Posted on 01/27/2024 9:39:51 PM PST by Red Badger
New York’s venerable American Museum of Natural History and leading institutions across the country are shutting down major exhibits of Native American artifacts in response to new federal regulations limiting the display of cultural items.
Under the guidelines announced recently by the Biden administration, museums must obtain permission from Native American tribes before displaying or performing research on cultural items, many of which were donated generations ago by archeologists who had stolen them after digging up sacred burial grounds.
The policy led the museum to close two exhibits — the Hall of the Great Plains, which includes jewelry, tools and weapons from the Cree, Cheyenne, Assiniboine, and Crow tribes, and the Eastern Woodlands exhibit, which features items from the Iroquois, Mohegans, Ojibwas and Crees.
The closures go into effect Saturday. The exhibits will be closed to visitors and staff.
“The halls we are closing are artifacts of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples,” Sean Decatur, the museum’s president, wrote in a letter to the museum’s staff on Friday morning.
“Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”
The closures, first reported in the New York Times, represent a seismic shift in how artifacts are displayed.
Along with denying access to the affected exhibits, museum officials are also covering other display cases throughout the museum that feature Native American cultural items.
The rules come out of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which was passed more than 30 years ago.
But efforts to return such items dragged on for decades. This month, new federal regulations took effect that were designed to speed up returns, giving institutions five years to prepare all human remains and related funerary objects for repatriation and giving more authority to tribes throughout the process.
“The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is an essential tool for the safe return of sacred objects to the communities from which they were stolen,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said last month when the new rules were finalized.
“Among the updates we are implementing are critical steps to strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process. Finalizing these changes is an important part of laying the groundwork for the healing of our people.”
The new guidelines took effect Jan. 12 and affect museums throughout the country including institutions in Chicago, Cleveland and Cambridge, Mass.
The displays in New York City will be off limits to the nearly five million people who visit the American Museum of Natural History every year.
According to museum staff, student field trips will be rerouted for the foreseeable future.
“The number of cultural objects on display in these halls is significant,” Decatur said. “And because these exhibits are also severely outdated, we have decided that rather than just covering or removing specific items,we will close the halls.”
Artifacts, dioramas, and representations of Native American culture from the northwest coast of North America are displayed, Tuesday, May 10, 2022, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
That would put a big dent in archaeology.
It’s not the American Indians, outside of a couple of crazy activists, calling for this nonsense (and yes, most Indians want to be called “Indians”, not “native Americans”). Just one example: In the middle of the Navajo reservation (Navajo nation) in Arizona, there is a Navajo high school. The name of their football team?…The Redskins! I drove past it not too long ago, and the sign said “Home of the Redskins.” The only ones all a twitter about this garbage are woke white leftists in places like New York and San Francisco.
“were donated generations ago by archeologists who had stolen them...”
I believe the statutes of limitations has expired and none of those artifacts were made by current tribes. Also, what do you do when the tribes the artifacts were from are no longer in existence? Does history no longer exist or is not allowed to be researched.
wy69
and the birds all want their feathers back too...
Most societies have a time limit on when ‘grave robbing’ becomes archeology. When a cemetery has been abandoned by all who have loved ones buried in it, and it’s overgrown and is indistinguishable from surrounding terrain, it generally becomes open for historical investigation. This is particularly true when there is no historical record of it being there at all. it seems to me that societies that have no written language, and no history other than oral, have no right to pretend that their history cannot be investigated forever.
They opening a BLM and transgender wing?
The goal is not a history as you & I understand history. The goal is to remove all evidence that contradicts the idea that activists want portrayed. With no artifacts and no written record, a complete golden age history can be created out of thin air. Spoiled only by the arrival of the West!
Erasing Indians.
Nobody is...................
Thanks Red Badger & Gene Eric. If there's really separation of church & state, NAGPRA and these Biden regulations are unconstitutional.
I would like to read that if you have it. Interesting take on Gould. I have read most of what he wrote and I get rhe opposite interpretation. Yes I know his dad was a huge Marxist and yes he is a jew , but he was against social darwinism...which I believe is very Marxist.
One of the reasons I became a scientist was reading natural history and Goulds articles.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.”
― George Orwell, 1984
I agree though. Natural History took a nose dive. I can’t remember when but distinctly angrily canceling that subscription. I believe it was 2001.
Hiding artifacts from the public is a great way to honor people.
So spaketh the lefty censors.
As they are meant to be..............The whole intent of these types of occurrences is to change the past. Erase the knowledge of the past. It will be a slow process. Eventually the words ‘Indian’, ‘Native’, and ‘American’ will disappear from history books, encyclopedias, and then the dictionaries......
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Hiding artifacts from the public is a great way to make them disappear and be forgotten....................
There must be no knowledge that a free and independent people capable of fending for themselves ever existed.............
It would not surprise me in the least...................
If they were consistent they would turn off the electricity in the Museum.
They did not consult the white inventors to get their permission to use it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
