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)
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” ― George Orwell, 1984
“That would put a big dent in archaeology.”
I think there’s some underlying fear that science will find that the current version of “natives” weren’t really the first ones here.
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” ― George Orwell, 1984
“Their goal is to criticize and damage American culture and identity so as to reduce the pride of Americans and their capacity to resist the Marxist assault.”
This.
Actual artifacts are relatively rare because of the organic materials used. They deteriorate and become dust in the wind over time.
Now, if those ‘copies’ were made by actual Native Americans that are still alive, is it any different that they weren’t made by someone whose been dead for a couple of centuries?
Making ‘artifacts’ for museum displays used to be a business that tribal nations ran................
What about the “cultural items of Caucasian Americans” like Fonzie’s leather jacket? Isn’t that sacred too?
This shirt is in a museum....................
They are NOT artifacts. The program was in 1939-1941...so any makers would be about 100 years old. doubt if any makers are living.
And a Festivus tree. Sure beats little leather bags full of old corn.
These “curators” can’t fool me. Most of that crap was left here by Ancient Aliens who came here long before the Illegal Aliens.
Yet more infection of the “woke” disease. Just what is it with only LIB nitwits being infected?
The artifacts in the museum will be stolen by the fascist federal bureaucrats and a good portion sold to private collectors.
According to museum staff, student field trips will be rerouted for the foreseeable future.
Lenin and Stalin exhibits ?.
WTF, this country is so dome. Federal regulations?
“The past was erased...”
Maybe not erased, just buried in the confusion to use othe means of accomplishment, normally bad. The truth is there, but it takes a little work to find it sometimes. This is why the world has hiding places that most never know about. Some are even right out in the open.
wy69
Yes they are. Indigenous means first people to occupy an area. They’re descended from the first people to occupy the new world.
I can agree with that, however I’d love to get a look at Kennewick Man.
Back in the early 1970s everything became pro-Indian, from TV shows to movies to advertisements. “You call it corn, WE call it Maze!” (Mazola spread.) White Man Bad! Indian Good!
They completely ignored the history of the past to make the Indian living in Paradise, got along well with his neighbor, only did the Happy Dance, did not scalp(White Man did it!) or torture!
Then came the find at Crow Creek that threw all that into a cocked hat! Soon more finds, and archaeologists who had to hide their work began to republish their findings. Suddenly a new knowledge of the Indian emerged, and it was not happy dancing.
How the tribes treated each other BEFORE The White Man arrived...
https://ournativeamericans.blogspot.com/2018/07/1300s-crow-creek-massacre-in-south.html
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/massacre-sacred-ridge
https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/basketmaker-ii-cave-7-massacre-or-cemetery/
https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/1991/12/01/scalping-victim/
https://prezi.com/z9ioohxrdgat/anasazi-cannibalism/?fallback=1
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39268873
https://www.historynet.com/when-the-sioux-ambushed-pawnee-hunters-at-massacre-canyon/
http://www.dickshovel.com/scalp.html
https://lostworlds.org/ancient-massacre-discovered-in-new-mexico-was-it-genocide/
https://www.archaeology.org/news/2269-140630-colorado-torture-evidence
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1593823
https://archive.archaeology.org/9709/newsbriefs/anasazi.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-skulls-not-crime-scene-human-sacrifice-ad-900/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-site-reveals-brutal-sacrifice-of-spanish-conquistadors/
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=SL002
http://blogoklahoma.us/place/117/kiowa/cutthroat-gap-massacre
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CU012
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=CL003
The objective is to make real history disappear.
Which isn’t as difficult as you may think.
Once all artifacts are gone, references in history books are deleted, and newer generations are not informed, you can delete the word ‘history’ from the dictionary.....
“To a liberal, history started at breakfast this morning.” - Ann Coulter
Very sad to see these close.How are we to learn anything about those who arrived here before we did.
There are those who wish to erase any trace of history at all
(we know who “they” are).
History is history,and cannot be changed by ignoring it or trying to erase it.
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