“Who Knows the Power of His Bones”: Reburial Redux

Abstract

This paper discusses the repatriation of human remains to indigenous peoples in Australia and the United States and the role anthropologists play in the construction of past, present, and future identities for contemporary indigenous peoples. Using examples from both countries, I suggest that many of the participants at the reburials, and in the events leading up to them, were not only reburying their dead ancestors and addressing religious concerns, but were also redeeming past social injustices, renegotiating the status quo, and affirming their modern social and religious identity--all important issues for Fourth World peoples living in First World nation-states today. Reburials are powerful social dramas, testimony to the complex historical relationships between and among all concerned, living and dead, indigenous and non-indigenous. I also argue that as Fourth World peoples attempt to renegotiate the status quo by turning to the past and reburying their ancestors, the important role of anthropologists in this effort should be considered in terms of both practice and theory. Because of the combination of heritage/cultural resource management legislation, government regulations, a changing professional ethic in regards to issues of repatriation, anthropologists in all subdisciplines are increasingly involved in the witting and unwitting reproduction of indigenous social orders. The implications of this and its ethical dilemmas for anthropologists working in all the subdisciplines and in varied workplaces are explored. The necessity of working with indigenous communities is underscored and suggestions for working toward a common universal heritage are presented.