21 presentation today, where I’m making reference to
22 prior presentations and Review Committee
23 discussions. This gets me to a recent project, which
24 many thanks to Kyla Cools, is really taking shape.
25 Kyla’s been reading all your transcripts for the
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1 last 10 years, and pulling from the Review Committee
2 reports to Congress and meeting minutes references
3 to Department of Interior implementation of NAGPRA,
4 as reported by bureaus, about bureaus, and the
5 Committee’s discussion and recommendations. One
6 sheet includes references to the reports – one sheet
7 includes references from the reports to Congress
8 with full text of the relevant passages. The other
9 sheet includes references from the meeting minutes,
10 also with the relevant full text, but then also the
11 page references to the original transcripts. This
12 effort is not complete, but about two-thirds of the
13 way through.
14 One of the issues that caught my eye under the
15 topic of Federal collections in non-Federal
16 repositories was a discussion about challenges to
17 determining responsibility and the basis for that
18 role. So for some, the concepts of control and
19 possession are confusing at best, paralyzing at
20 worst. I’m often asked why museums have not – by my
21 Federal colleagues, why museums haven’t completed
22 the inventory work for the collections in their
23 possession. What does control mean? What does
24 possession mean? What is physical custody?
25 I mentioned yesterday that I was trained doing
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1 NAGPRA, and we did joint notices where a collection
2 was in the control of the agency and in the
3 possession of a repository. That is no longer in
4 practice, but I wasn’t sure when this changed. And
5 so I checked my assumptions and gathered some data,
6 and here’s what I found. Between 1996 and 2012, 97
7 notices were published identifying one agency or
8 museum as having control and a different agency or
9 museum having possession and in some cases, multiple
10 entities having possession. Between 2004 and 2019,
11 167 notices were published identifying one agency or
12 museum as having control and a different agency or
13 museum having physical custody. I compared the two
14 datasets focusing on 2004 to 2012, where both
15 approaches were in use. There are 66 notices each,
16 of Federal agency control and physical custody of
17 another entity, and Federal agency control and
18 possession of another entity, 66 notices each. And I
19 was surprised to see both practices in play at the
20 same time. Notably, after 2012, the possession
21 approach drops off completely.
22 While I’m sharing data gathering, which as I
23 mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, our
24 program – we develop tools to help bureaus. And one
25 more project seems particularly relevant in light of
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1 the Federal agency collections in repositories. And
2 you’ll note the many references to permitting and
3 permit administration. So we are systematically
4 digitizing the permit records at the National
5 Archives. Why? Because these records document the
6 original authorizations, provide leads to where
7 collections were removed from, the circumstances
8 under which they were removed, and clues as to where
9 collections may be. These also help us understand
10 the nature of the authorization.
11 In administering the permitting provisions of
12 the Antiquities Act, the Office of the Secretary
13 issued at least 100 – I’ll take a step back,
14 considering where we are here in Alaska reviewing
15 this data, in administering the permitting
16 provisions of the Antiquities Act, the Office of the
17 Secretary of Interior issued more than 150 permits
18 to at least 35 institutions in 20 states and 3
19 foreign nations for the excavation and collections
20 of antiquities from Alaska, and that is just what
21 was permitted.
22 So to bring this to a close, the location of
23 this meeting here at the University of Alaska Museum
24 of the North truly presents a compelling backdrop to
25 highlight positive collaborative relationships
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1 between Interior and non-Federal repositories, as
2 well as the challenges in tracking a legacy of over
3 a century of collecting from public lands in Alaska
4 and subsequent dispersal of material at this
5 institution, as well as in museums and universities
6 across the lower 48 states and abroad. I want to
7 note that the Museum of the North on its own and
8 with Federal land managing agencies and with Native
9 Alaskan Villages and Indian Tribes is actively
10 identifying collections that were removed from
11 Alaska and bringing them back for repatriation, for
12 curation at this museum, or in cooperation with more
13 local museums across the state.
14 I thank the museum for hosting us. I thank you
15 for your time. I reflect that much work has been
16 done but much work remains, and especially to bring
17 home and return the Native Alaskan heritage. Thank
18 you.
19 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
20 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. I’ll start by saying
21 how pleased I am personally to see the kind of
22 progress done in partnership with non-Federal
23 repositories, and particularly – in the particular
24 cases that you’ve offered as case studies, that’s
25 really encouraging to see. And I want to ask a
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1 question about issues of possession and control.
2 Again, one of the things that this body is supposed
3 to do is to assist in identifying barriers to
4 repatriation and implementation of the Act, and then
5 also to make recommendations about possible
6 responses to those barriers. So you talked about
7 some of the successes that you’ve had. You’ve also
8 mentioned in this presentation, and it was part of
9 the BLM presentation earlier, issues of possession
10 and control. And so I wonder if you can maybe expand
11 a little bit on that topic of how it is a barrier.
12 EMILY PALUS: I think perhaps the success or the
13 barrier distills down to clarity on roles and
14 responsibilities. Yesterday, we talked about that
15 projects only succeed when they’re collaborative.
16 Understanding roles and responsibilities, I think,
17 actually has been something of – a bit of an
18 evolution. And as I mentioned when I – earlier in my
19 career when I was learning to do NAGPRA from my
20 mentors in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and working
21 with museums and the Program, we published notices
22 that were from Indian lands that were under the
23 control of the BIA and in the possession of the
24 museum. That being that the museum had, in many
25 cases, been the permittee, so requested to do the
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1 investigation and committed to holding the
2 collection and actually had held that collection
3 since that time. Or in some cases, if items had been
4 dispersed, exchanged, and so on, we do recall to
5 bring those materials back. Also over the time the
6 institution had used the collection’s research, the
7 collection – developed a whole host of information,
8 what I would distill down to intellectual and
9 physical control and access.
10 And I think probably for a long time, these
11 institutions managed these collections as their own,
12 because that’s what the understanding was. And I
13 think in 1990, with NAGPRA and then Curation of
14 Federally Owned and Administered Archeological
15 Collections, and some other internal things going on
16 at Interior in terms of museum property management,
17 we started to take another look at what are Federal
18 responsibilities for material from Federal lands.
19 And I think that took some sorting through. What we
20 largely rely on is a policy memo from 1988 that
21 addresses ownership of Antiquities Act collections
22 under – Antiquities Act, and also versus the
23 Archeological Resources Protection Act.
24 So that is – and so we have agencies often –
25 and staff and managers coming in who don’t have a
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1 background, and yet we have – explaining that we
2 have this responsibility, because the responsibility
3 control ties to who owned and managed – who managed
4 the land at the time the collections were made. And
5 so – and just to kind of riff on Alaska for a
6 moment, there’s whole sections of Alaska for which
7 the Bureau of Land Management has no relationship to
8 and hasn’t in a very long time. And yet the lands
9 were GLO, General Land Office, at the time of
10 collection, and so the Bureau of Land Management is
11 identified as the agency.
12 So I don’t raise the question to get into a –
13 shed any kind of responsibility at all. And I’ve
14 talked in prior presentations to the Review
15 Committee that I see no point in the “not it” game.
16 Can we just – and sometimes, frankly, what happens
17 is that we spend so much time figuring out who’s
18 responsible and responsible for doing what, that we
19 exhaust tremendous amount of time and resources
20 before we ever get to consultation and getting –
21 But I do think that clarity on roles and
22 responsibilities can be – is an ongoing challenge. I
23 don’t know that the definitions are that clear. And
24 certainly there is just some work that just can’t be
25 done if we’re not doing it together. And do we come
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1 to the table voluntarily or do we come to the table?
2 Do we have to – it’s just we have to come to the
3 table.
4 I hope that answers your question, Mr. Chair.
5 PATRICK LYONS: I think so.
6 Frank, did you?
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: I don’t have a question on
8 that particular topic. But I do have some questions
9 on one of your slides that – I think this is the one
10 that’s called “Interior-Bureau Budget Overview: from
11 where is NAGPRA funded?”
12 EMILY PALUS: Yes.
13 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay. Can you put that up?
14 EMILY PALUS: Oh, I’m sorry.
15 FRANK MCMANAMON: I’m just trying to -
16 EMILY PALUS: I’ll do that while – yes.
17 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay. So I’m trying to
18 understand the numbers in some of these different
19 columns. And the reason I’m asking is, if the
20 Committee can be helpful in recommending additional
21 funding for agencies, the clearer we can be about
22 where the funding should go and what it should be
23 used for the better. So that’s really just to
24 understand the numbers. So looking at the third
25 column, just to try to understand the amounts,
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1 looking at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the
2 $13,440,000 is what the Bureau of Indian Affairs
3 proposes to spend in fiscal year 2020 on all
4 cultural resource management activities?
5 EMILY PALUS: More than that, environmental
6 quality.
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay, so this is a very broad
8 category.
9 EMILY PALUS: Yes.
10 FRANK MCMANAMON: And then in the fourth column,
11 the $778,000 is money they have identified that they
12 will spend on -
13 EMILY PALUS: The final column is actually not
14 tied to the 2020 budget. It’s what the bureaus
15 report to my office, the Interior Museum Program, on
16 resources obligated for managing museum collections.
17 And this is their 2018 data. So it’s not a one to
18 one. It’s not one carved out of another. It’s just
19 where kind of things connect, and it’s not a proxy,
20 it was just to give information. So also for
21 instance, Cultural Resources Management, for the
22 Bureau of Land Management, the request is
23 $15,585,000. That is for cultural, paleontological
24 resources and Tribal consultation, data management,
25 a whole host of things which are written up in the
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1 budget justification, or the green book for that
2 subactivity. What’s cut off from this screen but on
3 your handouts, but I will just say for the record,
4 all of this is public information. This represents
5 the agency’s presentation for planning for 2020.
6 These are agency priorities, and it is available
7 www.doi.gov/budget.
8 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay, and just a couple of
9 things. In parentheses, in that third column, for
10 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1.8 billion dollars,
11 that’s the total budget?
12 EMILY PALUS: That’s the total request for the
13 BIA.
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: For the whole agency?
15 EMILY PALUS: Yes.
16 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay, so we get a sense of
17 within the agency, the sort of amount of attention
18 given to this general – very general activity. And
19 again, in the final column, these are numbers that
20 you get annually from the bureaus – from the museum
21 managers in the individual bureaus, their estimates
22 or their specific amounts that they say they’re
23 using for museum management. But that again is –
24 NAGPRA’s within that but that’s not NAGPRA.
25 EMILY PALUS: That’s correct. It’s not a proxy.
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1 The other thing that I would say is that this is –
2 yes, this is what the bureau reports, what they’ve
3 obligated to museum collections, which is an annual
4 report that they provide to the Department, which is
5 prescribed in Part 411 of the Departmental manual.
6 So as an agency, it’s an agency-wide report that
7 everyone reports into. How those different numbers
8 are pulled out of the financial databases, that’s an
9 individual conversation. I could talk to you until
10 you don’t want to talk about it anymore about how it
11 works at the BLM since I ran the budget for the BLM
12 for a number of years. But again, I caution not to
13 try to equate too many things it was – but if I know
14 – where do you start to look?
15 FRANK MCMANAMON: Sure.
16 EMILY PALUS: And it’s not always clean. And you
17 can google “NAGPRA” or word search “NAGPRA” but what
18 I wanted to do in support of the Committee and the
19 Program is to provide some idea of where you would
20 find information. In the interest of space and time,
21 I did not provide a description of each of these
22 budgets, just of each of those subactivities.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, but this gives us a sense
24 of proportionality or scale, which is really easily
25 communicated in this way. And so I appreciate that.
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1 FRANK MCMANAMON: The other – one of the other
2 valuable things about this is that these – in the
3 second column, the activity, subactivity, just the
4 terminology, this is where – if you were going to go
5 to the budget document, this would be the term you
6 would look for.
7 PATRICK LYONS: Right, it gives you the search
8 ability.
9 FRANK MCMANAMON: Just one point, the Park
10 Service in the fourth column, I think it’s probably
11 2.1 million dollars?
12 EMILY PALUS: Oh, I apologize, yes.
13 FRANK MCMANAMON: The technology is great.
14 EMILY PALUS: Humans err all the time.
15 FRANK MCMANAMON: So we try to root it out.
16 EMILY PALUS: Thank you for that. And I will say
17 that Park Service Museum Management Program and Park
18 NAGPRA, they’re a little bit different, because
19 there is a standalone Museum Management Program and
20 a standalone Park NAGPRA Program. In the interest of
21 consistency, I included what Park Service museum
22 management has reported on obligations for museum
23 collections, but I want to posit that that isn’t
24 necessarily the same kind of information since Park
25 NAGPRA has also had funding, although reported to
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1 you in October of 2018 a change.
2 I would also say that these budget
3 justifications can be very interesting, because it
4 provides a description of the scope of mission and –
5 priority mission work that the bureaus are doing.
6 And it gives an idea of just the variety of
7 activities that each of the bureaus in the
8 Department as a whole undertakes on behalf of the
9 nation.
10 FRANK MCMANAMON: And just one other thing about
11 the presentation, I do want to commend you on
12 continuing to focus on scanning the Antiquities Act
13 and potentially the ARPA permit information that
14 you’re finding in the National Archives and maybe
15 even other places. I think we heard yesterday about
16 the Point Hope collection, and there’s key
17 information in those documents and they’re very
18 difficult to find and access, even the ones that are
19 already in the National Archives. You can’t easily
20 access them. And it usually involves a trip to the
21 DC area or one of the other record repositories. So
22 I would urge you to continue that process and make
23 that generally available for people in Alaska or
24 other parts of the country that may be trying to
25 locate collections, and particularly collections
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1 that have become split and are in different
2 locations. And we know there are lots of those from
3 the information we have from National NAGPRA, as
4 well. So thank you for the presentation.
5 EMILY PALUS: Thank you.
6 JOHN BEAVER: Sorry to shift gears on you. Thank
7 you for your presentation, I have a follow-up
8 question to the question in terms of a barrier and
9 sort of shifting back to control and possession. And
10 so just to sort of consolidate that response, so a
11 barrier – one of the barriers that we’re identifying
12 is sort of the interpretation or varying
13 interpretations of control and possession. Is that
14 what you’re presenting or asserting?
15 EMILY PALUS: Yes. And the practical
16 implementation, or how we practically, it’s one
17 thing to talk about what these things mean and what
18 our responsibilities are. I think you can say
19 Federal land, Federal control, Federal
20 responsibility, we can talk about it. But then the
21 challenge then becomes also the implementation of
22 that, and that’s some of what you heard yesterday,
23 specifically, but I would say probably in many of
24 the presentations, going back to at least 2012, if
25 not earlier. It was interesting looking at some of
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1 the 2010 and 2011 information on activity within the
2 Committee about – in 2011, there’s a recommendation
3 about information – providing information to
4 agencies on collections.
5 I think the law and the regs and the work is
6 complicated enough when you just read it, but then
7 sometimes we have further challenges in the
8 implementation. And it’s the – and sometimes
9 communicating that to managers and senior officials
10 and administrators within Federal agencies, museums
11 and Tribes. And I just want to pause for a moment
12 and say I would imagine that this is incredibly
13 frustrating for Tribal representatives to hear.
14 JOHN BEAVER: That’s where I was going with
15 this. So if it’s difficult on this level, the Tribes
16 are getting different answers, particularly when,
17 say, collections are – not just that we talk about
18 the repository thing, but also, in certain aspects,
19 we think about like museums. And particularly if an
20 item has come from some of these collections that
21 have been presented, not just at this meeting, but
22 at earlier meetings, maybe they don’t – or aren’t
23 always aware of this thing, this discussion that’s
24 in the background of that, and if a museum or
25 repository, but a museum, in particular, is having a
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1 dispute with someone who – when the internal
2 discussion is about control and possession. I’m glad
3 that you pointed that out. I mean, it’s not only a
4 barrier – it’s an overall barrier for the
5 implementation and the overall sort of the outcome
6 of things, which then does extend to the – I think
7 to the Tribes, which can be very frustrating to the
8 Tribes, because of all these things, this white
9 noise that’s going on in the background. And I think
10 they should be aware of that. I mean, that’s the –
11 this is where it sits. There’s lots of internal
12 things that don’t come out, which are – these are
13 public. These are in the – these collections do
14 exist within the public realm. I think that
15 certainly behooves or befits that for this
16 information to come out.
17 So what I’m hearing, and what I’ve heard today
18 and what I’ve heard yesterday, is there’s lots of
19 discussion about this – I don’t know, these varied
20 interpretations across the board about control and
21 possession. And to me, the implementation gets
22 caught up in all the white noise and all this that
23 surrounds this. And what it sounds like to me is
24 this – when the Tribes, whether in the consultation
25 process or the outcome of this, that’s holding up
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1 that particular part of the process for the Tribes,
2 I think. And sometimes I think on the Tribal side of
3 things, that seemed as, I don’t know, as a stalling,
4 measure, stalling tactic, something like that, that
5 you’re – which then becomes you have the Tribes
6 coming, whether these agencies or these museums
7 aren’t upholding or carrying out their – and I’m not
8 talking about collections that are in the sort of
9 the deeper histories but are more – that are, say,
10 more recent collections or things that sort of might
11 fall into the categories of sacred, the category of
12 sacred and ceremonial or objects of cultural
13 patrimony. And that can be very confusing. Like I
14 said, I keep going back, and it gets caught up in
15 all the white noise of all these varied
16 interpretations of control and possession.
17 EMILY PALUS: Thank you, Mr. Beaver, I really
18 appreciate you using that it’s this other noise
19 that’s going on. And I think this hurts our
20 relationships with Tribes and Native Alaskan
21 communities and Hawaiian groups, I think because it
22 – and all of these other activities before we get to
23 the real work, if you will, of NAGPRA. And so it
24 does hurt – it hurts relationships. I think, yes, it
25 can be seen as a stalling tactic, which is very
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1 unfortunate, and at worst, it is. But that’s not
2 what – and I’ve said before in prior presentations,
3 can we get past the “not it” game and just move
4 forward with the work. Moving forward with the work,
5 though, is sometimes – it is hard. And we’d like – I
6 look at some of the projects that I’ve been involved
7 with, advised on, supported through program funds,
8 all of this work that gets done just to have basic
9 information to come to the table with a Tribe. And
10 then I think about the time delays and so on.
11 Another – and I am sure (inaudible comment),
12 another practical matter, the legal role, and okay,
13 this is what you have to do. Okay now, Interior is
14 filled with very practical people who just get down
15 on the ground and go, hey, let’s do this. It’s
16 actually a wonderful thing working at the agency.
17 It’s an agency of problem solvers.
18 And sometimes, it’s really hard to wrap our
19 heads around, and I’ll confess I do have a challenge
20 with this, that a museum that has the authority and
21 capacity to grant access to over 120 researchers
22 from 75 different institutions, 10 of them overseas,
23 to do a whole variety of studies, some of which get
24 published, appears to include some destructive
25 analysis and scanning in recent years, but has no
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1 NAGPRA role. That’s the part that I can’t wrap my
2 head around. Or how do I explain that to my
3 colleagues who are trying to push the project
4 forward? And how do we explain that to Tribal
5 representatives, when we have this little kind of
6 bureaucratic thing going on at the end of the day,
7 just get the job done.
8 But I guess that’s what we can – that’s why I
9 think these are – sort of some of the presentations
10 over recent years have addressed kind of this common
11 barrier. We can give you – and I want to be clear,
12 there are so many successes. There are so many
13 successes. And if I am a glass is half empty kind of
14 person, I regret that. But it’s when – it’s okay,
15 what’s next, because I keep thinking about the whole
16 body of the remainder of compliance to be done.
17 And so some of us we look at the – but we can
18 talk about in other contexts what has worked, and I
19 think prior presentations from Interior bureaus have
20 given examples of what has worked in details. And
21 then where it’s, okay, here’s where the barriers,
22 and the barriers that are being brought forward, are
23 those the ones that the bureaus so far have not been
24 able to solve on their own. I hope to help in my new
25 role at Interior, but we need advice and support as
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1 well. Thank you.
2 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you. Thank you for your
3 response.
4 EMILY PALUS: Thank you.
5 HONOR KEELER: I just had a quick question. If
6 you had to estimate what percentage of these
7 interactions that you have that are creating
8 barriers to prevent movement forward and
9 repatriation with these split collections in non-
10 Federal repositories, what percentage might they be?
11 Or could you provide a range, zero to 25, 25 to 50,
12 50 to 75, 75 to 100 percent?
13 EMILY PALUS: After December, I’ll have better
14 data, and I’ll pause on that. Through the Interior
15 Museum Program annual reporting process, we made
16 some updates that all of the bureaus agreed to –
17 positively agreed to, which adds some information on
18 to collections in the non-Federal repositories, and
19 certainly, as we populate this new database module.
20 So I guess I’m going to refrain from giving a number
21 for now, but I appreciate what you’re asking and I’d
22 like to provide information, but I don’t think that
23 I’m quite there.
24 But I do want to address the phrasing of split
25 collection in non-Federal and Federal collection in
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1 non-Federal repository. These were different issues.
2 So Federal collections in a non-Federal repository,
3 if that’s what – I don’t know that that’s a split
4 collection. There are instances where collections
5 from the same locale are split in multiple
6 institutions, and I think that that’s a scenario
7 where there’s both Federal control and no Federal
8 involvement, collections from the same place, the
9 same ancestors. But Federal collections in non-
10 Federal repositories is not an equivalent. And I
11 recognize that in the Committee’s work to kind of
12 identify where you can do research and dig in and
13 wrap your heads around different issues, that in the
14 October meeting, those two were combined into a
15 subcommittee that you can sort of tag, because
16 there’s a relationship there where if you have – but
17 I caution that “split collections” is now like this
18 term. I’ve observed that a few times this week. And
19 so if it’s a distinction of no meaning, then I
20 apologize.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Well, I’ll respond on our
22 behalf. I mean, as a museum professional and someone
23 who directs an institution that is a non-Federal
24 repository that curates federally owned collections,
25 I see the distinction, and it is an important
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1 distinction. And so we’ll – it’s a good comment, and
2 I think that we will have to try to attack both
3 barriers. I appreciate the comment.
4 EMILY PALUS: Thank you.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Do we have other comments or
6 questions.
7 FRANK MCMANAMON: Just something I may have
8 missed in the presentation, so I apologize if I did.
9 You showed two slides, one called “References to
10 Federal Agency Successes & Barriers: Reports to
11 Congress” and then from the minutes. But these are
12 just examples, or have you compiled or somebody else
13 compiled this from all of the -
14 EMILY PALUS: So this is a screenshot of – this
15 is just a screenshot of an in-progress worksheet
16 that my colleague, Kyla Cools has been assembling.
17 And we’re about two-thirds of the way done. So this
18 is not – so that just gives you a snapshot. And so
19 we’re breaking it between reports to Congress and
20 then the meeting minutes, and there’s definitely a
21 relationship between the meeting minutes and the
22 reports to Congress.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Sure, which is kind of good.
24 EMILY PALUS: Yes. And then the transcript link,
25 actually, there’s some of the more detail, sometimes
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1 relevant, sometimes not, but just to get you there.
2 So these are works in progress and about two-thirds
3 of the way through, we’re talking about, to fully
4 populating from 2010 to present and then going – and
5 through this activity identifying what are the
6 topics. There is an idea we would start with Federal
7 agency, because by the way, this is actually
8 something you all talked about in October of, you
9 know, you’ve heard some of these issues before, how
10 often, what are they, and then it is a large
11 undertaking. And then we just kind of scaled it back
12 to, okay, let’s focus on Interior because we’re the
13 Department of Interior for now.
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: Sure.
15 EMILY PALUS: And it’s heavy on presentations,
16 but also Kyla has been very careful to go through
17 and identify instances where a specific agency or
18 Interior bureau’s reference, or if the comment is
19 Federal wide, but otherwise would be meaningful to
20 Interior, which is actually this example here from
21 the bottom, Ms. Cook presenting, she offers some
22 suggestions on improving the Section 3 process. This
23 is an activity, because our office is charged with
24 providing support for the bureaus to implement or to
25 address their collections responsibilities. NAGPRA
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1 is part of that on the implementation side. But
2 seeing that there is probably broader interest and
3 value in assembling this information.
4 FRANK MCMANAMON: I asked because it seems like
5 this would be useful information for the Committee,
6 and then probably for National NAGPRA, just to have
7 on hand and if the museum program will be willing to
8 share that.
9 EMILY PALUS: We are all about collaboration and
10 sharing information. And absolutely, we undertake a
11 project like this, the idea should be there should
12 be multiple parties to benefit, and I think we are
13 in this together.
14 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much. We
15 appreciate your good work. We commend you.
16 And I think Madam DFO, it might be a time for a
17 break. Would you agree?
18 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, sir.
19 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: It is 10:43. I’d suggest we
21 take a 15-minute break. We’ll come back at 11:00.
22 BREAK
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I’d like to get started. The
24 next presentation we will hear is from Wendy Sutton
25 with the Forest Service. Information was provided on
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1 Forest Service NAGPRA implementation in the meeting
2 materials.
3 PATRICK LYONS: Can I stop you for just a
4 second? I first want to thank you for your
5 flexibility in presenting today and really, really
6 appreciate that, and I just want to delay you for
7 just a quick minute more. With the last
8 presentation, we had some discussion about the Park
9 Service budget related to museum collections,
10 including NAGPRA responsibilities. And the figure is
11 really 21 million and change; it’s not 2.1 million.
12 So I just wanted to get that on the record. And with
13 that, hand it back to you. Thank you again.
14 PRESENTATIONS
15 U.S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE
16 WENDY SUTTON: Well, thank you, and no problem
17 with changing the schedule a little. Good morning,
18 Chairperson and members of the NAGPRA Review
19 Committee. My name is Wendy Sutton. I’m the Forest
20 Service NAGPRA coordinator and Southwest region
21 assistant regional archeologist. I work out of the
22 Southwest regional office in Albuquerque, New
23 Mexico, and have Forest Service NAGPRA
24 responsibilities nationwide. Today I’ll outline
25 Forest Service progress on NAGPRA over the last year
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1 and vision going forward. I regret that the lengthy
2 Government furlough did slow progress towards NAGPRA
3 goals this year. However, we have made progress.
4 Although collection work remains part of our NAGPRA
5 work, discovery has become the day-to-day NAGPRA
6 engagement for many of our forest level
7 archeologists, and our line officers are primarily
8 concerned with discovery.
9 To understand the Forest Service’s NAGPRA work,
10 it’s helpful to understand a bit about the Forest
11 Service. The Forest Service is a multiple-use, land
12 management agency. The United States Forest Service
13 is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
14 We administer the nation’s 154 national forests and
15 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million
16 acres. Lands are managed for a variety of uses,
17 including timber harvesting, grazing, recreation,
18 and energy development. Forest health projects, for
19 example, prescribed burns and thinning, and wild
20 land fire management are a major focus of Forest
21 Service activities. The Forest Service is a tiered
22 organization with a Washington office and nine
23 regional offices, under which there are forests and
24 districts. Local forests are responsible for
25 establishing priorities for their staffs.
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1 Within this presentation, I intend to discuss
2 Forest Service progress towards meeting NAGPRA
3 requirements in regards to collections, Forest
4 Service reburial policy, support for NAGPRA work,
5 law enforcement engagement, and emerging Section 3
6 discovery issues. In terms of collections work since
7 NAGPRA was enacted, the Forest Service has provided
8 summaries or statements of no summary for all Forest
9 Service units, published approximately 98 notices of
10 inventory completion, and 36 notices of intent to
11 repatriate. Notices cover all culturally affiliated
12 human remains, except a few that have been
13 recognized within the last few months.
14 We’ve identified 4,575 sets of human remains in
15 collections, of which 2,208 have been repatriated
16 and 747 are currently listed as culturally
17 unaffiliated. Thus, we’ve repatriated nearly half of
18 all known human remains and about 58 percent of
19 culturally identified individuals. Similarly, 20,468
20 of 44,467 identified affiliated funerary objects, or
21 about 46 percent, have been repatriated. These
22 numbers show increases in human remains and
23 affiliated funerary objects over previous years and
24 reflect our ongoing effort to reassess known
25 collections and to identify and track down
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1 additional collections. The Forest Service has been
2 more successful in repatriating identified
3 unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, and
4 objects of cultural patrimony. Within these classes,
5 7,192 of 7,689 total items, or 93 percent, have been
6 repatriated. Tribes are encouraged to work with
7 local Forest Service units to help identify cultural
8 items.
9 All known CUIs have been listed with National
10 NAGPRA. We’re also working to better refine the CUI
11 list and have been able to culturally affiliate some
12 individuals initially listed as CUIs. We continue
13 working with Tribes willing to accept these
14 individuals and work towards building better
15 affiliation studies for some areas. These are
16 informed by consultation, scientific data, and an
17 expanding list of federally recognized Tribes. I’d
18 refer you to our tables reflecting repatriations for
19 a region-by-region and forest-by-forest update on
20 the Forest Service’s ongoing efforts to meet our
21 NAGPRA obligations. We realize we have a long way to
22 go. This work is something that we undertake with a
23 sense of duty and honor. Our professionals involved
24 in this work find it deeply meaningful and respect
25 the responsibility and privilege it is to be engaged
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1 in these efforts.
2 Forest Service collections have historically
3 been located at non-Federal museums and curation
4 facilities with small collections sometimes housed
5 on individual Forest Service units. Ongoing work
6 with off forest collections continues to reveal new
7 collections, and we publish new notices of inventory
8 completion and update summaries as these are
9 identified. We have recognized that faunal
10 collections are in need of careful analysis by
11 osteologists and are working to ensure that, as new
12 excavations are undertaken, better procedures are in
13 place to ensure that human remains don’t go
14 unidentified and intermixed with faunal materials
15 into collections. That has happened.
16 We have also rethought our policies and are
17 working to make sure that full assessment of faunal
18 collections have occurred for collections where
19 ongoing repatriation efforts are underway. In one
20 case, three separate repatriations of materials from
21 the same site have been undertaken in order to
22 address finding materials from sites at different
23 institutions and a later round of faunal collections
24 analysis. This is a disturbing admission to make. We
25 recognize that Tribal communities and practitioners
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1 go through appreciable preparation for
2 repatriations. We need to do a better job of
3 locating and assessing our collections.
4 As part of Forest Service efforts to better
5 identify and associate collections, we’ve been
6 working with institutions to access their holdings,
7 engaging in physical analysis of materials within
8 collections, together with excavation records. We
9 often have to re-associate funerary objects with
10 human remains from different institutions. We strive
11 to build strong, mutually beneficial relationships
12 with facilities that house materials on behalf of
13 the Forest Service. We enter into joint agreements
14 and contracts to better assess collections that are
15 legally in Federal custody, but physically at given
16 institutions.
17 A large upcoming repatriation effort will focus
18 on the Tonto National Forest collections. That’s in
19 Arizona. This collection includes approximately
20 1,403 sets of human remains, 5,376 associated
21 funerary objects, 17 unassociated funerary objects,
22 and 6 sacred objects. Museum analysis is nearly
23 complete and next steps involve additional Tribal
24 consultation, refining our data, including hopefully
25 identifying a few more sacred objects and
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1 unassociated funerary objects, publishing any
2 necessary corrections, which we know there will be,
3 and repatriation. There will be reburial if
4 requested. We envision using a phased approach to
5 this repatriation, similar to that used during the
6 Coconino National Forest repatriations, hopefully
7 with more timely corrections.
8 These comments bring me to the Forest Service’s
9 reburial policy, a topic I discussed last year in
10 greater depth. The Forest Service has been fortunate
11 in our ability to accommodate reburial requests from
12 Tribes. It is explicit within Forest Service manual
13 direction that repatriation and reburial are two
14 actions, treated as separate, although often
15 related, processes. So while we sometimes discuss
16 repatriation and reburial in one breath, we know
17 they are legally separate. It does give a little
18 more closure, though, to some Tribes, so we
19 appreciate that ability. Reburials are carried out
20 as discretionary actions within the agency’s
21 administrative authorities pursuant to the Cultural
22 and Heritage Cooperation Authority of 2008. And that
23 also allows us to take materials that are not from
24 Federal lands in some cases. We continue to learn a
25 lot from reburial efforts and find these events very
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1 meaningful for both Tribal and Forest Service
2 participants.
3 Section 3, or discovery, is the bulk of our
4 day-to-day Forest Service NAGPRA workload and is
5 largely undertaken at the local level. The regions
6 where we see the majority of discoveries are Alaska,
7 region 10, and the Southwest, or region 3. In my
8 role, I provide support and guidance during these
9 events. Over the last two years, we’ve reengaged the
10 regions regarding NAGPRA training, particularly
11 regarding discovery, and initiated a review of
12 notices of intended disposition to ensure that we
13 are reporting these events to National NAGPRA as
14 required. Somehow we realized we fell down on the
15 job for a while there. We’re also working towards
16 building agreements to establish better local
17 discovery protocols.
18 The Forest Service is still interested in
19 developing a more fluid disposition process in cases
20 where affiliation is well-established. NAGPRA
21 clearly requires following appropriate procedures,
22 which must respect traditional customs and practices
23 of the affiliated Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian
24 organizations in each instance. Developing a way to
25 facilitate fluid and timely transfer of remains in
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1 situations where custody is well-established is
2 called for, both legally and socially. We need a
3 process where publication doesn’t get in the way of
4 proper cultural treatments in these types of cases.
5 Other challenges I’ve been asked about relative
6 to NAGPRA include law enforcement and heritage
7 program efforts and capacity to protect sites, that
8 includes reburial sites and other sacred and/or
9 archeological sites, and the budget for NAGPRA. To
10 that, I’ll add a third challenge, capacity. Over
11 277,000 archeological sites have been recorded on
12 Forest Service lands. This represents only a
13 fraction of the sites that are present, as many
14 forests only have archeological survey for 10 to 20
15 percent of their unit. Although seasoned heritage
16 professionals within the agency report decreased
17 evidence of looting or ARPA violations at
18 archeological sites, there are still instances where
19 human remains are unearthed during illegal
20 activities, at both previously recorded and
21 previously unrecorded sites.
22 The Forest Service manages 193 million acres.
23 The total number of law enforcement officers is 515.
24 Clearly these law enforcement officers are spread
25 thin. This comes out to one law enforcement officer
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1 for each 375,000 acres. Our heritage staffing
2 fluctuates throughout the year, but is typically
3 somewhat over 600. These similarly small numbers
4 hinder the ability to monitor sites on a regular
5 basis or even identify and investigate ARPA
6 violations.
7 Although it is difficult to adequately assess
8 the number of NAGPRA cases investigated based on the
9 way the Forest Service law enforcement database is
10 organized, only 27 ARPA cases are currently
11 represented within the database for this year. Of
12 these, only three misdemeanors are listed as
13 closed/solved, three are listed as continued, and 15
14 are closed/unresolved. Others are all still under
15 investigation. We have very poor ability to actually
16 prosecute these cases. And these are not all NAGPRA
17 cases, by the way, so just to be clear on that.
18 Since 2015, the Southwest region has recorded
19 90 ARPA-type cases or incidents, with only 5
20 successfully prosecuted violations. This highlights
21 the difficulty of finding violators who can be
22 definitively linked to specific ARPA incidents over
23 a vast landscape. Poor articulation of NAGPRA and
24 ARPA, legally, is an ongoing challenge. I personally
25 know of three ARPA/NAGPRA suspected cases in the
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1 last year. At this point, none of them have
2 suspects.
3 And we can go into more detail on this, but we
4 can have a whole host of different variants here,
5 where we see remains or NAGPRA materials left at the
6 site. That’s the easiest. But we can also have some
7 where there’s some at the site and some in the
8 possession of the individual, and you’re not clear
9 if everything in their possession is actually from a
10 Federal site or not. And then you can have
11 situations where you suspect it’s off of Federal
12 land, but it has to go through quite a process to
13 prove that. And this all has implications to timing
14 relative to NAGPRA.
15 At the Departmental and Congressional level,
16 there is support for working towards meeting our
17 NAGPRA obligations. The Forest Service budget
18 dedicated to NAGPRA has been somewhat over a quarter
19 million annually for many years. And by many years,
20 I mean about a decade here. And that excludes
21 salaries. And this is specified in Congressional
22 budget direction. In fact, that is down to the level
23 of by region and by forest. This money supports
24 collections identification, analysis preparation,
25 Tribal consultation, and notice publication, as well
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1 as costs associated with discovery incidents.
2 Limiting factors include both museum and agency
3 capacity and staffing. As we curate most of our
4 collections in non-Federal facilities, museum
5 capacity is a major consideration when repatriating
6 large collections, as we need their help to
7 facilitate pulling and packing collections and to
8 accomplish any required analysis.
9 The capacity of our forest level heritage staff
10 is becoming an increasing issue in moving some
11 repatriations forward. In the recent year, the pull
12 of multiple projects on local heritage staff has
13 been exacerbated by hiring freezes, furloughs, and
14 rising targets. At the local level, heritage
15 programs are currently trying to do more with less,
16 faster. This said, we are exploring options that
17 will provide additional staff or contract support to
18 keep our collections work moving forward. And this
19 year, we actually had higher requests for NAGPRA
20 funding from the field than we had in previous
21 years. I find that very encouraging in terms of our
22 staff priorities on the units.
23 This is important work that we recognize as a
24 legal requirement and a moral imperative. Thank you
25 for the opportunity to present this update, and I’ll
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1 take any questions. I’m assuming Frank’s going to
2 ask about budget.
3 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
4 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very, very much. I’d
5 like to start by commending the Forest Service on
6 being an excellent partner in working with non-
7 Federal repositories in the state of Arizona.
8 There’s a long, strong history there, and we very
9 much appreciate that. I’d also like to commend the
10 Forest Service on the recently concluded Coconino
11 National Forest repatriation project. I think that’s
12 a real example to be held up as a success
13 nationally. I think it’s a great example of
14 progress. We were involved in that a little bit in
15 my institution as a bit player, but just because I
16 know about it and I’d like to give you the
17 opportunity to correct me if I’m wrong, as I
18 understand it, that involved something like 12
19 different institutions.
20 WENDY SUTTON: Yes. There were over a dozen
21 institutions involved in that.
22 PATRICK LYONS: So my understanding was, this is
23 not only a case of non-Federal repositories but
24 split collections.
25 WENDY SUTTON: Yes, it was. We had some
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1 collections that were up to three or four different
2 institutions. And a lot of times, as we’ve heard
3 earlier in this meeting, those were transferred
4 without our knowledge. So then you see something in
5 a file, and you have to chase it out. And in some
6 cases, that institution you chase it to knows it’s
7 there and that’s great. In other cases, that
8 requires a lot more effort for them to even confirm
9 they have it.
10 Another thing we’ve seen a lot is a researcher
11 will take part of a collection as they change
12 locations. Obviously, I think the museums are much
13 more aware of that today and asking for Forest
14 Service permission if they’re going to do analysis
15 or if they’re going to transfer materials, but once
16 upon a time, that was not that typical. And so we do
17 find that we have collections spread between
18 multiple institutions.
19 PATRICK LYONS: Another quick question. So as I
20 understand it, that project involved something like
21 2,000 individuals.
22 WENDY SUTTON: Actually, it ended up at 1,276.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Oh, it was reduced.
24 WENDY SUTTON: It was reduced. And that was an
25 interesting process, too, because as we did the
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1 analysis, the initial numbers were based on records
2 from the excavations themselves. And so they would
3 say we have a burial, but we found out as we looked
4 through that collection, that “burial” often meant
5 storage pit or something like that. And so some of
6 these burials, where one would anticipate finding
7 human remains, clearly were not burials at all.
8 Other times, of course, you have a burial that has
9 multiple individuals and you thought it was one. So
10 we ended up really readjusting considerably as that
11 collection was analyzed.
12 PATRICK LYONS: But the scale, in terms of
13 funerary objects, that was like four or five
14 thousand, something like that.
15 WENDY SUTTON: Yes.
16 PATRICK LYONS: So a big project. So where I’m
17 going with my question is: in your experience, what
18 do you think the key was? This is the kind of thing
19 where we want to encourage more success this way.
20 What do you think the key was to the success in
21 working with these multiple institutions on such a
22 large scale to achieve this goal?
23 WENDY SUTTON: Well, I think the Forest Service
24 approach to addressing NAGPRA has kind of focused on
25 putting resources behind specific projects, so it
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1 isn’t – it’s not shotgun approach, just kind of
2 going everywhere. So when we decided to focus on the
3 Coconino collections, it obviously put other
4 collections further down the queue. We’ve had,
5 fortunately, very patient Tribal partners for those
6 additional collections. But it allowed us to focus
7 our resources on those collections where we could
8 make major progress on a specific forest. With our
9 budget line, which it’s never enough, but with the
10 budget line the way it is, we can say pretty much
11 every dollar from NAGPRA is going into a specific
12 project or a few projects in a given year. And that
13 allows us to get all of those museums working in
14 that direction. The actual repatriation efforts did
15 span over multiple years. We had, I think it was,
16 six different events as part of that when different
17 parts of the collection went back, although we tried
18 to have each individual site within a given
19 repatriation.
20 PATRICK LYONS: Lastly from me, what I would say
21 is I’ve heard a lot from Tribal representatives who
22 were involved in that process how much it meant to
23 them that the agency had flexibility in the ability
24 to accept individuals and objects from non-Forest
25 lands and what a terrific thing that that is for
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1 them to be able to rebury ancestors as close as
2 possible. So I’m sure you’ve heard that before, but
3 that reburial – access to land for reburial has been
4 brought up a number of times. So I just, again,
5 commend the Forest Service for all those things.
6 These are things we hear about as barriers and you
7 all have overcome them in these big projects, so
8 well done.
9 WENDY SUTTON: Thank you.
10 PATRICK LYONS: Other questions, comments?
11 Honor, you want to go ahead?
12 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. You discussed
13 prosecution of ARPA violations and NAGPRA violations
14 a moment ago. Could you expound a bit on that and
15 what some of the barriers are? I know you’ve
16 mentioned very low law enforcement being available.
17 And I think this is important to include in things
18 like our annual report and also given that the
19 regulations have been potentially coming up for
20 consideration. And you had mentioned that there are
21 some issues that might be helped.
22 WENDY SUTTON: Okay, I’m happy to answer that
23 one. Thanks, Honor. For -
24 MELANIE O'BRIEN: Okay, Wendy?
25 WENDY SUTTON: Yes.
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1 MELANIE O'BRIEN: Can I just interrupt you for
2 just a second?
3 WENDY SUTTON: Yes.
4 MELANIE O'BRIEN: While I think that everybody
5 would benefit from this information, I do want to
6 remind the Committee that for the annual report to
7 Congress, the focus needs to be on NAGPRA
8 implementation under Sections 5, 6, and 7, which is
9 inventory. And even as it relates to any
10 regulations, issues concerning trafficking or other
11 law enforcement actions on Federal land do not fall
12 under NAGPRA or NAGPRA regulations. The issues would
13 come in on if anything is recovered from a law
14 enforcement action from Federal land, it would go
15 through a Section 3 disposition process.
16 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
17 WENDY SUTTON: Yes, she’s correct on that
18 completely, but part of what happens is a sequencing
19 issue on our end, because obviously if you have a
20 site that is disturbed and you have, example, human
21 remains sitting on it, then we have a situation
22 where we have discovery and we’re going into that.
23 However, what about when you have pieces that may
24 articulate that are in a collection that’s going
25 through ARPA and in a discovery situation? And so we
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1 end up in a situation where we have to go through
2 the ARPA first, but of course during that ARPA
3 prosecution, one of the real keys is to have the
4 community there to testify as the injured party. Yet
5 we can’t say a lot, because we’re in this
6 prosecution kind of thing. So really the ARPA ends
7 up, in some cases, being put first, but it puts us
8 in an awkward situation. And I do find it somewhat
9 odd that, as some of this was getting passed, that
10 articulation of these two laws was not a little
11 clearer.
12 PATRICK LYONS: Frank, did you have a comment or
13 question?
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: I wanted to ask Wendy for some
15 more details on the money part of this. And I was
16 interested in the Coconino National Forest example,
17 which you – responding to Patrick. So the 250,000
18 dollars, or around that amount, that’s actually
19 identified in the budget as for NAGPRA compliance or
20 something like that.
21 WENDY SUTTON: Yes, we have – well, I am
22 responsible for turning in two pieces of the budget
23 annually, both the NAGPRA request and the reburial
24 request. And as I said, those are separate.
25 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay.
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1 WENDY SUTTON: But for the NAGPRA request, we
2 put that in by region and by forest. It doesn’t
3 cover necessarily every discovery incident that
4 would happen because those would happen during the
5 year and be something going forward that you
6 wouldn’t know was going to happen, but it definitely
7 can give us large chunks of money, hundreds of
8 thousands at a sitting, to put into a big contract,
9 and that goes down. And often, with big contracts,
10 it ends up going through my position to administer
11 those and get those out, but it also can go for
12 smaller, more local, if you have a more limited
13 collection that folks are trying to get a handle on,
14 and that kind of thing. So we look at that. And it
15 does cover both the collections issue and discovery
16 issues that are being recognized within the regions
17 and at the forest levels.
18 FRANK MCMANAMON: And that’s based on requests
19 that you receive annually from the different
20 regions? The amount, not -
21 WENDY SUTTON: Yes. Well, at present we’ve kind
22 of had some guidance to try and keep the amount
23 pretty much the same to go under the radar. Yes, and
24 so – but we are seeing increases -
25 PATRICK LYONS: (Inaudible comment.)
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1 WENDY SUTTON: Well, yes, there we go. But we
2 are seeing increases in requests, which I think is a
3 really good indication. The other challenge, though,
4 that we’re also about to face is that they’re trying
5 to do more combined budgets within the Forest
6 Service, which is going to actually consolidate some
7 of our budget codes and potentially lose this line
8 for us. And we are concerned about that because this
9 has been a really helpful line that helps us drive
10 specific projects, so instead of an individual
11 forest being told, well, this is your whole
12 allocation. You get this much for the year for
13 everything you do, this goes down as specifically
14 NAGPRA-related work on their forest or NAGPRA-
15 related work in that region, and that really changes
16 the ways it gets used. Whereas if it goes into a
17 forest level budget where the line officer has
18 discretion and that line officer’s targets are aimed
19 at fuels reduction getting out the cut, then we
20 would be falling off the plate. So I’m really hoping
21 we stay with our budget lines, but right now they
22 are redoing some of that. So I’m concerned.
23 FRANK MCMANAMON: I understand exactly what
24 you’re talking about, and that is a potential
25 problem for you. Where I was going was we heard
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1 Sarah present about the NAGPRA grants program and
2 the disparity between requests and amount funded,
3 numbers of projects funded, and the fact that there
4 were requests that would have been funded if the
5 money had been available. So if the Committee is
6 interested in recommending to Congress that agencies
7 receive more funding to actually accomplish the
8 things that need to be accomplished, would Forest
9 Service be in a position to say in some official
10 way, I guess it would probably need to be, that we
11 received requests from the regions for 500,000
12 dollars’ worth of projects that are worthwhile, that
13 we would fund if we had 500,000 dollars, and it
14 would accomplish the following things.
15 PATRICK LYONS: Well, like the same way that
16 National NAGPRA says we get X amount of requests.
17 FRANK MCMANAMON: Right.
18 WENDY SUTTON: Well, this year we were somewhat
19 over what I projected, and we ended up having to
20 stay at that projection because they requested a
21 number from me two months earlier than they ever
22 had. And then things came through and it was higher.
23 We’ve generally been pretty much on with what folks
24 think they can do with their capacity. One of our
25 regions right now, though, I had talked to three
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1 different people, three different forest
2 archeologists in one region who all have recognized
3 NAGPRA issues that we are trying to address. And
4 they each said, we don’t have the capacity or I
5 don’t have the capacity. I don’t have enough
6 staffing to do this.
7 So in that case, we’re trying to get some
8 contractor support to help with that on a different
9 level. But right now one of our big challenges is we
10 have a declining workforce, numerically, and an
11 increasing workload. And when you have a line
12 officer who is talking about his own targets, and
13 again those are the folks setting priorities on the
14 forest level, that can be an issue.
15 FRANK MCMANAMON: Sure. Yes. That’s actually a
16 separate matter from the -
17 WENDY SUTTON: Yes.
18 FRANK MCMANAMON: – support for the kinds of
19 activities that you’re using the 250,000 dollars
20 for, that’s yet an additional staffing problem that
21 – we’ve heard from other agencies about that, as
22 well. Is there any way for you to estimate what sort
23 of legitimate needs exist when you – is there a way
24 to compile actually some figures?
25 WENDY SUTTON: Well, I think up until this year,
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1 our 250-ish was doing pretty much. In part, and I
2 can share this without an institution name attached,
3 but I was talking to a couple of different
4 institutions recently about a large issue we’re
5 trying to address. Both said, well, I’ve got this on
6 the books for next year and the following year is
7 this. And I could get to your project in 2022.
8 And so that isn’t just about my capacity or my
9 budget, it’s about your capacity, yes. Anyway, but
10 those are situations we have to think about, as
11 well. So having more money, I think we could easily
12 go 100,000 higher in support, but part of our issue
13 is that the capacity of the overall community is
14 limited in terms of space and personnel.
15 FRANK MCMANAMON: Is there – just one more
16 question. Within the culture resource management
17 program, where NAGPRA would be part of that and the
18 kinds of activities and responsibilities that we’re
19 talking about here, is there a bigger strategy? Sort
20 of a multi-year plan for not just NAGPRA projects,
21 but other sorts of projects, where over the course
22 of a decade or a five-year period, projects are
23 identified and then they kind of move up towards
24 funding? Is there anything like that that –
25 WENDY SUTTON: Those are established more at the
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1 forest levels and often are reflected in the forest
2 plans. But we have something called the Heritage
3 Program Managed Standard within the Forest Service,
4 and it looks at all of the different things we’re
5 supposed to be doing under NHPA, as well as NAGPRA
6 and other related laws. And so it factors in, are
7 you going out and doing outreach to the public? Are
8 you doing research? Are you doing Section 110 survey
9 and inventory? So that actually looks at, forest by
10 forest, at overall program health based on
11 accomplishments and what they’re doing. So it’s not
12 that they would necessarily do 110 survey every
13 year, but they would try to do a mix of things that
14 got out to the public. I’m not saying that’s
15 anywhere near perfect, but at least it’s trying to
16 hold forests accountable and hold their line
17 officers accountable for them continuing to do some
18 proactive work.
19 PATRICK LYONS: In the interest of time -
20 FRANK MCMANAMON: Thank you.
21 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Sorry to cut you off,
22 but just in the interest of time, because we’d like
23 to get our next presentation in and get the
24 subcommittee on the annual report behind closed
25 doors doing work, I think we’ll let you go and move
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1 on to the next presentation. Thank you very, very
2 much.
3 HONOR KEELER: (Inaudible comment.)
4 WENDY SUTTON: Thank you.
5 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. I wonder if hearing
6 these reports from the different agencies about what
7 their line items and what their budgets are and what
8 maybe requested budgets and capacity is within their
9 departments, if that’s something that could be
10 submitted annually to the Program, just as a
11 reporting mechanism so that we can report out, as
12 well? It would be kind of nice to see that compiled
13 and how the agencies have money or don’t have money,
14 or have capacity or don’t have capacity.
15 MELANIE O'BRIEN: That’s something I can
16 consider and look into.
17 HONOR KEELER: Okay. Thank you very much.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you again.
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next presentation is Anne
20 Amati with the University of Denver Museum of
21 Anthropology.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Good morning.
23 UNIVERSITY OF DENVER MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY
24 ANNE AMATI: Good morning. Good morning, Mr.
25 Chairman and members of the Committee. I’m Anne
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1 Amati, and I’m the NAGPRA coordinator at the
2 University of Denver Museum of Anthropology. I want
3 to provide an update on our initiative to create a
4 NAGPRA community of practice that will support
5 implementation and build capacity. The NAGPRA
6 community of practice will be created of, by, and
7 for the NAGPRA community.
8 My museum is a teaching museum with
9 approximately 100,000 objects, primarily
10 archeological, from Colorado and the surrounding
11 area. We work closely with Tribal nations to provide
12 intellectual and physical access to the collection
13 with the goal of one day repatriating all of the
14 Native American human remains and NAGPRA cultural
15 items in our collection. In recent years, we have
16 focused on developing consensus on the disposition
17 of human remains and associated funerary objects
18 with no known cultural affiliation, as well as
19 working towards the repatriation of individuals
20 already published in notices of inventory
21 completion.
22 A few years ago, I recognized a need to
23 increase capacity for NAGPRA implementation in
24 museums, improve overall engagement of the museum
25 field with ongoing NAGPRA work, and decrease
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1 misunderstanding and confusion still associated with
2 NAGPRA among some museum professionals. To address
3 this need, and with the support of NAGPRA mentors
4 and colleagues, I developed a three-year project and
5 received a national leadership grant for museums
6 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
7 A community of practice is made up of
8 individuals with a shared domain of interest who
9 build a sense of community through discussions and
10 activities around a shared practice demonstrated
11 through experience, methods, and common tools. A
12 NAGPRA community of practice supports practitioners
13 by providing opportunities to learn how to advance
14 implementation of NAGPRA through regular
15 interaction.
16 On March 25th and 26th, 2019, we hosted 24
17 museum practitioners for a two-day summit. We
18 identified issues affecting NAGPRA implementation in
19 museums, and we brainstormed ways to impact those
20 issues. Prior to the summit, we collected survey
21 responses from NAGPRA practitioners across
22 disciplines, as well as non-practitioner museum
23 professionals, to capture a broad range of concerns
24 for discussion beyond the experience of the
25 individuals in the room. A report of the summit,
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1 along with the preliminary survey results, is
2 included in today’s meeting materials, and the
3 document can also be accessed on the project website
4 at du.edu/duma.
5 I want to share a brief overview of some of the
6 issues impacting NAGPRA implementation that are
7 addressed in the report. When asked if their museum
8 or agency was respecting the rights of Tribes under
9 NAGPRA, 77 percent of survey respondents said yes,
10 but only 23 percent of Tribal respondents agreed.
11 These numbers are consistent with the lack of
12 collaboration and communication that many recognize
13 as one of the core issues impacting NAGPRA
14 implementation.
15 Discourse around repatriation has evolved over
16 the last 30 years, but the topic can still be very
17 polarizing. Two topics that have come up repeatedly
18 in discussions and elicited the strongest divergent
19 opinions are the transfer of non-NAGPRA items to
20 Native American Tribes, often framed as “working
21 beyond NAGPRA” or “in the spirit of the law,” and
22 the implementation of the disposition of culturally
23 unidentifiable human remains, regulation 43 CFR
24 Section 10.11. I believe ongoing discussion about
25 these issues would be beneficial.
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1 It might not come as much of a surprise to hear
2 that limited budget and staff time for NAGPRA work
3 has come up repeatedly as a major obstacle to
4 implementation. I believe peer-to-peer support could
5 help us do more with what we have, and another
6 opportunity to mitigate this could be to educate
7 decision makers on NAGPRA requirements and
8 procedures so they might better prioritize resources
9 and set policies that support NAGPRA work.
10 Another major obstacle that has come up is
11 incomplete, incorrect, or inconsistent catalog
12 information for Native American cultural objects.
13 And in-depth consultations and institutional
14 archival research could help this issue.
15 Based on input from practitioners across the
16 NAGPRA community, I believe implementation in
17 museums will only improve if practitioners from
18 Tribes, museums, Federal and state agencies, and
19 other disciplines can come together on a regular
20 basis to learn from each other. As a result, NAGPRA
21 implementation should improve not only in museums,
22 but across the NAGPRA community. In the second year
23 of this initiative, I want to hear from
24 practitioners across regions and disciplines to
25 better understand how this community of practice
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1 might support them and how they want to be involved.
2 Yesterday – it was not yesterday. Two days ago,
3 many of us participated in a public discussion that
4 the Museum of Anthropology co-hosted with the
5 University of Alaska Museum of the North here on
6 campus. Thank you to the 45 participants who joined
7 us in the morning and the 25 who came back for
8 continued discussion in the afternoon. A special
9 thanks to Scott Shirar with the Museum of the North
10 and Heather McClain with the Anchorage Museum, who
11 helped make the day possible.
12 Participants discussed issues they face related
13 to NAGPRA and shared their own experiences in
14 addressing those issues. Of particular interest were
15 issues relating to planned archeological excavations
16 and inadvertent discoveries, especially due to
17 eroding rivers and ocean shorelines. A handful of
18 participants shared their experience consulting on
19 the disposition of human remains with no known
20 cultural affiliation already in collections. And we
21 also discussed practices for encouraging productive
22 relationships and clear communication.
23 I look forward to hosting more public
24 discussions like this at events or gatherings that
25 NAGPRA practitioners and professionals, who should
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1 be doing NAGPRA work already, attend in the coming
2 year.
3 I am also moving forward with plans to host a
4 two-day conference recognizing the thirtieth
5 anniversary of NAGPRA. The conference will take
6 place in Denver, Colorado on October 27th and 28th,
7 2020, and will be co-hosted with the Association on
8 American Indian Affairs. This unique event is
9 intended for Tribes, museums, Government agencies,
10 academics, and others engaged or interested in
11 repatriation work. Attendees will critically analyze
12 the future of NAGPRA and learn how to advance its
13 implementation across disciplines while gaining a
14 better understanding of the breadth of the
15 repatriation community in the U.S. and abroad.
16 Sessions will focus on developing skills and
17 strategies for moving forward with repatriation work
18 and fostering stronger relationships across the
19 repatriation field. For those who cannot attend in
20 person, sessions will be livestreamed and archived
21 for future access.
22 The conference will take place on the
23 University of Denver campus. Denver is within the
24 traditional territory of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and
25 Ute peoples. At least 45 additional Indian Tribes
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1 have a legacy of occupation in Colorado. In the mid-
2 twentieth century, many American Indians were moved
3 to Denver under relocation and employment assistance
4 programs. And today, Denver remains a hub of Indian
5 country. Denver’s active urban Indian community
6 includes Cheyenne, Lakota, Kiowa, Navajo, and others
7 from at least 200 Tribal nations.
8 I invite the Committee to join us in Denver for
9 this groundbreaking conference. We would be honored
10 to host a Review Committee meeting on October 29th
11 and 30th, 2020, the days directly following the
12 conference.
13 The NAGPRA community of practice is about
14 creating spaces for people engaged in NAGPRA to come
15 together. I ask that the Committee members and all
16 those gathered in the audience today think about how
17 you might be part of this initiative. You can learn
18 more about the project and sign up to receive
19 updates at du.edu/duma. I’m also available to answer
20 any questions or discuss how you might be involved.
21 Thank you for your time.
22 REVIEW COMMITTEE QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
23 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. Do we have questions?
24 HEATHER EDGAR: I do have a half comment and
25 then a little discussion maybe we could have. I want
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1 to thank you for your creative approach to a part of
2 improving the way that NAGPRA is implemented that we
3 don’t maybe talk about in a clear way so often, so I
4 appreciate that you’re working on that.
5 I want to talk to you a little bit about the
6 part of your survey that involved how museums
7 perceive they are working with Tribes and how Tribes
8 perceive that they are working with museums. And you
9 brought it up in your discussion just now. When I
10 read your presentation early this week, it was
11 definitely the thing that stood out the most to me
12 was the difference in perception there. And then it
13 came up in the event two days ago, and then you just
14 brought it up now. Since I was so struck and I was
15 like, I want to hear more about this and I want to
16 know how – what kinds of questions need to be
17 developed to drill through this more. And I do still
18 feel that way, but then I have this concern after
19 talking with colleagues and thinking about it some
20 more about a lack of – about biases built into the
21 groups that are being surveyed and how this might
22 frame the way – if you choose to do another survey,
23 how this might frame the way you design questions.
24 So for example, you asked the museums, are you
25 consulting with Tribes? Are you – basically, are you
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1 fulfilling your requirements? Are you doing a good
2 job? That’s the question is: are museums – is your
3 museum doing a good job? And Tribes are asked: are
4 the museums you’re working with doing a good job?
5 Right? And of course, museums that respond are
6 already ones that are interested, and so they’re
7 more likely to say that they’re doing a good job,
8 partly because they’re probably doing a better job.
9 But it’s certainly – since everybody has their heart
10 in the right place, we think, they’re going to say –
11 your sample is maybe not very representative. And I
12 think the same may be true on the Tribal set of
13 answers. There might be some bias built in to the
14 development of the answer to those questions. Right?
15 And so I think some serious brainstorming might
16 be necessary to – oh God, I’m going to use this
17 word. I’m so sorry – “unpack” the answer to these
18 questions and develop maybe some more refined,
19 sensitive questions that can really be informative
20 about what you want to know, because what you really
21 want to know is about perceptions of
22 accomplishments, but also about accomplishments. And
23 what we – the initial approach or the initial
24 response I got to – the initial perception I had of
25 the questions about perceptions probably is
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1 erroneous, based on the biases that are built into
2 the questions.
3 ANNE AMATI: I think that’s an excellent point,
4 and I recognize that it is definitely not a perfect
5 instrument.
6 HEATHER EDGAR: It’s okay.
7 ANNE AMATI: But I will say that my thought
8 going into it was more about the perceptions than
9 the actual reporting of the work, because we
10 recognize that this wasn’t a way to document that.
11 This was more about what do people think, because
12 whether or not that’s true or not, what they think
13 is part of the concern.
14 HEATHER EDGAR: Right. I get it, and the
15 perception is super important and that’s what I
16 thought you’re trying to get to is, do you perceive
17 that your museum is doing a good job? Do you
18 perceive that the museum is – that you’re getting
19 at. But what I’m saying is that the biases cloud our
20 ability to understand the real perceptions.
21 ANNE AMATI: So what would you recommend moving
22 forward?
23 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes, that’s a really good
24 question, isn’t it?
25 PATRICK LYONS: And a fair one.
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1 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes, absolutely. And so I’ve
2 been thinking about this for, like, the last 24
3 hours. I’m not exactly there yet, maybe because I’ve
4 been a little distracted. But it’s something I’d be
5 willing to think about some more, and that I, at
6 this moment, would just recommend you think about it
7 some more, but I do think – I think it’s a semi-
8 solvable problem.
9 ANNE AMATI: Well, I think that it would be a
10 valuable thing to add to these preliminary results
11 as we share them, to make people more aware of those
12 kind of biases that might be in there. I will say
13 that the survey is still currently open because we
14 never closed it because we were hoping to get more
15 responses. But it is not meant to be a thoroughly
16 tested, scientific thing.
17 HEATHER EDGAR: It’s not the end all and be all.
18 ANNE AMATI: No.
19 HEATHER EDGAR: But here’s my question – okay,
20 so here is a real, practical solution, I would
21 think. When you developed your survey questions, did
22 you consult with a professional or an academic or
23 any kind of survey instrument expert?
24 ANNE AMATI: I did. As part of the IMLS grant,
25 we have an external evaluator who developed the
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1 questions in collaboration with us and other
2 individuals.
3 HEATHER EDGAR: So I think I might go back to
4 that person and explain the issue that we see.
5 ANNE AMATI: Good idea.
6 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, and I have kind of a follow
7 on with that that may address what I think Heather
8 may have been getting at. One of the things that
9 occurred to me is not everyone is equal in their
10 performance in this area, and so it’s kind of a
11 broad brush. I’m confident that museums are filling
12 their decision making responsibilities under NAGPRA.
13 I think that, based on my experience in doing this
14 for more than 20 years, a lot of my colleagues who
15 are Tribal representatives I think would say, well,
16 these five museums I feel really good about, but
17 then there’s these two that I don’t feel really good
18 about. And I think that this is the – it’s hard to
19 measure something like that with an instrument like
20 this, but I think it’s important to remember that,
21 particularly because you’re trying to create
22 consensus about best practices and –
23 ANNE AMATI: I would disagree with that, but –
24 PATRICK LYONS: You would disagree with what?
25 ANNE AMATI: The consensus of best practices,
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1 that’s not necessarily our goal, but continue.
2 PATRICK LYONS: It’s not?
3 ANNE AMATI: Oh, now you’re going to get me in
4 trouble. Continue. I will -
5 PATRICK LYONS: Okay, because what I – one of
6 the things of value that I saw out of a community of
7 practice is that there would come to be consensus
8 about the best ways to reach the goals that we have
9 as different practitioners in the NAGPRA community
10 of practice. And that the best ways of doing things
11 would kind of come up to the top, and it would
12 encourage productive behavior in other places. So
13 I’m surprised, that’s all.
14 ANNE AMATI: I guess one of the things that I
15 have learned, that I have gained in the last year of
16 doing this is a better understanding of the nuance
17 of the challenges that people are facing. And I
18 think that there’s a value in coming together and
19 understanding those better and hopefully finding a
20 way to do NAGPRA better. I don’t know that that
21 always means the same thing for every organization
22 or institution. And this is part of what I’m sort of
23 relying on the community for, in terms of what –
24 where we think, as a group, we go.
25 JOHN BEAVER: To follow up with my two
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1 colleagues on the panel here and also the nuance
2 statement in community. So the broader community of
3 practice, now this does include – how does this
4 extend out to the Native communities, how they’re
5 included, because while I see the reporting that we
6 see here, I guess I’m also following up, too, have
7 some question with that, is that in the survey –
8 I’ll start with your – Heather’s comment was I saw
9 the museums that are, perhaps, are reporting and
10 saying that they are doing a good job. I’m curious.
11 I don’t know how this appears on the other side of
12 the responses that you received, that how this does
13 not reflect some of the responses from the Tribal
14 communities, but how – is there a crossover in those
15 institutions that say perhaps they feel like they’re
16 doing a good job and are the responses from these
17 Tribal communities, is it a – that it doesn’t match
18 up.
19 So how many of these responses are to the
20 museums that might have been responding in this
21 survey? Also, when I look at the participants in
22 this particular – this first step that you’ve taken,
23 and how their responses are included in this, do the
24 Tribal communities’ responses reflect those –
25 particularly these, whatever it is, in this
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1 community that you’re saying that it’s in this
2 initial meeting? Does it match up, or how does it
3 match up or not match up to those museums and
4 institutions who participated in this particular
5 study?
6 So I’m sort of coming at it from a Native
7 community sort of participation on this and how
8 they’re included and how Native communities are
9 included in this overall practice, because I don’t –
10 I mean, I see responses, but I don’t see an
11 inclusion in this initial study. I see the
12 responses, particularly where I see on the map here,
13 where I see you’ve received lots of responses, and I
14 think it reflects that’s where a lot of these Tribal
15 communities are. But I don’t see a lot of
16 participation. I don’t see that in an inclusion in
17 the community that’s in this initial – that’s in
18 this study. Are they included in this community of
19 practice?
20 ANNE AMATI: Are you talking about the
21 correlation between the survey participants and the
22 summit participants?
23 JOHN BEAVER: Some of that, but I’m also getting
24 to some – and also following up on a few of the
25 questions and our chair’s question, too, and also
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1 you’re talking about this community of practice.
2 Where are the – how and when and where are the
3 Tribal communities included in this, because I think
4 that – how does that match up to your responses in
5 this? So I’m not – I don’t know if that’s something
6 I’m missing or not seeing or how this fits into
7 this.
8 ANNE AMATI: I can try to speak to that further,
9 but Mr. Chair, did you have something to say?
10 PATRICK LYONS: Well, I mean just to kind of put
11 a finer point on what I was saying before, I mean,
12 my surprise – my comment about surprise was that
13 this is a project that seems to be interested in
14 training, and to not be interested in best
15 practices, if you’re interested in training, seems
16 counterintuitive to me. That’s the point I was
17 trying to make.
18 ANNE AMATI: I see. So I will start by
19 explaining my reaction to the term “best practices.”
20 My boss and the director of my museum at the
21 University of Denver Museum of Anthropology, Dr.
22 Christina Kreps, spends a lot of effort trying to
23 not use this word “best practices,” and it’s about
24 that there isn’t one specific way to do something
25 right. And so that was – that’s where my reaction is
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1 to that, so we can go into that later.
2 I think that if the survey results had come
3 back, these initial results and these initial
4 discussions that I was having, and the answer was –
5 you know, from people we were getting that, oh, what
6 we need is templates and what we need is more
7 training on this specific issue that would actually
8 be pretty easy. But what seems to be coming back
9 from the conversations is that we need to learn how
10 to talk to each other and understand each other, and
11 that’s far more complicated.
12 So I am concerned about – I think it would be
13 great if this led to a series of webinars or a
14 series of videos. But at this point, I don’t know
15 who would do that or what would be included in that.
16 And so I think at this time what is far more
17 valuable is having people talk to each other, hear
18 examples of how different people have responded to
19 different issues, and knowing that, especially with
20 NAGPRA, it can be different even with the same
21 museum and the same Tribe working one year and then
22 working a few years later, it can be a completely
23 different situation. And I think, especially from
24 the museum perspective, a lot of times – and I can
25 just speak from my own personality, I want to have a
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1 checklist of like, okay, I go through this and I do
2 everything and I’m good, and that’s not how this
3 works, and that it’s more about the relationships.
4 And that’s sort of the perspective I’m coming from.
5 Does that kind of answer that concern?
6 PATRICK LYONS: Sure. No, I get that it’s case
7 by case. It’s organic, but if you’re going to make –
8 if everything is unique, there is nothing to share
9 but unique experiences. There are things that – I
10 mean, there are laws and regulations that we work
11 with. There is guidance. And your survey responses
12 indicate that people don’t know the law well and
13 don’t know the regulations well. And so I certainly
14 think that there are areas, whether you like the
15 term “best practices” or not, there are helpful
16 hints. There are paradigms. There are examples that
17 can be used in an educational way. Again, if
18 training is a goal, whatever term you want to use, I
19 think that maybe we’re talking past each other but -
20 ANNE AMATI: I think we are. I understand. I
21 understand your point, and I do think that hopefully
22 this is something that will come out of it. And one
23 thing that I’ve been thinking about, in terms of who
24 the audience for this is, we’ve kind of been – I’ve
25 kind of been thinking about two separate audiences.
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1 One is the people that are doing this work. And I
2 think, at this point, the best thing that I can do
3 is to find opportunities for them to be together, to
4 network and to talk to each other. Just the last few
5 days in conversations, over lunch the other day, we
6 came up with an idea of creating a crowdsource
7 contact list that could help in that initial problem
8 of communicating, which is who to talk to, which has
9 come up repeatedly. So that came up over lunch and
10 when I gather with my NAGPRA colleagues, things like
11 that happen a lot.
12 And then the other audience are – especially
13 with museums, are the people that don’t know that
14 they’re supposed to be doing this or don’t – and
15 that sort of gets at those unreported collections,
16 that we have data for what’s been reported. And that
17 one opportunity for that is to go to conferences. So
18 for example, earlier this year I attended – I
19 presented at the Association of Academic Museums and
20 Galleries. And we had many people in our session who
21 were interested but thought that this didn’t apply
22 to them, and it did, in fact, apply to them, and
23 hopefully there will be action from that. And so
24 that’s kind of what I’ve been doing right now, but
25 hoping that this is a group effort and that we can
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1 identify opportunities. So while I might not be the
2 one that is personally creating training videos, I
3 don’t know that this can’t be something that is part
4 of this community.
5 To speak a little more to your question, Mr.
6 Beaver, so this did start out as a museum-focused
7 effort, mostly due to funding opportunities and due
8 to my own experience. Those initial conversations
9 that have been happening really makes it clear to me
10 that it’s about the collaboration and that
11 communication, and so I’m hoping that this is a
12 community of practice that can be for all
13 practitioners, not just museum. What I don’t know at
14 this time is how the community of practice can serve
15 Tribal representatives or how they might like to be
16 involved. And so this is where I’m looking for
17 input, and I will acknowledge that the previous
18 activities have been limited in that area.
19 JOHN BEAVER: It would, if I could follow up, it
20 would be about – just to follow up just in your
21 responses a few seconds ago or a few minutes ago,
22 actually, you said there would be two communities
23 that this would be focused toward or two you could
24 see. So how the Native communities fit into this, I
25 was hoping to hear something. So are you, in that
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1 response, are you saying that Native communities
2 somehow fit into these two particular – or you’re
3 hoping that Native communities will fit into these
4 two particular groups?
5 Because again, going back to my observation or
6 comment would be that Native – to me, they’re a part
7 of this community of practice, and I had heard just
8 – I think in one of your answers to one of my other
9 colleagues on the panel here, was that you had
10 people there sort of sharing experiences that
11 they’ve had or the communication that they’ve had
12 with – and so – but are those interactions, are
13 those anecdotes, those examples that they’re giving,
14 are those particular Native communities or Tribal
15 communities also there to share sort of their
16 perception on that interaction? Because I wonder how
17 much of that is – that goes back to one of my
18 earlier comments here, how much of that is shared or
19 maybe they have another perception on that? And to
20 me, this all creates a better understanding of this
21 overall NAGPRA community of practice. So I mean,
22 you’re – I’m looking for – I guess what I’m going
23 for is how you’re teasing this out. And I’m not
24 quite getting to inclusion yet, but this is where
25 I’m kind of –
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1 ANNE AMATI: I would like this community of
2 practice to be for all individuals that are engaged
3 or interested in NAGPRA, and I am in the progress of
4 figuring out what that looks like and how people
5 want to be involved. So I do think that, within the
6 Tribal area, community, that there are those
7 individuals that – I mean, I don’t think, I know
8 that there are many Tribal representatives that I
9 have learned a lot from in my conversations with and
10 that I would guess there’s also some Tribal
11 representatives who don’t know a lot. And so it’s
12 still this sort of people that have more experience,
13 getting them to interact with each other. Hopefully
14 maybe they can mentor people that don’t have as much
15 experience. But I am seeing this as a holistic
16 thing, but it is not – it is in progress, and so I
17 seek advice or input on who else can be involved and
18 how they can be involved.
19 JOHN BEAVER: Thank you for your answer.
20 PATRICK LYONS: Thanks. I would just – I know
21 Honor wants to make a comment. I just wanted to say,
22 too, that I know the history of the group of
23 colleagues that you have who are very, very active
24 and very proactive and that you’re a part of in
25 Colorado have a long history of inclusiveness and
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1 partnership with Tribes, and so I just want to
2 acknowledge that.
3 ANNE AMATI: Thank you.
4 PATRICK LYONS: And say you’re to be commended
5 for that. And so I want to allay any fears that
6 anyone has that there’s something other than that
7 kind of approach. I did not want to make that
8 implication in my comments.
9 ANNE AMATI: Thank you, and I do appreciate
10 that. And just to understand where this is coming
11 from, I have learned from all my colleagues.
12 PATRICK LYONS: Right.
13 ANNE AMATI: And I’m trying to spread that out a
14 little bit and – we’re trying something.
15 HONOR KEELER: Thank you for your presentation,
16 and thank you to my colleagues who brought up these
17 questions. I think my general sense about this, and
18 in my experience, is that the closer both parties
19 and folks get to meaningful consultation, the better
20 things generally go. And I think this speaks to
21 John’s discussion in trying to point out here that
22 there are different experiences among all of the
23 people involved.
24 The other comment I’d like to make is that – an
25 observation that I’ve made within my experiences in
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1 this and sacred lands protection is that a lot of
2 the disruption in having – getting to the point of
3 communication has to do with understandings of
4 cultural protocols and also respect for Tribal
5 communities. And I think there’s a breaking down of
6 barriers of history that have contributed to this
7 problem that we’re seeing today with our ancestors
8 and cultural items being located in museums, and
9 there’s trauma involved in that. And I think this is
10 also a trauma conversation. So in the interests of
11 repatriation and the interests of that healing that
12 takes place in communities, people, I believe, have
13 to come to the table understanding what has happened
14 and having a degree of respect and kind of putting
15 aside those moments of training and checklists and
16 other things. And I think that speaks a little bit
17 to relationship building, but sometimes in that
18 process of understanding trauma and that healing
19 process, there is contention that starts up and that
20 is part of it. And it’s to move through that and
21 bring ancestors and cultural items home.
22 So I hope that that helps a little bit in
23 broadening that discussion and perspective. And I
24 understand what you’re saying a bit about best
25 practices, and I understand what Patrick is saying,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 327
1 as well. There are hundreds and hundreds of Tribal
2 communities and lineal descendants and Native
3 Hawaiian organizations that have different cultural
4 protocols and have different ways in which they bury
5 their ancestors and take back their sacred items and
6 their cultural items into their communities. And
7 that is very individualized, but again, I think
8 coming to the table with that understanding of
9 trauma that has occurred and respect and entering
10 into that process knowing that there might be
11 contentious moments and those are justified and to
12 hear that and to listen is important. Thank you.
13 JOHN BEAVER: I just want to say thank you for
14 your work in this area.
15 ANNE AMATI: Thank you.
16 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, and I would – I think, in
17 the interest of time, we’re going to have to wrap it
18 up, but just to end with, again, I think that you
19 and your colleagues are to be commended for
20 something that is very positive and will continue to
21 be positive. And thank you again for your
22 presentation.
23 ANNE AMATI: Thank you, and thank you for your
24 input. I recognize that this is an ongoing process,
25 and I need input from folks, so please, give me a
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1 call. Thank you.
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Just before you go, Anne, I
3 might – I would like to take the opportunity to echo
4 the Review Committee’s appreciation and say, as
5 well, that I appreciate Anne’s leadership in working
6 in this way, because this is very much outside of
7 the law. So the law says that museums need to
8 determine the rights. It does not say anything about
9 respecting the rights of Indian Tribes or Native
10 Hawaiian organizations, so there’s no way that I
11 could ask a question like that. I can produce
12 checklists. I can produce best practices for certain
13 areas of the law based on what is required. When a
14 museum asks me a question such as, “What is
15 consultation,” my response has to be, “It’s an
16 exchange of information between the parties
17 contributing to a determination.”
18 PATRICK LYONS: Well, see, where I would go with
19 this is a best practice would be that an institution
20 have a consultation policy that is informed by
21 values. That’s what I meant by “best practices,” so
22 that you’re giving people the tools to move forward.
23 ANNE AMATI: Right. And what might be helpful to
24 colleagues would then be able to, well, what’s your
25 policy? What have you done?
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 329
1 PATRICK LYONS: Exactly. Exactly.
2 ANNE AMATI: And that’s where I think we can
3 really help connect people to see – to not say,
4 “This is my policy. This is how everyone else should
5 do it,” but “This is what’s worked for us,” always
6 working within the requirements of the law. This is
7 definitely not about going outside that or not
8 fulfilling the requirements of the law.
9 PATRICK LYONS: We’re actually on the same page.
10 ANNE AMATI: I know. I have clearly a traumatic
11 response to the term “best practices.” I acknowledge
12 that officially.
13 PATRICK LYONS: I apologize.
14 ANNE AMATI: Dr. Kreps will be very proud.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Well, I just – I want to say
16 that there’s – this is a need that I have also
17 identified, because there is such a limit to what I
18 can assist with, in terms of technical assistance.
19 And having any kind of community that can provide
20 support to museums, as well as Tribes and Federal
21 agencies, on where there are interpretations or -
22 ANNE AMATI: Discretion.
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Discretion. Thank you, Anne. I
24 could not find the word – discretion in the law for
25 decision makers or parties involved. That is not
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 330
1 something I can advise on. So I appreciate that
2 there is a place that I can turn to when these
3 questions come up and hopefully, through this, at
4 least through the beginning of this process, we’ll
5 have some way of addressing those issues.
6 ANNE AMATI: And I hope you all come to Denver,
7 2020, October 27th, 28th, save the date.
8 PATRICK LYONS: Anne, sincerely, thank you again
9 for your really good work.
10 ANNE AMATI: Thank you.
11 PATRICK LYONS: And I think it’s been very
12 productive.
13 ANNE AMATI: Thank you for the excuse to come to
14 Alaska.
15 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay, well, we will move
16 forward with our lunch break at this time. We will
17 reconvene at 1:30 with public comment. Again, I
18 would ask that if anybody is interested in making
19 public comment, if you’d please come see me during
20 the lunch break.
21 LUNCH
22 PATRICK LYONS: So Madam DFO, I think we’re
23 going to move into public comment. Is that what you
24 would recommend at this time?
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 331
1 PATRICK LYONS: And so we hate to say this, but
2 in the interest of time and because we have a lot -
3 we’re lucky that we have a bunch of folks who have
4 requested public comment, we’d like public comment
5 to be limited to five minutes. And so with that, I
6 will start us off.
7 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. Great. The first public
8 comment is from Matt Ganley.
9 PUBLIC COMMENT
10 MATT GANLEY, BERING STRAITS NATIVE CORPORATION
11 MATT GANLEY: Yes. I’m Matt Ganley. I work with
12 Bering Straits Native Corporation. I just wanted to
13 thank Mr. Chair and the Committee for being here in
14 Fairbanks, and the opportunities that you’ve
15 afforded for public comment, and also the ability
16 for us to kind of present how things are in Alaska
17 in terms of Tribal authority and things like that. I
18 do want to clarify a couple points I made yesterday,
19 because I’m not sure I made the points quite as well
20 as I could have. I just wanted to say that I was not
21 advocating for corporations to be considered Tribes
22 for the purposes of the law. That was not the intent
23 of my comments yesterday. Likewise, I wasn’t
24 advocating that regional or Village corporation
25 lands be considered Tribal lands, so I really want
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1 to be clear on that.
2 I’d also like to commend and thank Mr. Sam for
3 his comments on what the Sitka Tribe was doing with
4 their efforts with repatriation and the information
5 he provided about how the corporation now is
6 beginning a conversation with the Tribal efforts.
7 And I think that was great. I kind of lost my place
8 here, sorry.
9 And I think those kind of emphasize the point I
10 made, is that the relationship of Tribes and
11 Villages with regional and Village corporations, it
12 varies greatly across the state, you know, how
13 things are in Bering Straits are different than how
14 they are in Southeast Alaska. And I think, also, the
15 capacity in those communities is different across
16 the state. You have communities of – some Tribal
17 communities of 60 to 100 people. And the human
18 resources aren’t there often to actually engage
19 effectively with the NAGPRA efforts. And I think of
20 this illustrates a central point, that NAGPRA
21 doesn’t necessarily account for the complexity in
22 relationships of land ownership to the cultural
23 heritage within the state of Alaska. So my notes - I
24 have trouble reading my own handwriting, so you’ll
25 have to forgive me. The role and/or resources that
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1 the corporations can bring to NAGPRA, including but
2 not limited to permission for reburial on ancestral
3 lands and ancestral sites should, in some ways, be
4 part of the fabric of NAGPRA as it’s executed within
5 the state.
6 The last point I’d really like to say is
7 comments yesterday by Mr. Sam - or Mr. Street, I’m
8 sorry - about the need for outreach and education in
9 NAGPRA, really should be listened to. I think that
10 can be accomplished in a number of ways, but I’d
11 recommend the Committee consider working, if
12 possible, with the Alaska Federation of Natives and
13 their annual convention. But I would also recommend
14 that you not deal solely with the Tribal compact
15 organizations in each region, but reach out to
16 individual Tribes, because what I’ve seen break
17 down, at both the Tribal level and the corporate
18 level in Alaska, is that if you go to the central
19 authority with the expectation that all that
20 information will be conveyed directly to either the
21 Village Corporation or the Tribe, depending, it
22 doesn’t necessarily always get through. So you need
23 to go to the smallest unit, and really, the people
24 who have authority under NAGPRA are those local
25 Tribes. So I would just recommend that if there is
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1 outreach to try to pull people into a central
2 educational effort, either through AFN or some other
3 vehicle, that you do so but at that Village level.
4 To conclude, I look forward to the upcoming
5 review and comment period for NAGPRA, which I
6 believe and understand to be possibly opening in
7 November. And with that, I’d like to thank you all
8 for listening.
9 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much.
10 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you.
11 The next public comment is Josh Reuther, with
12 the Museum of the North.
13 JOSHUA REUTHER, UNIV. OF ALASKA MUSEUM OF THE NORTH
14 JOSHUA REUTHER: Thank you. Thank you for
15 coming. I really appreciate you coming here and
16 being able to help you have this event here. One of
17 the things I wanted to comment on, because our
18 institution was brought up at least three times in
19 the case studies, is the role of our institution.
20 And I want to be clear. I’m talking about our
21 institution as the archeology collections. I’m
22 talking about my beliefs as a current curator, and I
23 do not want to – I do not want to talk for the past
24 curators or my predecessors.
25 Split collections are a huge issue to us. They
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1 have been separated. We have been part of that
2 legacy of separation, as you heard with the Point
3 Hope. There has been agreements that were made in
4 the past that split them up internationally and
5 across the nation. And these are – I’m speaking
6 about all NAGPRA collections and also beyond NAGPRA.
7 And we’ve heard, in the case of a few presentations,
8 the matter of the words healing and health, and it
9 goes beyond NAGPRA. These collections - sometimes we
10 need to make access to folks who can generate
11 research or communities that are actually in one
12 place where they can visit them. They can use them
13 as educational materials. This is why we’ve made a
14 push here, to make things more accessible to
15 multiple user groups, not just researchers.
16 I want to be very clear, in our institution or
17 our collections, that we do not consider our
18 collections as ownership. There was a question about
19 that before, about institutions and ownership and
20 how we view things. Our institution or our
21 collections, the archeology collections themselves
22 I’m speaking specifically about, may have 1 percent
23 of actual legal ownership. And those are unknown
24 collections that were gathered by individuals from a
25 place when they were, say, like teachers or
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1 education folks in Villages that are in areas that
2 have picked stuff off the beach and they were
3 donated. There’s very little information on them.
4 Everything else is either Federal, state, private,
5 Native Corporation, or Tribally owned. We make those
6 agreements with folks to be the repository.
7 I say that because we have a very – we take our
8 responsibility of working through and making access
9 to not only documentation, but the collections, a
10 primary focal point. Please, tell me if I go over my
11 – I want to just make this clear because I want our
12 institution to be portrayed as open access, and we
13 try to do that. And it comes down to capacity, and
14 it also comes down to - capacity as far as money and
15 individuals working and the time that we can put
16 into these things. And this comes directly down to
17 the split collections, is actually - for certain
18 access, research, and visiting collections, having
19 them in one place, whether it be our repository,
20 whether it be another repository in the state, we’re
21 not the only ones - in my view, is critical.
22 And to get at it internationally, I want to
23 make - my belief is that it’s to push
24 internationally to bring things home, the strongest
25 way to do it is through Tribes pushing, and we’ve
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1 tried to do that with two different Tribes in two
2 cases right now. And I – it’s my sincere belief that
3 the way that we’re going to do that is to get that
4 consent and to have - that is the biggest push that
5 I can see right now, is to get the consent to bring
6 some of these from the collections that were talked
7 about before, like Point Hope.
8 Thank you for coming to Fairbanks.
9 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very, very much.
10 MELANIE O’BRIEN: That was only four minutes,
11 Josh.
12 JOSHUA REUTHER: Oh. I don’t have anything else.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next request for public
14 comment - again, I’m going to start with those that
15 are local here in Alaska - is Bob Sam.
16 BOB SAM, SITKA TRIBE OF ALASKA
17 BOB SAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of
18 the NAGPRA Review Committee. I just returned from a
19 teleconference in Juneau, end of September. We’re
20 having a Sharing Our Knowledge Conference, working
21 with our elders and young people and museum folks.
22 It’s a – I just wanted to announce this conference,
23 because we’re going to show our collaboration with
24 museums and how we can work together positively with
25 museums.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 338
1 At this conference, in support of what we’ll be
2 doing traditionally, is the digitization of some of
3 our ancient objects that were held by museums. And
4 one of the objects was broken before it went to the
5 museum in 1885 or something like that, a very sacred
6 object to our people. Because of technology the way
7 it is now, we can make a replica of this object
8 where it would have no cracks in it at all. So we’re
9 going to take the spirit of the old object and put
10 it into the new one, with thanks to the technology
11 of museums today. This is an example of how we could
12 work together, and how we could improve our
13 relationship with Tribal people and museums, and
14 also how museums can play an active role in bringing
15 alive our ancient culture so that we could share it
16 with our young people.
17 This is a renaissance time for us, and it’s
18 because of laws like NAGPRA repatriation that is
19 helping us step into this time of our life. As an
20 older person, I’m very excited to see what’s
21 happening in America and what’s happening with our
22 young people. This is – we hold our young people up,
23 and we pass everything down to them. All these
24 objects are coming alive and are being put to use. I
25 can – I could spend days talking about this, but I
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 339
1 only have five minutes. The clan conference, Sharing
2 Our Knowledge, is sharingourknowlege.org for
3 registration and participation. I encourage museums
4 to come, because it’s going to show the relationship
5 that we have and the possibilities.
6 Thank you for your time.
7 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much.
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next request for public
9 comment is Jayne-Leigh Thomas.
10 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
11 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS: Good afternoon. My name is
12 Dr. Jayne-Leigh Thomas. I am the NAGPRA director for
13 Indiana University. I just would like to reiterate
14 and reinvite the Review Committee to consider
15 Indiana University as the location for a future
16 Review Committee meeting. First invitations were in
17 2015 and 2016, and I believe that a meeting has
18 never been held in the Midwest region, so we would
19 very much appreciate the opportunity to host
20 everyone. So I just would hope that you would take
21 that into consideration, and thank you very much.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next request for public
24 comment is Megon Noble.
25 MEGON NOBLE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 340
1 MEGON NOBLE: Hello. Thank you for the
2 opportunity to come before you today. My name is
3 Megon Noble, and I’m the NAGPRA project manager at
4 the University of California, Davis. I last
5 presented in front of the Review Committee in July –
6 at the July 2016 meetings in Missoula, Montana. I
7 want to provide the Review Committee an update on UC
8 Davis’s NAGPRA progress and ongoing efforts.
9 As background, the University of California,
10 Davis is situated on the ancestral homelands of the
11 Patwin people. UC Davis is one of 10 campuses within
12 the University of California system. Each campus
13 operates their NAGPRA programs distinctly from the
14 other campuses, with oversight and approval of key
15 decisions by the office of the president. UC Davis
16 is fully committed to the repatriation and transfer
17 of human remains and cultural items as required by
18 NAGPRA. UC Davis houses Native American human
19 remains and materials subject to NAGPRA in three
20 separate campus repositories, including the
21 Department of Anthropology Museum, the Museum of
22 Wildlife and Fish Biology, and the Shields Library
23 Special Collections.
24 The majority of Native American ancestors and
25 NAGPRA cultural items are housed in the Department
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1 of Anthropology Museum, which curates archeological
2 and ethnographic collections primarily from
3 California. UC Davis holds or held Native American
4 human remains from approximately 325 individuals,
5 more than 12,000 associated funerary objects, and
6 155 unassociated funerary objects. Human remains and
7 cultural items were primarily obtained between 1960
8 and 1987 as a result of excavations in anticipation
9 of development projects or university-sponsored
10 field schools. In addition, human remains were
11 inadvertently discovered and transferred to the
12 campus by coroners or individuals. Native American
13 human remain and cultural items housed by UC Davis
14 are primarily from northern and central California.
15 In 2014, UC Davis reorganized NAGPRA-compliance
16 responsibilities by creating a dedicated NAGPRA
17 program and centralizing compliance under the Office
18 of the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor. The
19 provost and executive vice chancellor is the
20 campus’s chief academic officer. In 2014, I was
21 hired and have served as a NAGPRA project manager
22 charged with developing a proactive consultation
23 program. Repatriation is a high priority for the
24 campus. Campus leaders are actively involved in
25 NAGPRA consultations and decision-making. The UC
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 342
1 Davis NAGPRA project has three staff members
2 dedicated entirely to NAGPRA.
3 Between 1995 and 2009, UC Davis submitted 55
4 NAGPRA inventories, 9 of which were culturally
5 affiliated and 46 of which were not culturally
6 affiliated. Native American Tribes were invited to
7 consult on the NAGPRA inventories, and original
8 cultural affiliation determinations were based
9 primarily on available information, primarily
10 linguistic and archeological.
11 In 2015, UC Davis applied for and received a
12 National NAGPRA grant to systematically reevaluate
13 prior cultural affiliation determinations in
14 consultation with Tribes. UC Davis is actively
15 engaged with Tribes to better understand traditional
16 lines of evidence, as well as considering newly
17 available scientific information. To date, we have
18 revised or proposed revising, affiliation from
19 culturally unidentifiable to culturally affiliated
20 for 13 different sites. Of these 13 sites, 5 sites
21 have been published in notices of inventory
22 completion or correction notices of inventory
23 completion. Correction notices for two sites have
24 been prepared for submission to National NAGPRA
25 pending official UC approval, and UC Davis is
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1 completing review and consultation with Tribes for
2 the remaining six of these sites. UC Davis
3 anticipates additional sites will continue to be
4 affiliated through this process.
5 In addition, UC Davis is systematically
6 reviewing collections to ensure all eligible
7 materials, human remains and associated funerary
8 objects, are included on revised inventories. UC
9 Davis received a National NAGPRA grant to
10 systematically examine faunal collections, to
11 identify any human remains intermixed with nonhuman
12 animal bone. To date, NAGPRA staff have reviewed
13 faunal materials from 20 sites and have identified
14 thousands of additional, newly identified, human
15 remains or bone fragments. In addition, UC Davis has
16 identified a significant number of objects newly
17 determined to be funerary objects through both
18 improved collections and records management, as well
19 as the consultation process. UC Davis continues to
20 work on updating NAGPRA inventories to reflect the
21 newly identified human remains and funerary objects,
22 and we appreciate National NAGPRA’s support for both
23 grant projects, which have provided honorarium for
24 Tribal representatives to engage in both processes
25 and increase the campus’s capacity in these areas.
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1 UC Davis has developed a proactive outreach and
2 consultation program in the last three years, and
3 approximately 42 Tribes have been invited to consult
4 on NAGPRA inventories or summaries; 14 of which have
5 come forward to engage in the consultation process.
6 In the last year, we have consulted with 17 – we
7 have conducted 17 in-person consultations and one
8 full-day workshop.
9 UC Davis has received 14 NAGPRA claims or
10 requests for repatriation since NAGPRA was enacted.
11 We have resolved the majority of these claims
12 through repatriations or dispositions. Two Tribes
13 have claimed human remains and funerary objects but
14 requested that they continue to be held by UC Davis
15 until reburial can be arranged. In the meantime,
16 control has been transferred to the claimant Tribes.
17 Of the unresolved claim, UC Davis is actively
18 working and consulting with two claimant Tribes, and
19 one Tribe has indicated that they are currently not
20 ready to reinitiate consultation.
21 To date, approximately 70 percent of culturally
22 affiliated remains published in notices have been
23 claimed and/or repatriated. For the remaining 30
24 percent of culturally affiliated ancestors, one
25 culturally affiliated Tribe has indicated their
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1 interest in, but has not yet formally requested
2 repatriation. We continue to work with our Tribal
3 partners as they continue to identify appropriate
4 reburial lands and arrange the logistics.
5 In June 2019, we completed a repatriation where
6 a Tribe was able to obtain approval to rebury
7 ancestors on state lands under the control of the
8 California State Department of Parks and Recreation.
9 Consulting Tribes are currently considering reburial
10 on Federal land, privately held land, nonprofit
11 land, trust lands, and UC Davis campus reserve
12 lands. We continue to work with Tribes to assist in
13 this process as requested.
14 Since I last came before the Committee in 2016,
15 UC Davis adopted a campus policy on the curation and
16 repatriation of Native American human remains and
17 cultural items. This policy became effective July
18 2017. The UC Davis campus must comply with the UC
19 system-wide policy. However, the current system-wide
20 policy provides discretion to the campus on a number
21 of key issues. The policy was developed with
22 extensive review and consultation with California
23 Indian Tribes, our faculty, and staff. UC Davis
24 campus policy addresses many of the – many topics,
25 including the transfer of culturally unidentified
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1 associated funerary objects, claims by nonfederally
2 recognized Tribes, and required permission and
3 consultation for research access to human remains
4 and NAGPRA designated cultural items, as well as
5 dispute resolution processes.
6 The University of California Office of the
7 President is currently in the process of substantial
8 revision to the UC system-wide policy. UC Davis will
9 likely need to revise our campus policies
10 accordingly to adopt to the newly adopted policies.
11 In addition – feel free to cut me off, I’m getting
12 close.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: (Inaudible comment.)
14 MEGON NOBLE: Okay. I will just - we are also a
15 non-Federal repository, as well.
16 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. And this is what I
17 was referring to earlier when I said about your
18 institution having a policy that’s driven by values
19 that helps implement NAGPRA, so that’s great.
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next request for public
21 comment was Lourdes Henebry-DeLeon.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
23 LOURDES HENEBRY-DELEON, CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIV.
24 LOURDES HENEBRY-DELEON: My travels down the
25 stairs don’t count as part of my five minutes. So I
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 347
1 am going to talk about split collections, a Federal
2 collection, and an example of Central Washington
3 University’s NAGPRA collection. So I am Lourdes
4 Henebry-DeLeon. I am at Central Washington
5 University. I am the NAGPRA program director,
6 professor in the Department of Anthropology. And our
7 NAGPRA collection is, really, the very definition of
8 a split collection. The majority of our NAGPRA
9 collection came from the Burke Museum in 1974 with
10 very little documentation. We had a six-page list.
11 One example on it was we had something that came
12 from Oman, and I was a little excited about thinking
13 I’d be doing some traveling, but it turned out it
14 was from the Old Man House, which was actually very
15 good too.
16 So when we were doing our - when I came in
17 1990, I ended up redoing our inventory like many
18 people, went through the process, and we had the – a
19 lot of the information we had was simply what was
20 written on the box. We worked wonderful with the
21 Burke Museum, Megon Noble, who was just up here as
22 my counterpart, because any information available we
23 had to try to track it down through that museum. I
24 was probably – by 2008 or so, I was working on an
25 inventory retro documentation and about three-
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1 quarters of the way through, I realized that this is
2 a Federal collection. So it’s not like we know –
3 everybody knows that, well, this is a Federal
4 collection. It’s a lot of work went in.
5 And this collection, actually, was owned by the
6 Bureau of Reclamation. And at that point I did call
7 Lynne Macdonald in the Boise office, the
8 archeologist. And this is a really great, wonderful
9 example of a Federal agency really stepping up and
10 working wonderful. It was a great collaboration.
11 Part of working really well is they offered us
12 money, which is always really nice, because we had
13 done most of the work. And what we ended up tasked
14 to do was to identify where all the human remains
15 from that 45LK7 came from and then try to track them
16 down.
17 So I knew that there were – some individuals
18 were at the Burke Museum, because that’s where ours
19 came from. So we, Lynne, the Bureau of Reclamation,
20 requested that the Burke Museum transfer their human
21 remains, the human remains they had, and the
22 funerary objects to Central. And then I spent about
23 a year just tracking down. We knew from the original
24 documents, osteology, inventories, how many
25 individuals that were removed originally from this
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1 site. And what the Colville Confederated Tribe
2 wanted, and most all the Plateau Tribes want, is
3 what was removed, what do we have, and what is
4 missing, so we can then spend looking for what is
5 missing.
6 So my thing is not up there, but you all have a
7 picture of it. So what I started doing - we found
8 out that when you start looking - originally the
9 material came - what we thought was a River Basin
10 Survey, and it wasn’t, in 1950. We find out it’s
11 Chief Joseph. It’s Corps of Engineers. The land is
12 owned by the Bureau of Reclamation. So they’re the
13 legal owners of these human remains under NAGPRA.
14 That material went to what was then known as
15 the Washington State Museum, which becomes the Burke
16 Museum. Sometime between 1950 and probably 1966 in
17 reality, two individuals were transferred to Western
18 Washington University. Then in 1974, the Burke
19 Museum transferred the collection to Central
20 Washington University in February. Then the rest of
21 the collection went to Seattle University in March.
22 And all of these end up having individuals, or
23 elements of individuals, from this particular site.
24 Seattle University transfers down to Daybreak
25 Star, which was an urban Indian culture center, and
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 350
1 they wanted something to be done, but they just were
2 overwhelmed. And so part of this collection ends up,
3 by 1993, back up to Burke Museum. Partly also, the
4 Colville came down. They came to Seattle University.
5 They went through the collection at the invitation
6 of them, and simply took what they believed were
7 theirs, and in this case, once again, two
8 individuals from 45LK7 end up at – back up to the
9 Colville.
10 So what I’m trying - sometimes when we’re
11 talking about split collection, we’re not talking
12 two universities. We’re also not talking - and it’s
13 very troubling to say and to hear that whole,
14 complete individuals are being transferred. In this
15 case, literally elements from one individual are
16 ending up in multiple institutions. And so what the
17 BOR wanted is to bring those all into Central,
18 because I am a bioarcheologist, osteologist, just
19 bring them together to reassociate them, and then do
20 a notice of inventory completion.
21 So in, I think it was 2010 or 2011, we were
22 completed. We completed this process. At that point,
23 we actually did know there were still some elements
24 of the individuals missing. We hadn’t accounted for
25 them. And we just flagged them, and in a couple
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 351
1 different cases, we were able to identify and find
2 those elements, and so those two could be returned
3 to the Colville. So this is very quick and very
4 fast, but sometimes – it’s complicated. And it takes
5 a lot of work. And in this case, we had great
6 partners and people – really good colleagues with
7 the Burke Museum, with the Bureau of Reclamation,
8 and the Colville Confederated Tribes, Jackie Cook.
9 Everybody was patient, and every time I would think
10 I had the report written and ready to send, I’d get
11 a call from somebody who’d say, you know, we think
12 we found something from 45LK7 here.
13 And it’s nice that the BOR, I will say because
14 - really supported it, because we do a lot of work
15 when we have these Federal collections, even if we
16 don’t know we have them. And when an agency comes in
17 with a really kind of positive attitude, they
18 acknowledge what we’ve done, they acknowledge that
19 in the sense this - we all have messed up, and we
20 really don’t, at times, know what we were doing and
21 our practices were terrible, and there was nothing
22 legal about any of these transfers, it’s really nice
23 to work with agencies when they at least give you
24 that acknowledgment that you have tried. And they
25 have been just really good to work with in other
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 352
1 projects, so that’s it.
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you.
3 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you very much. Good point
4 about individuals who are skeletally split. That’s
5 something that we’ve, unfortunately, had to deal
6 with in Arizona.
7 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The next public comment is
8 Angela Neller.
9 ANGELA NELLER, WANAPUM HERITAGE CENTER
10 ANGELA NELLER: Good afternoon. Thanks for this
11 opportunity to just present on an issue that I’ve
12 seen over the last, probably, 10 years that I’ve
13 been coming to NAGPRA Review Committee meetings. So
14 I wanted to talk a little bit about the DFO report,
15 and the numbers for the information that was
16 provided, and just talk about how those numbers are
17 great, those numbers are interesting, and those
18 numbers reflect museums and Federal agencies that
19 have complied with NAGPRA and turned in their
20 inventories and their notices, and in cases where
21 there’s CUHR, there are no notices.
22 But I think the thing that we always don’t talk
23 about, and I don’t know how we figure this out, is
24 the Federal agencies and the museums who are
25 required to comply and have not complied to date.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 353
1 And there’s a number out there that’s unknown.
2 There’s an unknown number of those people that
3 should be complying. There’s an unknown number of
4 human remains and funerary objects that are still
5 sitting out there. There’s an unknown number of
6 potential sacred objects and objects of cultural
7 patrimony that are out there too. And I don’t know
8 how we get to this. As an example, on the Columbia
9 Plateau, we just recently found another 152
10 individuals at an institution that had never
11 reported before, and so you tend to start thinking
12 you’re done with the process, and then something
13 else comes up.
14 So I guess I’m not sure. I just want to kind of
15 bring this up, because I think that’s definitely a
16 barrier to implementation; people that have not
17 complied with the law. The numbers are great that
18 gets presented to us. We have these wonderful
19 numbers about how many human remains are out there,
20 but there’s also human remains that are not
21 accounted for, and I guess I don’t want us to lose
22 sight of that.
23 HEATHER EDGAR: Do we have time for one
24 question?
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 354
1 HEATHER EDGAR: Mr. Chair. Yes, I’m wondering if
2 you have an opinion about - it seems to me that this
3 happens in organizations that are not necessarily
4 like we’re going to evilly skirt the law, it’s that
5 they don’t realize that they’re museums under the
6 definition of the law, and they’re not aware the law
7 exists, which I kind of find amazing. But like we’ve
8 had, for example, cities who find out very late in
9 the game, and other kinds of institutions, they
10 don’t realize. In fact, I’ve heard from a Federal
11 agency that didn’t realize that under the definition
12 of the law, it was a museum.
13 PATRICK LYONS: Or sheriff’s offices.
14 HEATHER EDGAR: Pardon?
15 PATRICK LYONS: Sheriff’s offices.
16 HEATHER EDGAR: Oh yes, absolutely. And those
17 are examples I can think of. Do you have any kinds
18 of feelings about what kinds of institutions are the
19 ones that we’re missing?
20 ANGELA NELLER: Well, this particular case is a
21 university. So I think there’s those issues with the
22 university collections. I think, you know, I’ve
23 heard of experiences where maybe art museums. My
24 personal belief is all Native American collections,
25 whether they’re human remains or funerary objects,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 355
1 are NAGPRA collections. They need to be reported on.
2 And I’ve heard some museums say, well, we don’t have
3 human remains. So they don’t have human remains;
4 they don’t think they need to comply. I’ve heard,
5 even within the university where there might be a
6 museum on campus but a department of anthropology,
7 there’s funerary objects at the museum, but the
8 anthropology department might have the human
9 remains. The museum says, well, we don’t have the
10 human remains. We don’t have to comply. They don’t
11 even seem to realize it’s the institution that
12 complies, not an individual department or
13 organization on campus. So I think it’s – that’s a
14 big thing. We don’t have human remains, so we’re not
15 subject to this law. Yes.
16 But I believe that all Native American
17 collections are NAGPRA collections. And I’ve heard
18 museums also say that, well, we just have baskets.
19 And none of them meet – none of them are sacred
20 objects or objects of cultural patrimony, and
21 they’ve made that decision themselves. So I think
22 it’s a variety of reasons.
23 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, thank you very much.
24 ANGELA NELLER: Thank you.
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. I think Jayne-Leigh
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 356
1 actually –
2 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS: I’m going to keep it super
3 quick.
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: – would like to respond to
5 your question.
6 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS, INDIANA UNIVERSITY
7 JAYNE-LEIGH THOMAS: To respond to your
8 question, I would also say that libraries and
9 archives are all out of compliance because there are
10 libraries and archives with human remains. We know
11 of several of them in the Midwest. And we know of
12 archives and libraries that generally have some sort
13 of display case when you walk in that sometimes has
14 artifacts. Just because it is a document – and I
15 (inaudible comment), and I’m also working with the
16 Miami Tribe of Oklahoma on a new repatriation of a
17 kind of document and archives project. And I’m not
18 going to speak for them because they are not here
19 and I don’t have that permission at this time. But
20 we are going to be planning to present at the AAIA
21 meeting in November on such a thing. But just
22 because it is a document, does not mean that it
23 should not go back. So an example would be like for
24 the United States Constitution. So I would say that
25 libraries and archives are also out of compliance
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 357
1 with NAGPRA if they have not assessed their Native
2 American collections.
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Would you like to move on or
4 any other - Okay. We have one more public comment.
5 So I would encourage anyone here who has not asked
6 to comment, if you’re interested in commenting, we
7 do have time available, and the Review Committee
8 would like to hear from you.
9 So as of right now, our last comment is from
10 Jan Bernstein.
11 JAN BERNSTEIN, BERNSTEIN AND ASSOCIATES
12 JAN BERNSTEIN: Good afternoon -
13 PATRICK LYONS: Good afternoon.
14 JAN BERNSTEIN: – Chairman Lyons and esteemed
15 members of the Committee. My name is Jan Bernstein,
16 and it has been, for the past three and a half
17 decades and continues to be, a great privilege and
18 honor for me to implement projects that result in
19 the repatriation of ancestors of Native Americans
20 and Native Hawaiians, and to repatriate – that
21 result in the repatriation of sacred objects and
22 cultural patrimony as well, while along the way,
23 wounds from past traumas and ongoing
24 microaggressions are recognized, while new positive
25 relationships are built.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 358
1 Since founding Bernstein & Associates NAGPRA
2 Consultants 16 years ago, my associates and I, for
3 our museum and Federal agency clients, in
4 partnership with Indian Tribes across the country,
5 facilitated disposition of 1,637 individuals and
6 many thousands of funerary objects. Some of the
7 ancestors and their funerary objects were removed
8 from what are now unknown locations or general
9 locations such as Eastern U.S., Western Plains,
10 Southwest U.S., Northeast Texas, and California.
11 Others were removed from known sites throughout the
12 U.S. Currently, we are working with our museum and
13 Federal agency clients in partnership with Tribes to
14 implement the 10.11 process for another 8,238
15 individuals and their funerary objects.
16 Yesterday morning, you asked what the driving
17 force might for some museums and agencies to
18 initiate 10.11 projects while others wait for a
19 Tribe to initiate the process. In brief, my answer
20 is, it’s a person. The force is an individual or
21 maybe a couple of individuals at an institution or
22 an agency.
23 On a related note, I want to give you a brief
24 update on an action taken by your Committee during a
25 meeting in Norman, Oklahoma, that occurred March
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 359
1 25th through 27th, 1997, when Baylor University’s
2 Mayborn Museum Complex requested the assistance of
3 the Review Committee for culturally unidentifiable
4 individuals. That museum client has authorized me to
5 share this with you. During that meeting, they had
6 the support of Tribes that they had consulted with
7 to move forward with a reburial at Fort Hood. On May
8 29th, 1997, the museum received a letter from Frank
9 McManamon stating that the Review Committee had
10 instead suggested that the museum go back to its
11 inventory and make some modifications.
12 And so as of last year, the university
13 contracted with Bernstein & Associates to begin the
14 process again. And since we began implementing in
15 2018, we have offered disposition of 38 individuals,
16 and control has been transferred for 21 of those
17 individuals, and all told, there are 127 individuals
18 that are all going to go through the process. We’ve
19 now gone through the process for all that have
20 aboriginal territory, so the remainder of them will
21 be coming to you for recommendations to the
22 Secretary for disposition. So sometimes it can be a
23 very long journey.
24 And related to that long journey, I wanted to
25 make a couple of suggestions to you. One of the
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 360
1 sticking points is still a reburial site. The Tribe
2 that ended up requesting disposition of the 21
3 individuals almost didn’t do it. And the reason was
4 because there isn’t a burial site. They think
5 there’s one on the horizon, which is actually the
6 Comanche Cemetery at Fort Hood, but it’s not a done
7 deal yet. And so they almost didn’t request. And
8 then the others haven’t been requested, in part,
9 because there is no burial site. And I think that,
10 in my experience, that is the case oftentimes. And
11 so if you could do something to effect change so
12 that Federal agencies can provide reburial sites on
13 Federal land for ancestors that were not removed
14 from the Federal land, or even adjacent to the
15 Federal land, that would go a long way towards
16 helping those 122,000 individuals go home.
17 And something else that would greatly help is
18 to free up more money for the National NAGPRA
19 program to provide more tools to facilitate the
20 process. Melanie’s team does amazing work with the
21 limited resources they have. And I had the honor of
22 beta testing a GIS system, I think is what it’s
23 called, where you can look at aboriginal territory
24 and then get the list of Tribes in one place. And I
25 think her dream maybe was to eventually also have
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 361
1 all the current contact information. That would be
2 my dream to have. We do that now. We maintain a
3 database for all Indian Tribes in the country, all
4 their current NAGPRA reps, and we do the aboriginal
5 territory research. But we do it and we have that
6 information, but everyone else is doing it too, and
7 it’s being done – the same thing is being done over
8 and over and over again. And we’re all building the
9 same databases, and it would just be so nice if it
10 could be centralized and maintained. So they really
11 need the money to do that. And I thank you very
12 much.
13 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
14 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Is there anyone else who would
15 like to come forward at this time for public
16 comment?
17 PATRICK LYONS: There’s some volunteers, maybe.
18 That’s good.
19 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Just be sure to say your name.
20 ANGELA GARCIA-LEWIS, SALT RIVER PIMA-MARICOPA INDIAN
21 COMMUNITY
22 ANGELA GARCIA-LEWIS: Good afternoon. I am
23 Angela Garcia-Lewis. I am the cultural preservation
24 compliance supervisor for the Salt River Pima-
25 Maricopa Indian Community. I have several comments,
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 362
1 recommendations that I’d like to read to you. The
2 first is that I would recommend that the National
3 Park Service, the National NAGPRA office, and Review
4 Committee urge the Secretary of Interior to allocate
5 more money for NAGPRA in agency budgets. Agencies
6 are routinely telling us, as Tribal communities,
7 that they don’t have the money to complete NAGPRA
8 actions. They don’t have the money to review their
9 original notices or to go back through their
10 collections and identify discrepancies in their
11 original documentation.
12 The Interior needs to be educated about their
13 statutory obligations to Tribes because many agency
14 officials feel they don’t have the support for
15 NAGPRA activities or that NAGPRA requests for
16 support will not be funded. We ask – in
17 consultation, we ask agencies to provide information
18 or to do certain things, and they are very reticent
19 to offer assurance that they can do things, because
20 they often say, “Well, we really don’t have money
21 for that. We’re not really funded for NAGPRA. We
22 don’t have a dedicated staff that takes care of
23 NAGPRA.” And that is a widespread problem across the
24 board for a lot of the agencies because they are a
25 part of the Federal Government, and they can’t get
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 363
1 grants. And it hampers NAGPRA consultation on pre-
2 1990 collections, and they have the most
3 collections, I believe.
4 We recommend that National NAGPRA and the
5 Committee urge the Secretary to ease travel
6 restrictions on NAGPRA-related travel, training,
7 participation – and participation in pre-meeting
8 activities, ease restrictions on funding for such
9 things. The community practice event that occurred
10 pre-meeting was a good opportunity for Tribes and
11 agencies and institutions to come together and talk
12 about issues that face both sides of the fence. And
13 one of the major themes of the discussion in the
14 afternoon was that there weren’t any agencies there
15 because they don’t have money or they’re not allowed
16 to travel. That’s an issue that we face for other
17 laws. As a Tribal community, we’ve hosted other
18 events for Section 106 to host workshops or
19 conferences. And we’re routinely told by agency
20 officials not to use those words, workshops or
21 conferences or training, because those types of
22 events won’t be funded. How do we expect people to
23 be able to fulfill their statutory obligations if
24 they’re not allowed to go to training or participate
25 in events that might make these things easier?
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 364
1 Advanced NAGPRA training is needed. Training
2 opportunities are limited to NAGPRA basics, NAGPRA
3 grants, and basically NAGPRA and ARPA training. And
4 there’s – you can go to them over and over again,
5 and that’s pretty much what a lot of people do, and
6 we end up using a lot of class time talking about
7 specific issues. So we at Salt River Pima-Maricopa
8 Indian Community have had problems with establishing
9 cultural affiliation, with navigating process. We
10 have very specific issues, and a lot of other Tribes
11 have the same issues. And there isn’t training that
12 focuses on more than just the basic NAGPRA process.
13 At this point, I think we should have more that
14 focuses on different issues.
15 Trainings used to be offered pre-NAGPRA Review
16 Committee meeting, for free. And I believe that that
17 should be reinstituted to allow that at least one
18 training opportunity, that isn’t costly for Tribes
19 and agencies and those kinds of things, are more
20 likely to be approved by agencies, institutions, and
21 Tribes. We also face those same kind of funding
22 restrictions and that kind of thing. But even though
23 the trainings that are available often have
24 scholarships and such associated with them, there
25 are a limited number of scholarships. And they’re at
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 365
1 times, a lot of times, that aren’t convenient for
2 Tribes and agencies to attend. Since the NAGPRA
3 Review Committee is a large event and it’s annual,
4 everybody that is required to do NAGPRA, generally,
5 makes time to attend the meeting. So it’s more
6 convenient for everyone involved.
7 I don’t know if it’s available, but National
8 NAGPRA should have staff that’s available to help
9 facilitate consultations and be a part of the actual
10 consultations when there is an issue, prior to
11 having to come to this body for a disposition.
12 Another issue that I noted was databases are
13 very unwieldy to search through. I would like to see
14 that notices that, for institutions who’ve completed
15 repatriations, be relocated from the online
16 databases to an archive database so that it cuts
17 down on the search results that pop up. It allows
18 Tribes to see what institutions are still out there
19 that may have remains from their area. And one of
20 the issues that all of the Tribes and agencies have
21 is that there’s a high rate of turnover. So there’s
22 the high turnover rate and documentation can be
23 spotty. So if that’s the case, it’s easier to find
24 which repatriations have already been completed and
25 to focus on open cases.
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 366
1 I would like to see National NAGPRA develop a
2 database for institutions and agencies with NAGPRA
3 holdings. There is a database for Tribes, and it
4 would be helpful for Tribes if there was a database
5 that included all of the museums and agencies and
6 the contacts for NAGPRA consultation.
7 That concludes my comments. Does anybody have
8 questions?
9 HEATHER EDGAR: I just want to thank you for
10 bringing practical and, in some cases at least,
11 doable solutions. I really appreciate that. This is
12 what we asked for, really. And sometimes at these
13 meetings, I feel like we just talk at really high
14 level and these are the big problems. But we asked,
15 “How can we facilitate this work?” And you bring us
16 an extensive list of little ways that we could do
17 it, and I really appreciate that a lot.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Yes. I would echo that 100
19 percent. Thank you very much.
20 JOHN BEAVER: Myself as well. I’d like to say
21 thank you for the comments that you’ve presented,
22 and thank you for your real-world examples. I
23 appreciate that. Thank you.
24 ANGELA GARCIA-LEWIS: Thank you.
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Is there anyone else who would
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 367
1 like to present a public comment?
2 PATRICK LYONS: We’d rather hear from you than
3 have you hear more from us. I mean that.
4 So, Madam DFO, if it is true that there is no
5 more comment, public comment, we will be moving into
6 administrative issues, outstanding meeting items,
7 that sort of thing. Is that correct?
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: That’s correct, yes.
9 JOHN BEAVER: Before we move out of the public
10 comment, I would just like to – not back it up to
11 yesterday, but just like to say thank you to the
12 Association on American Indian Affairs for the
13 submission of their written comments to the
14 Committee and to National NAGPRA. Thank you.
15 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: This is the final opportunity
17 for public comment at this meeting.
18 HONOR KEELER: I would encourage folks to come
19 down if they have anything that they’d like to
20 summarize or maybe put into a list on some of the
21 issues also that we’ve talked about here today and
22 that our subcommittees have been formed for. We have
23 a subcommittee on split collections. We have a
24 subcommittee for our annual report, a subcommittee
25 on the administration of NAGPRA, and a committee of
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 368
1 the whole. So if there are things that folks think
2 maybe should be commented on – we’ve also had an
3 issue come up during the meetings about the
4 potential for regulations being posted as well soon.
5 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Be sure and state your name
6 for the record.
7 KARA HURST, U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF
8 RECLAMATION
9 KARA HURST: Thank you. Good afternoon, Kara
10 Hearst, Bureau of Reclamation. I’d like to actually
11 pose a question to the Review Committee. I’m curious
12 what position the Review Committee has, and what
13 maybe National NAGPRA has, regarding the HUD TDAT
14 database. There’s a lot of chatter that I’ve heard
15 about HUD wanting to – Housing and Urban Development
16 wanting to make the TDAT database a Government-wide,
17 federally kind of required database for use. And so
18 I was just hoping to get an opinion on your
19 perspectives on that. Thank you.
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: For those of you who are not
21 familiar with the HUD TDAT database, let me give you
22 a brief summary. That database originated for
23 Housing and Urban Development, in particular, for
24 their contractors or financial assistance awardees,
25 I cannot remember which, non-Governmental entities
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1 to use – for use in complying with Section 106
2 responsibilities that HUD had related to projects
3 with HUD funding. So the database tries to identify
4 locations where Tribes have an interest. Initially,
5 again, that interest being under Section 106 and the
6 related regulations to the National Historic
7 Preservation Act.
8 The database was created by HUD by requesting
9 information from Tribes. There has been a series of
10 consultation and revision related to the information
11 in that database, and it is often used. I think that
12 I agree with Kara, that I’ve heard discussion about
13 broadening the use of that database. It provides,
14 basically, contact information for Tribes based on
15 location at the county level, generally, county and
16 state level.
17 As far as the National NAGPRA Program, we have
18 provided on our website a link to the HUD TDAT
19 database in place of what had previously been our
20 own consultation database. We have identified a lot
21 of issues with our own data and decided to no longer
22 serve that information on our website. And in its
23 place, while we are working on a fix for that, we
24 did link to the HUD TDAT database, among other
25 sources, for identifying Tribal contacts.
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1 I think that broadly across the Government, the
2 Federal Government, the issue of Tribal contacts and
3 land area interests is a significant one. It is one
4 that is quite often discussed amongst Federal
5 agencies. And I don’t – I can’t say at this point
6 that there is a one-government solution to this
7 problem, at least not from the conversations or
8 meetings that I’ve attended. But I would stress that
9 this is a very complicated issue. It is a difficult
10 issue to solve. And it is one that I am continually
11 asked about and whether or not the National NAGPRA
12 Program can help solve this problem.
13 I would say that it’s currently my position
14 that the National NAGPRA Program does as much as it
15 can to support all NAGPRA practitioners in their
16 efforts to identify contacts, whether they be Tribal
17 contacts or museum contacts. And as was mentioned
18 earlier, I do hope, actually, that we’ll be able to
19 soon meet one of Ms. Garcia-Lewis’s requests in
20 providing more information about museums that have
21 NAGPRA inventories. But I have been careful to keep
22 within the needs of NAGPRA communities and NAGPRA
23 constituents. And one of my concerns is when
24 information related to NAGPRA is used for other
25 purposes, such as 106 consultation. I would express
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1 the same concern over the HUD TDAT that was created
2 for a different purpose. So I don’t know if that
3 answers your question, or if I’ve probably said too
4 much because I’m a little tired.
5 HONOR KEELER: I think there’s an issue also
6 about aboriginal lands and territories that need to
7 be kept and considered. Our peoples – a lot of my
8 community’s peoples had Villages where there were
9 multiple people who were there. We’re not seen as
10 isolated people in one place all the time. We
11 traveled up and down and all throughout these lands
12 and our aboriginal lands. So I urge that this be
13 part of the Tribal consultation process, to be
14 understanding where our ancestors and cultural items
15 have been from.
16 KARA HURST: Thank you. Yes. My concern was just
17 that we would be required to use one tool, versus
18 multiple tools at our disposal. So thank you.
19 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: And another comment from –
21 please introduce yourself.
22 KEN PRATT, U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF
23 INDIAN AFFAIRS, ALASKA
24 KEN PRATT: Hi, my name’s Ken Pratt. I am with
25 the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Anchorage, Alaska.
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1 And I don’t have a comment, as much as I’d like to
2 just make a request regarding the written comment
3 period. I wonder if you could clarify when written
4 comments have to be submitted, if there’s a limit on
5 how long the comments could be, and maybe if the
6 Committee could restate the types of information
7 it’s soliciting in written comments.
8 PATRICK LYONS: May I turn that over to you,
9 Madam DFO?
10 MELANIE O’BRIEN: To date, we have not
11 restricted the size of a written comment. We -
12 PATRICK LYONS: But don’t get excited.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: We call for written comment
14 prior to your scheduled meetings. In general, the
15 deadline for written comment is 30 days before the
16 meeting. We have posted on our website now that we
17 tentatively have scheduled your next meeting for
18 October 30th. I don’t know if we put deadlines up.
19 Not yet. We will shortly, as soon as we finish with
20 the work of this meeting, be posting deadlines for
21 that meeting, which will include a deadline likely
22 early October, for written comment.
23 We have shifted. It’s a good question, Ken. We
24 can no longer rely on the Federal Register notice
25 publication to provide us with enough time for the
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1 deadlines. So we try to provide those now on our
2 website prior to your meetings so that people know
3 what the upcoming deadlines are.
4 As to what kinds of written comment the
5 Committee is looking for, they have requested
6 written comment on issues related to split
7 collections. They are seeking written comments about
8 Federal agency collections that are held by
9 repositories. They are seeking written comment on
10 any other progress made or barriers encountered in
11 implementing NAGPRA, to contribute to their report
12 to Congress. Is there anything else?
13 HONOR KEELER: I think I’d also like to say that
14 we’ve heard that there may be regulations coming
15 out. And while this may not be the open public
16 comment period we’re required as a Committee, that
17 the Secretary of Interior consult with us on this.
18 And I think that there have been prior comments also
19 made in a process that we went through in 2011, but
20 now it’s 2019. So I would like to also seek some
21 kind of comments coming in to the Committee about
22 that.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Anyone else? Did that answer
24 your question, Ken?
25 KEN PRATT: Yes, thank you.
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
2 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. We do want to move on to
3 our administrative work. However, the Museum of the
4 North has arranged for Steve Ginnis with the
5 Fairbanks Native Association to be here with us and
6 provide us with a traditional closing. Although
7 we’re not ready to close the meeting, unfortunately
8 Mr. Ginnis has another commitment, so I would like
9 to recognize the request of the museum and Mr.
10 Ginnis’ time and ask him to please come provide us
11 with a sending off. We will continue our
12 administrative tasks after that.
13 TRADITIONAL CLOSING
14 STEVE GINNIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
15 members of the Committee. My name is Steve Ginnis.
16 I’m a Gwich’in Koyukon Athabascan. I come from the
17 Village of Fort Yukon, which is northeast of here,
18 about a 45-minute plane ride. For us Gwich’in,
19 fortunately there’s White Mountains there that
20 separate us from Fairbanks, so we don’t have to
21 worry about the borough annexing us out there. At
22 any rate, I’m the former Chief of my Tribe for a
23 number of years. Currently I’m the Traditional Chief
24 of my Tribe. I’m the former president of Tanana
25 Chiefs Conference. I’ve been on the National
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1 Congress of American Indian’s board, as area vice
2 president, representing all the Tribes that are in
3 the state. So I’ve kind of been around the block a
4 few times.
5 I have to say that I’m not as familiar with
6 this legislation as others are, but what I’m about
7 to say may – you probably have already heard. One of
8 the things that concerns me about this is
9 consultation. I think it’s a big issue with Tribes.
10 Anything that has to do with Tribes and the
11 Government, our view has always been that
12 consultations need to take place, and I mean
13 meaningful consultations. I don’t mean a group of
14 people getting together and talking to each other
15 and that’s the extent of it, but meaningful
16 consultations where the advice or recommendations
17 that our Tribes are making to the Federal or state
18 government, those be taken seriously and hopefully
19 implemented.
20 One of the things that this also concerns me
21 about is having to do with development. There’s –
22 many of our Tribes have sacred sites, and it really
23 concerns me when developers come in and without
24 respect to the people or the land and move forward
25 with development. My concern about that is that I
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1 think we need to strengthen the regulations and the
2 laws to better protect those Tribes that are
3 affected by development. My experience with that is
4 that I can speak to our concern about a certain area
5 of development until I turn blue. It don’t seem to
6 make any difference, especially if you have an
7 administration that has that view. It’s almost like
8 they’re all toeing the line, despite people’s issues
9 or concerns about the proposed development.
10 And that’s really concerning to me, and we’re
11 experiencing that right here in the state of Alaska.
12 My Tribe is being seriously impacted by the Arctic
13 National Wildlife proposed development. The Gwich’in
14 people rely heavily on the Porcupine caribou herd
15 and have for many, many, many years, and despite our
16 concerns and whatnot, they’re still pushing forward,
17 and we’ve pushed back on that for the last 40 years.
18 A small Tribe of Gwich’in people were able to stop
19 legislation from moving forward, but with this
20 current administration that’s in place now, it’s a
21 little different story. So that’s why I raise that.
22 And when we’re talking about the protection of
23 our lands and so forth and so on and our sacred
24 sites, I really believe that there needs to be some
25 way of strengthening the legislation to address
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1 those kind of concerns. These sacred sites, they
2 bring value to the various cultures of Indians, and
3 I’m sure you all understand that, but I think it
4 needs to be reiterated that there’s protocol to
5 follow when you come onto Indian land. And those
6 protocols need to be respected, and many times
7 they’re not. There’s not proper consultation that
8 takes place. There’s no – sometimes in some cases,
9 no communication. People just show up, and those are
10 all in violation of respective Tribal protocol. In
11 the Yukon Flats country where I come from, that’s
12 our expectation of people that’ll come into our
13 country, to have proper consultations so that
14 there’s a mutual understanding of what’s going to be
15 occurring or what they’re proposing to do. So I just
16 wanted to share those.
17 I speak my language fluently, the Gwich’in
18 language. I also understand Koyukon, which is
19 another Athabascan language, a totally different
20 dialect. I grew up in a household that understood
21 those. Briefly, I just want to say a few things to
22 all of you in my language, and I want you all to
23 know I’m not cussing you out. Somebody made that
24 comment one time. They were speaking in their
25 language, and they said, “I wonder if that person is
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 378
1 cussing us out.” These were Federal officials that
2 they were talking about, but anyway.
3 (Native American language.) I’ll translate
4 that. Thank you very much for being here. We
5 appreciate you being among us here. (Native American
6 language.) So when we gather like this and we talk
7 about issues that affect our Tribes or our Tribal
8 members, it’s always related to land. (Native
9 American language.) We know the land, and we know
10 the resources on it that we’ve been relying on for
11 many years. (Native American language.) So when we
12 talk about these things, we need to be heard.
13 (Native American language.) The governments, whether
14 it’s Federal or state government, don’t always
15 listen to us. (Native American language.) That’s
16 what we talk about all the time when we come
17 together. Because at the end of the day, it’s the
18 land and the resources that’s on there that’s going
19 to sustain us, and we have to do what we can to
20 protect those.
21 Many of our organizations are grant-funded, and
22 one day, one of these days, those resources will no
23 longer be there, and so the only alternative we have
24 to survive is off of our land and off of our
25 resources. We try to convey that to our younger
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1 generation, and sometimes these young people, they
2 say, oh, you know, that’s just old-time thinking.
3 Some of these youngest generation, their response is
4 like that, just like my kids. They tell me that once
5 in a while. I tell them, you know what, that old-
6 time thinking still prevails today.
7 With that, I want to thank you again for being
8 here. It’s always good to have different entities
9 come into our community, into our communication and
10 meet with us and have a dialogue around issues that
11 concern our people, and I hope that what you have
12 heard here or advocated for, a legislation change or
13 whatever it requires to accommodate those concerns.
14 So again, thank you so much for being here, and God
15 bless each and every one of you, and safe travels
16 back to wherever your communities are. Thank you so
17 much. (Native American language.)
18 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you, sir.
19 ACTION ITEM: OUTSTANDING MEETING ITEMS
20 FUTURE MEETINGS
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you. Just as we move
22 into the next administrative section, I do want to
23 remark that, while I understand that the Review
24 Committee prefers to meet in Tribal communities or
25 on Tribal land when possible, I want to remark how
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1 wonderful it’s been to be here at the Museum of the
2 North that have worked diligently to try to find
3 Tribal members and Tribal hosts who can come and
4 give us welcomes and closings like the one we just
5 heard.
6 That’s a good segue into our next item, which
7 is to discuss where you’ll be meeting next. As I’ve
8 mentioned before, the next planned meeting is
9 tentatively scheduled for October 30th at 2:00 p.m.
10 Eastern by telephone. Following that meeting, I
11 would ask the Review Committee to consider locations
12 for a meeting sometime in the spring of 2020, and
13 according to the meeting procedures, we should also
14 discuss potential locations for a second meeting
15 after that, probably in the fall of 2020.
16 I didn’t print for you, but we do have a map,
17 which may or may not be on the screen, of the
18 locations where you have previously met, at least
19 those locations in the continental United States.
20 There’s some fairly evident holes.
21 Some things to think about in considering
22 locations. Obviously, we are all familiar with the
23 effort that it took to travel here to Fairbanks,
24 which I believe was worth every effort to bring you
25 to a community and to hear directly from them. So I
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1 do think it’s important to consider locations based
2 on relative ease of major airports, but also
3 consider which communities might benefit from your
4 presence.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Madam Chair – Madam DFO, rather,
6 we’ve also considered standing invitations, too.
7 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, that’s correct. You heard
8 earlier from Indiana University in Bloomington,
9 Indiana, inviting you to have a meeting there. You
10 have been invited informally to meet in Iowa at, or
11 near, Effigy Mounds National Monument. Likewise, I
12 have had preliminary conversations with the Illinois
13 State Museum at Cahokia, outside of St. Louis, in
14 terms of the Midwest. We have a rather old
15 invitation to the Mississippi Choctaw in
16 Mississippi.
17 PATRICK LYONS: Philadelphia.
18 MELANIE O’BRIEN: In Philadelphia, Mississippi.
19 And of course, you also had an invitation today from
20 the University of Denver for the October 2020 in
21 conjunction with the thirtieth anniversary of NAGPRA
22 Conference.
23 In general, what I ask for from you at this
24 time is a general location or a type of facility, in
25 addition to these specific locations, anywhere that
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1 you would like me, and by me I mean Lesa, to work on
2 identifying locations.
3 PATRICK LYONS: So John and Honor, I’m going to
4 put you two on the spot. I heard some comments from
5 you two about, when we were discussing Iowa as a
6 potential place, considering where we might be able
7 to best make ourselves available to Native
8 communities in the Midwest, and it seemed like you
9 two maybe had some opinions about that, or was I
10 incorrect about that?
11 JOHN BEAVER: Certainly we want to look at
12 places where we haven’t been before, but we
13 certainly want to go to places where we’re going to
14 have lots of attendance, I think, particularly
15 across the board, and we certainly hope to see lots
16 of attendance from our Native and Tribal communities
17 in some of these locations if I’m correct.
18 And so we also would like to focus on what –
19 where we might achieve the most attendance, and
20 there was some question about, particularly within
21 the comments part about if it would be considered
22 again for training on the front end, or anything
23 like that, where we might have lots of attendance
24 for those, if that becomes a possibility at the next
25 or upcoming meetings. Do you have any input on that?
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1 HONOR KEELER: I think some of the motivation
2 for Melanie, and correct me if I’m wrong, looking at
3 the Midwestern area are some of the current issues
4 the Tribes are facing. I would echo what John said
5 about being in an area that would have a lot of
6 Tribal communities located there, as well as looking
7 at attendance from Tribal communities. In our past
8 two meetings that I’ve been present at, one was in
9 Washington, DC, and one here, I personally would
10 like to see more reporting coming in from the
11 Tribes, so one of my suggestions is Oklahoma.
12 JOHN BEAVER: I could go for Oklahoma, but no
13 personal bias.
14 MELANIE O’BRIEN: With Tulsa at the top of the
15 list, right?
16 JOHN BEAVER: It doesn’t have to – it would be a
17 very short commute for me.
18 PATRICK LYONS: And Frank and Barnaby and I
19 would really be happy with Arizona.
20 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Is there any other input you’d
21 like to provide me with identifying a location?
22 HEATHER EDGAR: I’d just say, I mean it’s
23 obvious that the Midwest needs some attention, as
24 well as, I guess that’s the Southeast, right? But I
25 think looking at the Midwest there would be a really
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1 good – all that big empty spot in the Midwest is
2 probably a really good idea. With the caveat that
3 not just Tribes, especially Tribes, but especially
4 after this meeting which I think is – I’m really
5 glad we had the meeting here, but to put it some
6 place that was simple to get to, so some place –
7 let’s say, for example, if we met outside St. Louis,
8 that’s a place that is easy to get a flight to, and
9 that might be a nice consideration.
10 PATRICK LYONS: That’s actually what I was going
11 to suggest is that I agree that the Midwest would be
12 a priority based on where we have not been so much,
13 and the ease of transportation would be the second
14 consideration. So I would be open to – I don’t know
15 if that helps much that the two of us are suggesting
16 sort of the same thing, but that seems like a good
17 place to start for the two of us, at least.
18 JOHN BEAVER: And I’m sorry, was there an – you
19 said there was an invitation at one point from the
20 Mississippi Choctaw community at one point?
21 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
22 JOHN BEAVER: I don’t see that – not been there,
23 just as a – I don’t know how long ago that
24 invitation was extended.
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. It is a little bit more
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1 difficult to get to Philadelphia, Mississippi.
2 Any other input?
3 HONOR KEELER: I’ll just throw out Cherokee,
4 North Carolina, as well.
5 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. Anyone else want to
6 voice input? Okay. All right, we will work with you
7 to establish a date based on your own calendars.
8 Again, just for the general audience’s information,
9 the way that we determine the location and the date
10 for these meetings is primarily driven by the Review
11 Committee’s own personal schedules and availability,
12 as well as venue and – suitable venue. A new
13 requirement for us now, I think, is webcast
14 capabilities. I hope that we’ll be able to continue
15 to offer meetings livestreamed. It does require
16 additional funds, which I have to request. I’ve been
17 successful in requesting them, and I will continue
18 to request them.
19 PATRICK LYONS: Go ahead.
20 HONOR KEELER: Melanie, I did have a question
21 about whether it’s possible at this point to set
22 aside public comment, or if we can do that, over the
23 phone for a certain amount of time. I’m thinking
24 we’ve heard a lot about Alaska Native Villages being
25 in remote areas, and I think it becomes sometimes
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1 prohibitively expensive to come down to some of
2 these meetings, so I wonder if that could
3 potentially be a possibility in the future.
4 MELANIE O’BRIEN: So you mean at an in-person
5 meeting that you would receive public comment via
6 telephone?
7 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes.
8 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Okay. We can continue to work
9 on that. As I think you may know, we often struggle
10 with providing access to the Committee by telephone,
11 whether to make a presentation or a public comment.
12 Despite the wonders of technology, it seems that
13 phone lines are still very hard for us to work out
14 with the other AV systems that we have. So we would,
15 of course, always welcome written comment and
16 encourage people to submit that written comment
17 because you’re assured of being able to be heard
18 through your written comment. We are not always sure
19 we’re going to be able to have a telephone line
20 available.
21 That being said, we will have public comment
22 opportunity when you meet by telephone, because
23 there we don’t have the AV technology issue. So when
24 you meet by telephone on October 30th, there will be
25 an opportunity then for public comment. As well as
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1 at that meeting we will be accepting any disposition
2 requests, so if anyone here in the audience or
3 watching at home does have a disposition request for
4 the Review Committee to consider, you should please
5 get in touch with me as soon as possible so we can
6 start to work on that.
7 HONOR KEELER: Thank you. I think it would be
8 good if we could move toward having telephonic
9 comments, public comments via phone, for some point,
10 some portion, of our in-person meetings. Thank you.
11 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Well, I would encourage
12 anybody to work on some improved technology for
13 that. It really is a big barrier.
14 PATRICK LYONS: It’s been real hit-or-miss when
15 we’ve tried it. We have tried it a few times, and
16 it’s been frustrating.
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, it is quite often
18 difficult to hear or understand what is being said.
19 Okay. Is there any other input on future
20 meetings before we move on?
21 Okay. We would still like to have time for the
22 Committee to identify any outstanding issues, either
23 for general discussion or related to subcommittees.
24 Mr. Chair, would you like to proceed?
25 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, you wanted to ask a
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1 question first?
2 REVIEW COMMITTEE’S REPORT TO CONGRESS
3 HONOR KEELER: Yes, just a technical question,
4 or maybe something also for the Committee to think
5 about. Some of these subcommittees that we have are
6 asking for input, and I’m not sure how this
7 necessarily works, Madam DFO, so I wanted to know
8 whether we can do this. But the subcommittees might
9 be an opportunity for some open discussion and
10 consideration of things that – some of the issues
11 that we’ve talked about today and in other meetings
12 and of course to deal with those specific issues. Is
13 there a way that we can set up an open line perhaps
14 for a subcommittee meeting that we might decide to
15 have in the future where we could get the input of
16 other folks that could be made public?
17 MELANIE O’BRIEN: The purpose of a subcommittee
18 for this Review Committee under the Federal Advisory
19 Committee Act is to gather information and to bring
20 that information back to the Committee as a whole.
21 The subcommittee can certainly conduct information
22 gathering. It can do fact finding, can seek out
23 information through me as the Designated Federal
24 Officer. However, I think the subcommittee should be
25 cautious to be perceived to be conducting any kind
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1 of public meeting or public input. If you want to
2 seek input from the general public or from
3 practitioners of NAGPRA, that should be done during
4 these meetings at public comment or through written
5 comment during – that you consider at these meetings
6 together.
7 HONOR KEELER: Okay, thank you. So we will have
8 to gather information through you or potential other
9 subcommittee members.
10 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes.
11 HONOR KEELER: Thank you.
12 PATRICK LYONS: Okay, at this point what I would
13 propose, since it’s a statutory responsibility, that
14 we talk about the report to Congress. Would that be
15 okay, Madam DFO?
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: It’s still your meeting, Mr.
17 Chair.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. And I wonder if,
19 Heather, if you would mind. Would you? Thank you.
20 HEATHER EDGAR: No, I’m happy to. A quick
21 question regarding Honor’s question. There’s nothing
22 to prevent her or members of a subcommittee from
23 reaching out through professional contacts, personal
24 contacts, any of those, or any other kind of way
25 that’s unofficial to get information that they can
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1 include in their thinking about their subcommittee
2 duties, is there?
3 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Of course not, no. I would
4 again remind all of you that the reason you’re here
5 is because you bring that expertise and contacts to
6 relative practitioner groups. And so, no, there
7 would be nothing to prevent an individual from
8 gathering information.
9 HEATHER EDGAR: Good, because otherwise I’d be
10 in a lot of trouble. Okay. So yesterday I gave kind
11 of an outline of how I envisioned the report to
12 Congress for 2018 looking and got some good feedback
13 on that, and I appreciate that. What I wanted to
14 focus on at this point is not the annual report as a
15 whole but probably the points that are the most
16 challenging to put together, and the reason they’re
17 the most challenging is because we want to, in the
18 briefest possible way, in the strongest possible
19 way, emphasize the recommendations that the
20 Committee is making to Congress so that if somebody
21 just reads one page, it’s all in one place. And so
22 I’m hoping we can talk about those.
23 And Lesa, did anybody talk to you about
24 possibly putting those up on a slide?
25 LESA KOSCIELSKI: No.
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1 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay, no. That’s all right. We
2 all got a little distracted and time got close, so
3 that’s all right. So in our last – in the report to
4 Congress that is soon-to-be made public, we
5 developed five recommendations, and I’m not sure – I
6 guess because you can’t see them, maybe the best way
7 is to just read them. Read them one at a time.
8 PATRICK LYONS: That’s what I was going to
9 suggest. I brought them up.
10 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay, and the question that I
11 have for committee members is about – these are the
12 recommendations that we put forward based on our –
13 we are putting forward based on our -
14 MELANIE O’BRIEN: If I might, I think all of the
15 Committee members have a copy of that in front of
16 them.
17 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Correct.
19 HEATHER EDGAR: So we have drafted five
20 recommendations to Congress for the 2017 report, and
21 the question I’ve put forth to Committee members is
22 whether we want to keep these same five, or we want
23 to have fewer, or replace. And I suppose we could
24 have more, too, but as a subcommittee we discussed
25 the fact that, in this particular case, less is
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1 probably more. I’m not saying we need to go less,
2 but let’s try and keep this as succinct as possible.
3 Yes.
4 FRANK MCMANAMON: So just to be clear, these are
5 – I think we would look at these as the topics for
6 recommendations for the 2019 report, not the
7 specific recommendations because these are the –
8 this is the text that would – it is in the draft of
9 the 2018.
10 HEATHER EDGAR: This is the draft actually of
11 2017.
12 FRANK MCMANAMON: 2017.
13 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay, this is a draft of the
14 2017 report because of the hiatus, or the pause that
15 we all -
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Postponement.
17 HEATHER EDGAR: There we go. Postponement of the
18 meetings, we’re behind in producing our annual
19 report, so this is what – so what we have is what we
20 produced for 2017. Now we could jettison these
21 completely and completely rewrite new
22 recommendations, and these are the actual serious
23 recommendations. They’re not really just topics for
24 the rest of the report. This is the recommendations
25 we hope to make to Congress.
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1 FRANK MCMANAMON: Yes. That’s what I understood.
2 But I also understood that we may want to modify the
3 text somewhat. We talked about additional
4 information that we had, funding needs and things of
5 that sort. That’s all.
6 HEATHER EDGAR: Right. So these are what we had
7 in our last report that’s about to come out, and
8 it’s a jumping-off place. And the reason it’s a
9 jumping-off place, there is a real logic to it,
10 which is that some of the barriers that are
11 encountered, or were encountered in the year of
12 2017, still exist. And so that’s the point is that
13 there’s – so some of it will have to be changed. So
14 for example, in point 1, we talk a little bit about
15 what money was made available during the year of
16 2017. Obviously the numbers are going to be somewhat
17 different for 2018. So that’s really the question is
18 the extent to which the recommendations we made in
19 2017 still hold true and the extent to which we
20 might want to modify the recommendations.
21 So our first two recommendations are really
22 about money. They’re really about money, right? One
23 is – the first one is to increase NAGPRA grant
24 funding. And then beyond that, we specify – and
25 thanks to John Beaver’s suggestion, it’s very
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 394
1 specific about what money is there and what could be
2 - the fact that only 43 percent of applicants are
3 funded in an average year, and that that reflects a
4 lack of available funds, not a lack of qualified
5 applicants. And so I really appreciate that very
6 concrete suggestion that you made in our October
7 meeting. So I would suggest that while those numbers
8 need to change that recommendation doesn’t really
9 need to change.
10 PATRICK LYONS: I would agree. And I think also
11 that number 2, which I think would boil down to the
12 following things, dedicated funding and dedicated
13 staff for NAGPRA, the first two, and then the third,
14 requiring museums to share records related to
15 federally owned collections. That those are things
16 that we heard about in 2017-2018, and we’ve
17 continued to hear about it in 2018-2019. In fact,
18 we’ve got a lot more concrete good information about
19 how those things can be overcome.
20 HEATHER EDGAR: One sec. I would say I agree,
21 and we can provide that detail of what we’ve learned
22 in the following sections of the report.
23 PATRICK LYONS: Correct.
24 HONOR KEELER: Shall we run through them, point
25 by point, and then start -
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1 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, I kind of feel like we’ve
2 gone through point 1 and 2 now.
3 HONOR KEELER: Well, then I’d like to add with
4 point 2 that we need to remain cognizant, because
5 it’s been reported out through public comments and
6 folks who have been presenting, about
7 confidentiality –
8 PATRICK LYONS: About FOIA.
9 HONOR KEELER: – and the Freedom of Information
10 Act. And to be thinking, of course, about the
11 possibility of individuals using that way to perhaps
12 obtain information that should be kept confidential
13 by the Tribes.
14 HEATHER EDGAR: Do you feel like that - I think
15 that’s a really important point and something that
16 wouldn’t have automatically been apparent to me, had
17 it not come out, that the FOIA report - once these
18 materials are public documents, sensitive issues can
19 become public. And I’ve seen it at lower levels many
20 times, where an archeological report is placed on
21 file, and then it shows the exact location of where
22 an important site is and a lot of – and information
23 that should not be available to the general public.
24 So I get where you’re coming from. The question I
25 have is where to put that information and whether it
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 396
1 modifies the recommendation we made to Congress or
2 it goes somewhere else, or is it so important that
3 we want to modify this recommendation?
4 PATRICK LYONS: I have a recommendation actually
5 about the recommendation.
6 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay.
7 PATRICK LYONS: So one of the things that
8 occurred to me, while we were talking earlier, is -
9 well, it occurred to a number of us, because we were
10 talking about it when we were in the subcommittee
11 session, is that – the appropriateness of number 3,
12 whether we need to call out – there are problems
13 anyway with the idea of recommending that Congress
14 refine regulations, when really it’s the Secretary
15 that promulgates regulations and refines
16 regulations. But we were recognizing a need to
17 refine regulations and maybe instead – so that’s one
18 that could come out, particularly since we think
19 we’re going to be dealing with a rewrite of the
20 regulations coming up. And perhaps that’s a slot
21 where we develop a recommendation related to this
22 barrier, which I think is different than the overall
23 heading of number two, which is “Encouraging and
24 supporting Federal agency compliance.” I think
25 really, this recommendation about FOIA would be
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1 encouraging and protecting Tribal participation in
2 the process. Does that make sense to people?
3 Protecting the information is more of a Tribal issue
4 in terms of who is harmed. But I guess the
5 Government is harmed as well, if site locations are
6 divulged.
7 HONOR KEELER: Could you clarify what you’re
8 recommending to not put in?
9 PATRICK LYONS: I’m recommending to drop the
10 current number 3, which is “Refine and promulgate
11 regulations to improve and expedite the repatriation
12 process,” because it’s problematic from the
13 standpoint of directing Congress to refine and
14 promulgate regulations, because they don’t do that.
15 They write laws and tell secretaries, and people who
16 work for secretaries, to write and refine
17 regulations. We would be asking Congress, if
18 anything, to amend legislation or write new
19 legislation, I think. Is that what you all would
20 understand?
21 BRADY BLASCO: Yes. That’s accurate.
22 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you. I’m not a lawyer, and
23 I don’t play one on TV.
24 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, so let me just bring up
25 number 3. We’ve already read it, but so we’ve been
Lesa Koscielski Consulting Rapid City, South Dakota (605) 342-3298 398
1 talking about 1 and 2 and that they’re about money
2 for the most part, not entirely, but for the most
3 part. But number 3 is about regulations. And we do
4 know, first of all, or we believe that we have some
5 regulations – draft regulations that will be
6 promulgated soon. And the point was also made that
7 it isn’t Congress that refines and promulgates
8 regulations. But they do, in fact, adjust
9 legislation, create legislation and adjust
10 legislation, and can direct or request agencies to
11 refine or promulgate regulations. It may be the best
12 reason to remove this - well, there’s two good
13 reasons to remove our recommendation number 3. One
14 is, it’s inaccurate, but we could fix it.
15 PATRICK LYONS: Right.
16 HEATHER EDGAR: But it might be that, since
17 there are regulations that will hopefully be
18 promulgated soon, we hold off on that recommendation
19 for a year and see what comes out.
20 PATRICK LYONS: That’s what I was going to
21 recommend, yes.
22 HEATHER EDGAR: So that’s kind of what we talked
23 about in subcommittee, and I’m wondering if the rest
24 of the Committee has an opinion about that.
25 PATRICK LYONS: Please.
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1 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay. Do you need that again?
2 JOHN BEAVER: I agree with your point about
3 taking it out, this particular recommendation for
4 the upcoming report, annual report.
5 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay.
6 FRANK MCMANAMON: Yes. I don’t object to
7 removing that particular text, because I think it
8 isn’t accurate. But I do want to be sure that it’s
9 still - the first day of the meeting, we talked
10 about the new regulations or the revised
11 regulations, and at least some of us expressed a
12 concern about those becoming proposed without the
13 Committee having had a chance to provide advice on
14 them. And I just want that – that’s not something we
15 would put in this document.
16 PATRICK LYONS: Well, in this document, but not
17 necessarily as a recommendation to Congress. It
18 might be somewhere else.
19 FRANK MCMANAMON: Yes. Yes. Okay. And I know
20 Melanie and the others from the Department have that
21 information to take back and think about.
22 HEATHER EDGAR: So before we move on to number
23 4, I just want to skip back for a second and revisit
24 number 2, and make sure that we’re clear with the
25 FOIA issues.
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1 PATRICK LYONS: Well, what I was going to
2 propose was to break FOIA out as its own separate -
3 HEATHER EDGAR: So what would that - I mean, we
4 still have more time for subcommittee work, right?
5 So we don’t have to come up with the final wording
6 now. I’m just - so your number 3, which by the way
7 we don’t have to have five things, so it’s okay.
8 PATRICK LYONS: Right.
9 HEATHER EDGAR: But number 3 is the magic
10 number, not five. It would be something like
11 protecting information?
12 PATRICK LYONS: Yes. Finding legislative fixes
13 that would protect the confidentiality of
14 information associated with NAGPRA.
15 HEATHER EDGAR: How does the rest of the
16 Committee feel about that?
17 HONOR KEELER: I would like to comment on that.
18 On 2.b), which we’re talking about right now, I
19 would recommend that there be the confidentiality
20 and FOIA exemption in place before records were
21 requested to be made public. I would suggest that
22 our recommendation be that any kind of sharing of
23 records that would help to address such issues as
24 the non-Federal repositories, which have come up
25 quite a bit, that there be confidentiality ensured,
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1 and maybe a FOIA exemption passed in some way or
2 coming through in legislation, before we request
3 that those records potentially come under agencies,
4 where information may be available that the Tribes
5 would not want.
6 HEATHER EDGAR: So can I just ask our legal
7 team? I don’t know where Steven went. Before we take
8 the time to make this recommendation to Congress, is
9 there anything that would make this moot? Like is it
10 something that’s precluded? Is it something that’s
11 not allowed?
12 BRADY BLASCO: Can you clarify?
13 HEATHER EDGAR: Like a FOIA exemption, is what
14 I’m talking about, for sensitive information that
15 might be in, say, for example, archaeological
16 records that we wouldn’t want made available to the
17 public.
18 BRADY BLASCO: So if there’s a specific FOIA
19 exemption for information that is listed as exempted
20 from FOIA by a statute?
21 PATRICK LYONS: Like ARPA.
22 HEATHER EDGAR: Right.
23 BRADY BLASCO: That’s a good example. Thus,
24 there wouldn’t be a legislative fix to FOIA or a
25 specific FOIA exemption that would be created. It
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1 would be a fix to the statute, maybe to NAGPRA
2 itself, in which there’s basically a call-out to
3 FOIA, so that it would restrict the nature of that
4 information and the ability to use it, and its
5 ability to be FOIA’d. And that would then fall under
6 that specific exemption.
7 HEATHER EDGAR: So if we were to make a
8 recommendation to Congress that they adjust
9 legislation that way, would it - I’m not saying that
10 they would necessarily follow our recommendation,
11 but there’s nothing that just is like, well, there’s
12 no way that it ever could happen, that they would –
13 it’s not an impossible task. It could happen, that
14 if they followed our recommendation, they could have
15 a legislative fix.
16 BRADY BLASCO: To my knowledge, right now,
17 there’s nothing that would prevent you from making
18 that recommendation.
19 PATRICK LYONS: And just to clarify, so that
20 would be an amendment to NAGPRA, specific to how it
21 interacts with FOIA.
22 BRADY BLASCO: Correct.
23 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes, we can make any
24 recommendation. We already made a recommendation
25 that was impossible, right? So I’m trying to avoid
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1 that.
2 BRADY BLASCO: Right.
3 HEATHER EDGAR: There’s nothing to prevent
4 Congress from actually acting on our recommendation,
5 if they so choose?
6 BRADY BLASCO: Not to my knowledge, but I can
7 look into this further and give you guys further
8 guidance on it.
9 HEATHER EDGAR: Okay.
10 HONOR KEELER: And we should have opportunity
11 before, through written comment, as we’ve mentioned,
12 and also the telephonic meeting, for folks to make
13 additional comments about this, that would help
14 inform –
15 PATRICK LYONS: Yes. I mean, what we’re doing
16 right now is a lot of sausage making. Sorry, folks,
17 that you have to see this, but this is how it has to
18 be done in public. So yes, we’re kind of fumbling
19 through this, but yes, this is something that would
20 be refined. It looked like Frank had a - did you
21 guys - Frank?
22 FRANK MCMANAMON: I guess having more time to
23 think about it is a good thing, because I don’t
24 really understand what we’re asking for. And I know
25 there are issues of confidentiality around the
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1 issues of cultural affiliation, for example, and
2 issues of what’s a sacred object or what’s an object
3 of cultural patrimony. And I know, because I’ve had
4 some involvement in specific cases, where that’s an
5 issue. So I don’t know that we have something
6 specific to suggest to Congress about that, but if
7 we want to reserve space in our recommendations to
8 look at the topic, we could figure out a way.
9 PATRICK LYONS: That would be my recommendation.
10 FRANK MCMANAMON: So that’s what we’re doing?
11 Okay.
12 PATRICK LYONS: Yes.
13 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes. That’s where we are.
14 FRANK MCMANAMON: For further consideration.
15 PATRICK LYONS: Exactly.
16 HEATHER EDGAR: So shall we move on to point 4
17 at this point then? Okay. So what’s point 4?
18 PATRICK LYONS: Land for reburial.
19 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes. Point 4 is about land for
20 reburial. And thank goodness for the Forest Service
21 and other Federal agencies, and also some state
22 agencies, that have made available land. And we also
23 respect that some Tribes are not interested in using
24 Government lands for reburial, and that is certainly
25 their prerogative. But other Tribes are interested.
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1 And we heard stories today about how repatriations
2 may have been slowed or even prevented by the idea
3 of not having land. I think there’s some
4 clarifications that can be made in that, which is
5 that repatriation can happen and burial and transfer
6 of materials can happen later.
7 But besides that, the question we, in point 4,
8 recommend to Congress that they consider directing
9 Federal agencies that control cemeteries to set land
10 aside specifically for reburial for this purpose.
11 And we even very nicely recommended the particular
12 act that this could happen under, the Recreation and
13 Public Purposes Act, to help BLM to use land this
14 way.
15 I would suggest that this recommendation stand.
16 PATRICK LYONS: I would second that.
17 JOHN BEAVER: Yes, I’m in favor of that
18 recommendation standing.
19 FRANK MCMANAMON: Because it’s something that
20 the subcommittee worked a lot on and considered
21 fully, and it hasn’t changed yet.
22 HEATHER EDGAR: No.
23 FRANK MCMANAMON: Okay. So it doesn’t solve all
24 the issues, but it’s a recommendation on an
25 important topic.
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1 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes. That’s exactly right.
2 HONOR KEELER: I just have a comment. I think we
3 had at one point also talked about not just limiting
4 it to cemeteries.
5 HEATHER EDGAR: We had.
6 HONOR KEELER: So our ancestors and their
7 funerary objects have been placed all across lands,
8 here in the United States. And sometimes, it’s very
9 important to ensure and to some Tribes, that those
10 reburials occur in the same or similar location.
11 HEATHER EDGAR: I agree. And I’ve heard a lot of
12 personal experience dealing with that. I think our
13 goal when we crafted this, as you may remember since
14 you were involved, was to give a concrete solution
15 that partially solved the problem. But we could
16 revisit it. It’s worth revisiting and thinking about
17 that tradeoff between concrete solution and the best
18 solution. So let’s talk about that again as a
19 subcommittee. But for now at least the idea, the
20 concept remains about the same. It’s about lands for
21 reburial.
22 HONOR KEELER: Yes, I think concrete solutions
23 are good as long as they don’t limit us.
24 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes, right. So I could see that
25 being an issue. There might be some wording we could
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1 add, that would help that.
2 All right. And then the topic that maybe we
3 talked the most about in our subcommittee meeting is
4 our fifth and final recommendation to Congress,
5 which was to invite the Review Committee through the
6 Secretary of the Interior to report directly to
7 Congress on persistent barriers and to hold hearings
8 on the requirements in what we had set out in
9 recommendation 2.
10 And I’m now just going to – I’m not going to
11 talk as the chair of the committee, I’m just going
12 to talk about my own perspective on this. My goal is
13 to get Congress to hear these recommendations. And I
14 know that’s why this request, kind of, for
15 invitation is in here. But I am unconvinced that
16 this is the best way to get Congress to hear us. And
17 I think that we could be a little more creative in
18 how we would encourage Congress to hear us. And some
19 of those ways are informal. They’re not as a Review
20 Committee, but as members of committees – or of
21 communities.
22 We do have the thirtieth anniversary of NAGPRA
23 approaching. And it’s a moment that we can use for
24 attention. And there’s ways we can do that as
25 individuals, and then there’s ways that we can do
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1 that as a Committee. And I think, if we’re going to
2 keep a recommendation here that is about hearing us,
3 we need to figure out as a committee, what is the
4 best way to be heard. And I would like to work with
5 National NAGPRA and other people to figure out what
6 that best way is. And if it is to request an
7 invitation, then great, let’s do that. But let’s
8 think about what the goal is. The goal is to draw
9 attention to the problems that NAGPRA compliance and
10 NAGPRA practice has, not to go see Congress.
11 PATRICK LYONS: I think that’s a really good way
12 to put it. Yes, let’s focus on the goal, and if this
13 is the right tool or not.
14 HONOR KEELER: I personally think that having
15 the Review Committee report in front of Congress
16 would make it – make NAGPRA an issue of considerable
17 importance, which I think it is. So I like the
18 recommendation to request that Congress have someone
19 – have the Review Committee be present. But I
20 understand – we also talked about kind of the
21 process through which that could happen and whether
22 the Review Committee could actually come in front of
23 Congress.
24 FRANK MCMANAMON: I think you’re absolutely
25 right. I think the main point that both of you are
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1 making is let’s keep this topic, but figure out what
2 language - there may be a better language to use
3 here. We may want to call upon Congress or recommend
4 that Congress hold hearings, and one of the
5 witnesses could be the Committee or the Committee
6 chair, something like that.
7 PATRICK LYONS: Well, and actually, the last
8 time we met, I think hearings was one of the other
9 tools that was brought up. And so I’ll have to admit
10 that this is not my area of expertise. It’s – Frank,
11 you and our colleagues from National NAGPRA and
12 other people here among the public are better suited
13 maybe than me, certainly, to talk about this. But
14 yes, hearings were something else that was brought
15 up.
16 FRANK MCMANAMON: And so I think the idea of
17 working with National NAGPRA to figure out the right
18 text, is that - do you think that would -
19 HONOR KEELER: Yes, and I also think the
20 government-to-government relationship with Tribes,
21 we should encourage that Tribes are speaking
22 directly to Congress as well in this process because
23 this law directly affects them.
24 HEATHER EDGAR: You brought that up in
25 subcommittee, and I thought that was a really good
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1 idea, a better way to approach this. And then we
2 also talked about maybe not just Tribes, but
3 representatives of a variety of aspects of the
4 NAGPRA community. So I appreciate that.
5 PATRICK LYONS: Yes, I think John brought that
6 up as well.
7 HEATHER EDGAR: Thank you.
8 JOHN BEAVER: Yes, that was the point that I
9 brought up, and just on this particular – and we can
10 move on, but I think that given the time that I’ve –
11 the limited time that I’ve served on this Committee,
12 and particularly, some of the comments that we’ve
13 heard today from our Tribal – the people who come
14 from the Tribes but also the broader repatriation
15 community in general, I think that has great - when
16 you see some of the hearings in Congress, that’s
17 where movement comes, when you see the particular –
18 I think it’s the comments from the citizens who it
19 directly impacts. While the Review Committee may
20 stand as a representative to some of that, to me the
21 testimony is stronger and has greater impact when it
22 comes from each one of these communities.
23 We’ve heard great - in particular today, but
24 just I’ve been mulling this all over but that that
25 you’ve heard, I think it’s probably impacts some of
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1 our thinking or maybe other people who have been in
2 the room, that some of the topics and thoughts that
3 have had come up, that you hadn’t thought about
4 before, and it has a great impact coming from those
5 people who are directly impacted by it in the day-
6 to-day. And so that’s where - I don’t know if that
7 falls into this sort of recommendation, but that
8 would be where my thoughts would be on that, how
9 that fits into that type of a recommendation. I
10 think those comments from the greater communities
11 that are involved in this carry a lot of weight.
12 HEATHER EDGAR: I agree. I think that that’s way
13 more powerful maybe than seeing us. So if it’s okay
14 with you all, I will take it upon myself to kind of
15 lead this subcommittee in conversations with
16 National NAGPRA and our attorneys about what we
17 can’t and can recommend in this – again, I know we
18 can recommend anything, but something that actually
19 might be possible.
20 But then besides this, I do want to take this
21 moment to encourage you to, as individuals, do what
22 you can in your communities to encourage people to
23 be active for this thirtieth anniversary. I’m
24 fortunate that I live in a state with a very active
25 perspective and active Native American community,
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1 including a Native American representative to
2 Congress. Go, Deb. And I would like to – that’s not
3 partisan, I just like her as a person. And I’d like
4 to encourage you to reach out as individuals.
5 So that’s where we are. Does anybody want to
6 suggest any other recommendations that should be
7 included?
8 PATRICK LYONS: I just have a quick point of
9 information I need to check with the DFO on. So
10 Madam DFO, I understand that one of our members has
11 a flight to catch.
12 HEATHER EDGAR: Yes.
13 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes, that’s correct.
14 PATRICK LYONS: So are we up against a hard stop
15 then for that?
16 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I would suggest we’re
17 approaching a hard stop, yes.
18 PATRICK LYONS: Yes.
19 HEATHER EDGAR: Well, we can be done with this
20 subcommittee discussion. I don’t know if there’re
21 any other - but I think, if it’s okay with you, I
22 can say we’ve made good progress here.
23 MELANIE O’BRIEN: I would just like to remind
24 the Committee that October 30th will be your last
25 opportunity to finalize this report and its
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1 recommendations. No pressure.
2 CLOSING COMMENTS
3 MELANIE O'BRIEN: Okay. I do have just a few
4 closing comments. But before I do that, are there
5 any closing comments from the Review Committee?
6 PATRICK LYONS: Just a thank you to everyone who
7 participated, a thank you to our hosts. We really
8 appreciate all the participation, all the comments.
9 Thank you very much. And a thank you to Lesa
10 Koscielski, who’s fantastic.
11 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Yes. I would like to just take
12 a moment and thank the people that were involved in
13 allowing us to be broadcast. Again, we had great
14 assistance from Alaska Universal Productions. The
15 staff here are Sean Roy, Charmin, Alex Bengel, Joel
16 Parrot, Jonathan Huff, and Matthew Hutter. What you
17 may not realize is that we also had some assistance
18 from the Department of the Interior in Washington,
19 DC, to host the webcast. So while the cameramen are
20 here in Alaska, in Washington, DC, we had Mike
21 Hershfeld and Tim Popham, without whom Lesa could
22 not have made this possible. So we’re really
23 indebted to those staff there at the Department of
24 the Interior, in Conference and Special Events
25 branch. It’s really wonderful that we can rely on
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1 those experts within the Department to help us get
2 this kind of technology off the ground.
3 Again, I’ve said thank you to the Museum of the
4 North a number of times, and I’d just like to
5 reiterate that again. They have been excellent
6 partners in hosting this meeting. They have done a
7 lot to help us make it as good as it could possibly
8 be, including extensive work to invite members of
9 the local Native community and their partners to
10 come and speak with you.
11 Lastly, I would like to thank you, Review
12 Committee members, for your continued dedication and
13 commitment to this work. You are an integral part of
14 the NAGPRA process. Without you, this work could not
15 be completed. So on behalf of all the NAGPRA
16 constituents, thank you for your service on this
17 Committee. Thank you for your time and your
18 attention and your effort. And thank you for your
19 willingness to travel to the top of the world to
20 continue to do this work in as many communities as
21 we can reach.
22 So unless there’s anything further, I think we
23 can adjourn the meeting.
24 PATRICK LYONS: Thank you.
25 MELANIE O’BRIEN: Thank you, everyone. Safe
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