Native American Graves Protection And Repatriation Act Research Articles

What do repatriation and reclamation sound like? Two examples from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office

AbstractWhen the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed in 1990, it marked an important shift in relations between tribal communities and non‐tribal museums in the United States. By listening to how different speakers at the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office talk about repatriation and reclamation, we can see that these processes involve more than the return of ancestors and belongings; they also influence how people speak about and express group identity. In discussions about repatriation, Hopi community members frequently talk to outsiders and adjust to their ways of speaking, if only temporarily. I compare two instances in which speakers creatively used possessive constructions to convey different scales of identity and argue that Bakhtin's concept of “addressivity” illuminates connections between the two. More broadly, I suggest that this concept is useful for thinking about how relationships between tribal and non‐tribal institutions might continue to be transformed in ways that are responsive to contemporary Indigenous claims and presence.

No Stone Unturned

A prefatory note from the editorial collective. When the Society for Cultural Anthropology selected our distributed, international editorial collective to lead Cultural Anthropology, they did so in part to support our commitment to opening channels of this crucial platform of our discipline beyond the scope of privileged, endowed higher educational institutions in the United States. As one step of this process, in this issue we provide space to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to describe their work since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. As Deanna L. Byrd, the NAGPRA Liaison-Coordinator and Research and Outreach Program Manager of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and Ian Thompson, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, writes, since that time, “Native American communities gained a measure of say in how ancestral burials are treated on federal lands. The law also established a mechanism to help Native American, Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian communities have open dialogue with institutions across the country about the return of their ancestors, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.” Please read the rest of their guest commentary to learn more.

Respecting the Ancestors

Universities and museums across the United States have possession of the remains of several hundred thousand Native Americans, collected by grave robbers in past generations and kept by anthropologists today. None gave permission for their remains to be used by “science.” The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), passed by Congress in 1990, requires these institutions to survey the remains, catalogue them, report them to the federal government, find their likely descendants, and return the ancestors promptly. Thirty-three years later, that law has been honored mainly in the breach. Only in the past two or three years have some institutions begun to get serious about this responsibility. Using the University of California, Santa Barbara, as a case study, this essay charts the long path by which well-intended anthropologists managed to see themselves as champions of Native rights, yet never take steps to return the ancestors’ remains. While the goals of scientific study may be presented as beneficial to all humankind, this case study shows how the claimed interests of scientists persistently trump the human rights of the people whose bones they keep for study. The essay also reports on the long-standing efforts of Chumash Indians to recover their ancestors, and on recent moves by the university to fulfill their legal and moral obligations.

Decolonizing Museums: Toward a Paradigm Shift

This review examines the discourses and practices that have produced a lively literature on museum decolonization created by scholars of museum practices and curators. We consider the trajectory of decolonization efforts in museums, focusing especially on the care of Native North American heritage, with comparison to similar trajectories internationally. We begin with a discussion of decolonizing moments in theory and practice, with particular attention to 1990s critique of ethnographic museums and developments after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Following this discussion is a review of works on concerns regarding Native American representation and public displays, involvement in collections care, and the varied collaborations that are changing museum practices. The final section foregrounds the fluorescence of tribal museums and their contributions to the decolonization and indigenization of museums, as well as emerging paradigm shifts in both the anthropology of museums and anthropology in museums.

Biological samples taken from Native American Ancestors are human remains under NAGPRA.

In the United States, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) provides a specific framework for the disposition of Native American Ancestral remains within its purview. However, samples such as a bone fragment, tooth, or other biological tissue taken from the remains of these Ancestors have been treated by institutions and researchers as independent of the individual from whom they were removed and used in destructive research such as paleogenomic and other archaeometric analyses without consultation, consent, and collaboration from Native American communities; are not cared for in keeping with the current best practices for Indigenous Ancestors; and are not likely to be repatriated to their communities. Here, we demonstrate that any biological samples removed from Ancestors who are covered under NAGPRA must also be handled according to the stipulations defined for "human remains" within the legislation. As such, we are not proposing a change to existing legislation, but rather best practices, specific to the context of the United States and NAGPRA, relating to the use of and care for biological samples taken from Native American Ancestors.

The NAGPRA Nexus, Institutional Integrity, and the Evolving Role of Archaeological Laboratories

AbstractIn November 1995, the Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Georgia submitted inventories and summaries of Indigenous ancestors and funerary objects in its holdings to comply with the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). However, after this submission, the Laboratory attempts at consultation with federally recognized descendant Tribal communities who have cultural ties in the state of Georgia were not successful, and NAGPRA-related activities essentially stalled at the Laboratory. Beginning in 2019, the Laboratory's staff recognized a lack of formal NAGPRA policies or standards, which led to a complete reevaluation of the Laboratory's approach to NAGPRA. In essence, it was the Laboratory's renewed engagement with NAGPRA and descendan tribal communities that became the catalyst for change in the Laboratory's philosophy as a curation repository. This shift in thinking set the Laboratory on a path toward building a descendant community–informed institutional integrity (DCIII) level of engagement with consultation and collaborative efforts in all aspects of collections management and archaeological research. In this article, we outline steps that the Laboratory has taken toward implementing meaningful policies and practices created with descendant Tribal communities that both fulfill and extend bounds of NAGPRA compliance.

(Re)Moving Indigenous Knowledge Boundaries: A Review of Library and Archival Collection Literature since the Enactment of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)

The enactment of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990 marked a turning point for the stewardship and preservation of Indigenous cultural heritage materials. In the past 30 years, themes in library and archival collection literature have also shifted to emphasize decolonization, equity, diversity, and inclusion. This article provides an overview of scholarship on Indigenous and Indigenous-related research materials with evidence of advocacy and integration of decolonization methodologies in acquisitions, bibliographic sources and tools, digitization, access, and associated curriculum. Discussion of issues yet to be remediated and areas for further research are also presented.

Restitution: Paths Toward a Clearing

In her First Word, “African Restitution in a North American Context: A Debate, A Summary, and a Challenge” (African Arts 53 [4]: 10–15), Amanda M. Maples presents a well-researched and compelling argument for museums in North America to join together and develop a process of restitution regarding Africa's archaeological and colonial-era heritage. I would emphasize that this initiative must embrace a process of true partnership and inclusion that involves, from the start, the participation and insights of African colleagues working on and off the continent.In 2019, I attended Columbia University's Restitution Debate symposium; I co-organized, with National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) colleagues Kris Juncker and then-director Gus Casely-Hayford, an October 22 double panel listening session to solicit ideas and strategies from invited colleagues from Africa as part of a two-day Yale-Smithsonian symposium devoted to global cultural heritage preservation; and I presented a paper on December 3 at a conference on restitution organized by the University of Ghent. Rather than characterizing the restitution debate as heated and divisive, as Amanda asserts, my own observations suggest that the debate is impassioned—as it should be given the importance of Africa's arts to the world and to the histories and heritages of Africans living on and off the continent—and that colleagues working in museums in North America and Europe are genuinely seeking approaches and processes to guide the restitution of colonial-era collections. Indeed, our colleague Costa Petridis, who attended the Ghent conference, and I were slated to co-chair a Museum Day roundtable session on restitution at our June 2020 ACASA Triennial Symposium, which has now been postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains our hope that this roundtable will initiate a coordinated effort to articulate approaches and guidelines for US museums in the moral imperative that must drive the process of restitution of Africa's heritage.Based on these meetings, and my own readings on the subject, I find myself circling back to a persistent question: Isn't the issue of restitution more about equity, inclusion, decision-making power, and true partnership—areas of intellectual and professional engagement that have historically excluded the equitable participation of Africa's museums, scholars, public intellectuals, and community spokespersons? These areas, in my opinion, encompass the process of restitution, which is distinct from a relevant outcome of that process, namely the action of repatriation—the return of African objects to their places of origin.As the 2018 Sarr-Savoy report points out, objects of African cultural heritage are also forms of access to knowledge and memory that are disrupted for future generations when objects are removed from their places of origin. Memories, histories, meaning-making, traditions, as well as the making of new traditions and memories are disrupted by the absence of tangible and intangible cultural heritage.Recognizing that there is not yet a rulebook on how to mount and implement claims of restitution and that it is not a “one size fits all” proposition, what are some of the approaches and strategies we might consider to move this initiative forward? The first is for us to embrace an open, honest, and transparent dialogue with our African peers about the realities and enduring impact of colonialism and the role of restitution in addressing this history. And then, we must listen much more than we speak, ensuring that stakeholders who have long been denied a voice in these matters are truly heard.Repatriation of objects must remain on the table as a possible outcome of the process of restitution, without descending into a discussion about what a museum in Africa might lack in terms of trained personnel, adequate facilities, and sustainable funding. While important, these issues cannot be deal-breakers in processing claims of restitution. Such inclusive conversations would enable Africa's museums to speak for themselves, to express their urgent needs as well as their hopes and aspirations at being equal partners in the global circulation of knowledge, expertise, collections, exhibitions, and audience engagement, including access to collections by source communities. Further, these conversations would open up productive discussions regarding the sustainable development of Africa's cultural sector so that claims for restitution could be effectively made and implemented.One possible strategy that would benefit museums in Africa, Europe, and North America would be the creation of a consortium of institutions on and off the continent that would partner in the sharing of expertise and in strengthening Africa's cultural sector. Such a consortium could leverage its collective weight to encourage governments to dedicate more of their annual budgets to strengthening museums and the wider cultural sector. We could band together to convince corporations and foundations of the social and economic advantages—in terms of education, tourism, and job creation—in supporting the sustainable development of Africa's museums and other centers where changing forms of expressive culture are displayed, preserved, and cherished. Once funding is secured, and with sustainability as a critical objective, collaborations and partnerships defined by the priorities of our colleagues on the African continent could address a range of initiatives, including the training of successive generations of curators, conservators, and a host of other professions in the museum field. Working together on needs assessments, feasibility studies, and training programs deployed to areas of greatest urgency leverages scarce institutional funds and avoids duplication of effort and the appearance of institutional competition.Consortium-led working groups could address particular restitution issues—from legal definitions to ethical imperatives to sustainable funding and capacity building—or focus on collection-specific concerns, such as the relevance of museums to the communities they serve, or mass digitization and public access to collections. An example of the latter is the Digital Benin project (https://digital-benin.org/) undertaken by African partners in collaboration with the Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) in Hamburg, under the direction of Barbara Plankensteiner (Museum am Rothenbaum 2020). The project proposes a global, digitized information system of object records and provenance regarding collections of Benin kingdom artworks, most of which were looted from the Benin royal palace in the 1897 raid mounted by British soldiers. Among the complaints voiced by African colleagues is the lack of object-specific information about colonial-era collections and where they reside. Such a digitization project would be the first step in broad-based information- and knowledge-sharing about a particular collections area.The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) may also provide guidelines useful to the restitution of colonial-era collections of African art. When NAGPRA was enacted, there were fears that implementing the legislation would lead to the depletion of museum collections, but that has not occurred. That might have something to do with the time-consuming process of mounting a repatriation claim, but it may have more to do with the process itself empowering Native Americans in the decision-making procedures regarding collections access, care, interpretation, and knowledge-sharing. As Amanda points out, there have been important strides in linking Native American communities with historical objects housed in museum collections. At the request of source communities, these have included the making of replicas to conserve fragile objects held by museums and by the communities themselves. There is also the possibility of communities borrowing objects from the museum for ceremonial use, something that requires the adoption of a more flexible museum mindset about object conservation that considers, for example, a resulting change in an object's condition as evidence of use, not damage. This opens up the possibility to work with partners on the continent to share digital and object collections and to create and circulate joint exhibitions. For example, NMAfA's 2014–2016 exhibition on the photography of Chief S.O. Alonge, the photographer of the court of Benin for sixty years, was developed by NMAfA archivist Amy Staples with travel and collaboration with our Nigerian museum colleagues in mind. After its two-year showing at our museum, the exhibition then opened in fall 2017 as a permanent exhibition at the National Museum in Benin City.It is possible that the decision-making processes developed with regards to restitution of colonial-era collections of African art and antiquities might result in favorable outcomes that enable museums in the West to retain selected objects in their care through joint-custody agreements, long-term loans, or other mechanisms that recognize the legitimate claims to ownership of contested collections but reflect, equally, the positive benefits of placing culturally significant works of art in museums around the world. In a BBC program aired in Ghent on December 2, 2019, the Oba of Benin noted that a limited number of Benin kingdom artworks displayed in museums outside of Africa can serve as effective “cultural ambassadors” demonstrating the kingdom's long and rich history and cultural achievements.In my opinion, it's a great time to be in the museum business and to be working at a museum focused solely on the arts of Africa across time and media. Without having the answers, but knowing that the questions must be asked and the issues must be raised, conversations on restitution offer all museums with colonial-era collections the opportunity to negotiate new ways of working better together with the source communities whose collections form part of our museum holdings. There is real potential to create a sustainable model of integrated museum practice that transforms Africa's cultural sector from within and builds its capacity to deliver its own solutions via sustainable and globally engaged museum practice.

Creating a new future: Redeveloping the tribal-museum relationship in the time of NAGPRA

AbstractThe hope has long been that the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) would finally bring ancestors and their cultural items home to their communities to be reconnected and rest. However, 30 years later, museums and academics still fear losing control of research and access in their intellectual pursuits. Far from true, museums have benefited in working with tribes in telling stories around their cultural history, present and future. This article shares experiences over the authors’ careers and counters the alarmist calls to arms against compliance with NAGPRA.

Duas leis, um museu

A legislação patrimonial norte-americana possui diversas especificidades. Uma lei de grande importância e relevância no cenário nacional tratou, em 1989, da instalação de um museu voltado para a divulgação e pesquisa da história de comunidades nativo-americanas, o National Museum of the American Indian, que faz parte da Smithsonian Institution. A lei de criação do museu também estabelece os critérios para a repatriação de remanescentes humanos e objetos funerários presentes nas coleções adquiridas para a formação do museu. Com base no NMAIA (National Museum of the American Indian Act), uma segunda lei foi aprovada no ano seguinte, o NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). De abrangência nacional, o NAGPRA tornou-se uma das legislações patrimoniais mais importantes e conhecidas do mundo.

NAGPRA at 30: The Effects of Repatriation

On November 16, 1990, US President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This federal legislation marked the culmination of decades of debate among scientists, curators, and Native American leaders and activists over the control of ancestral human remains and sacred, funerary, and communally owned objects. Anthropologists have now investigated myriad aspects of NAGPRA, from its underlying philosophical arguments; to its legislative history, its legal ramifications and political effects, and the methods of its implementation; to how it has remade American museums, archaeologists, tribes, and federally funded repositories; and to how it has ushered in a new (even if imperfect) period of collaboration and partnership. This article reviews the last 50 years of scholarship on repatriation, with a particular focus on NAGPRA's last 30 years.

Continued Disembodiment: NAGPRA, CAL NAGPRA, and Recognition

Tribes in California have a long and complicated history fighting for the repatriation of their ancestors and cultural items from institutions, more specifically universities and Anthropology departments. With the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) (1990), Cal NAGPRA (2001), and the United Nation Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (2007), many Tribes continue to ask the question, why are basic human rights not afforded to them? These policies, created out of Indigenous human rights initiatives, are a façade that hinders full repatriation efforts. The university is an appendage of the settler state and reproduces epistemological violence by continuing to mark California Indians as white possessions (Morton-Robinson 2015). Tribes continue to advocate for their ancestors’ return home from these universities, repositories, museums, despite the inadequacies of repatriation laws. Repatriation laws, while sometimes useful in returning Native ancestors to back tribes, are limited in scope and fail to satisfy basic human rights for Indigenous people.

Can Repatriation Heal the Wounds of History?

In 1990, the US Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which in part established a legal procedure for Native Americans to reclaim cultural items and ancestral remains from museums and federal agencies. Many advocates have framed NAGPRA as a kind of restorative justice in which “healing” is fundamentally integrated into the repatriation process. This article engages with a growing literature that ensures questions of healing are not just casually asserted but closely examined, by critically analyzing why and how NAGPRA has led to the kinds of conflict resolution and peace-building envisioned by some of its proponents. A survey of tribal repatriation workers reveals that “healing” for Native American communities is not uniform in practice or merely the end point of conflict. Rather, it is expressed in five different themes, illustrating that healing is one component of a complex socio-political process that circles around the law’s implementation.

Imagining Possibility within Policy: LeAnne Howe's Shell Shaker and Louis Owens's Bone Game

In this essay, Gina Caison argues that literature by southeastern Native writers can offer new ways to imagine repatriation and return that help scholars think about the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) from a more holistic viewpoint, one that privileges the category of the agentic human dead over the category of the disinterred and often disembodied remains. Within this framework, this article examines two Choctaw novels set shortly after the 1990 passage of the NAGPRA: LeAnne Howe's Shell Shaker (2001) and Louis Owens's Bone Game (1994). Caison considers these two texts within the early nineties political moment in order to understand how they contribute to dialogue regarding the return of human remains following the passage of one of the most important pieces of legislation to affect Native communities' relationship to their pasts. Howe's and Owens's novels offer embodiment to Native human remains, and in doing so, they contribute to an understanding of NAGPRA as a legislation of homecoming with all the attenuating pain such a process can entail. Ultimately, she argues that these literary narratives allow us to retheorize and develop an Indigenous reading of the law that sees past the matter of the dead object into the life of agentic continuance.

Challenging the “Love of Possessions”: Repatriation of Sacred Objects in the United States and Canada

In 1990, the United States passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), requiring the repatriation of ancestral remains, funerary, and sacred objects from museums to source communities. Since then, hundreds of thousands of repatriations have occurred, allowing for respectful treatment of ancestors and reconnections to spiritual, communal practice, and ceremony. In Canada, repatriation has been recommended by the Assembly of First Nations, the Canadian Museum Association, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but there is no federal law. Does Canada have a functioning alternative? This examination provides a comparison of how repatriation differs in the two countries, demonstrating that case-by-case negotiations in Canada currently allow for more flexibility and customization to the needs of different Indigenous communities but that the transparency, coordination, and funding associated with NAGPRA would be a significant benefit to claimants in Canada.

Identifying Turtle Shell Rattles in the Archaeological Record of the Southeastern United States

The construction of rattles from turtle (Testudines) shells is an important consideration when distinguishing between food and non-food uses of archaeological turtle remains. However, the identification of turtle shell rattles in prehistoric contexts can be quite challenging. Equifinality is a major problem for being able to distinguish rattles from food refuse, particularly when a carapace is not burnt or modified. In addition, diversity, abundance, and distribution of Chelonian taxa varies throughout the southeastern United States, creating differential access for indigenous groups. Thus, multiple lines of evidence are needed from archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric records to successfully argue for the production and use of turtle shell rattles in the prehistoric southeastern United States. In this article, we present examples of turtle shell rattles in the southeastern United States to highlight their function and use by indigenous groups, the construction process, and several common characteristics, or an object trait list, that can aid in the identification of fragmentary turtle shell rattle remains. Proper identification of turtle remains is important for interpreting faunal remains and may be of interest to indigenous groups claiming cultural items under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

“‘I just don’t ever use that word’: investigating stakeholders’ understanding of heritage”

Understanding the value of heritage sites for diverse stakeholders requires both paying attention to the fields of power in which the sites operate and applying methodologies that are open to user-defined paradigms of value. In the U.S., official discourse often frames the value of heritage sites associated the deep Native American past as archaeological sites, an interpretation that is consistent with settler colonial ideologies. This narrative generally obfuscates connections between the heritage of the sites and contemporary peoples, and it effaces the history of colonialism and dispossession. A study of stakeholder-defined heritage at two contested sites in the central Midwest revealed both congruencies and conflicts among diverse constituencies’ articulations of the sites’ value. At Mounds State Park a proposed dam and reservoir ‘Mounds Lake’ project would inundate a large portion of the site. At Strawtown Koteewi, Native American tribes have made repatriation claims under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).The study also problematised the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it is understood and used by the different constituencies, particularly for culturally and historically affiliated Native Americans. It also highlighted the positions of the constituencies within the broader fields of power implicated in these contested sites.

Asymmetry of Caddo ceramics from the Washington Square Mound site: An exploratory analysis

While pursuing a study of 3D geometric morphometrics for ceramic burial vessels that often articulate with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) from the ancestral Caddo region, there have been no shortage of potentially meaningful observations, one of which–rotational asymmetry in coil-built vessels–is discussed here. Using Geomagic Design X (reverse-engineering software) and Geomagic Control X (inspection software), metrics associated with rotational asymmetry were generated then analyzed. Results indicate variable asymmetry among the different vessel shapes (i.e., bottles, jars, etc.), which may augment and strengthen studies and discussion of vessel form. Future directions include the incorporation of directional and–possibly–fluctuating asymmetry measures for the widest vessel profiles. Preliminary results point toward substantive analytical gains that can be used to augment more traditional ceramic analyses as well as geometric morphometric studies of ceramic vessel shape.

Documentation of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels from the Knight’s Bluff (41CS14) and Sherwin (41CS26) Sites, Cass County, Texas

A number of years ago, Perttula documented a variety of funerary objects through a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) grant awarded to the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. These were from ancestral Caddo sites on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District lands in East Texas, including funerary objects from the Knight’s Bluff and Sherwin sites at Lake Wright Patman in the Sulphur River basin. These NAGPRA materials are held at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (TARL). At that time, only a few ceramic vessel funerary objects were made available for NAGPRA documentation purposes, including only three ceramic vessels from Burial 4 at the Knight’s Bluff site, and six vessels from Burials 4 and 6 at the Sherwin site. The remainder of the ceramic vessel funerary objects from these two sites (n=16 vessels from Knight’s Bluff and n=13 vessels from the Sherwin site), plus one vessel from general Lake Wright Patman contexts, either from Knight’s Bluff or the Sherwin site, have recently been documented, and they are discussed in the remainder of this article.

“Our Hope and Our Protection”: <em>Misko-biiwaabik</em> (Copper) and Tribal Sovereignty in Michigan

"Our Hope and Our Protection"Misko-biiwaabik (Copper) and Tribal Sovereignty in Michigan Erik M. Redix (bio) In 2000 the Smithsonian denied the request of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to repatriate a three-thousand-pound copper boulder that was removed from the shores of Upper Michigan's Ontonagon River in 1843. The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) consists of two historic bands of the Lake Superior Ojibwe: the L'Anse and Ontonagon bands. KBIC argued that the boulder was a sacred object utilized for purification by practitioners of Ojibwe Midewiwin prior to beginning ceremonies. The Smithsonian ruled that KBIC failed to provide evidence that the boulder was a sacred object as defined by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) as it was not utilized directly in ceremonies.1 NAGPRA was passed primarily to return human remains to Native communities. It is important to remember that the legislation only applies to publicly funded institutions. Despite this, the legislation has been relatively effective in the repatriation of human remains. However, the burden of proof for repatriation lies with tribes, not the institution housing the object. This has resulted in contestations over what constitutes "sacred" objects under NAGPRA, which defines them as "specific ceremonial objects which are needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present-dayadherents."2 If the federal government was truly committed to decolonization and tribal sovereignty, the burden would fall on the federal government to prove why it should keep objects when a tribe petitioned for repatriation; the tribe would then review the federal request. The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and other tribes are sovereign nations and should be vested [End Page 224] with the right to determine what should be returned to them. Linguistic evidence demonstrates that the Ojibwe viewed the Ontonagon boulder as a living being, which bolsters both the moral and specific legislative reasons why it should be returned. However, the Ontonagon boulder is not just an object in a discussion of tribal sovereignty. Many sources suggest that Ojibwe leaders saw the boulder as a source of their sovereignty. In the nineteenth century, leaders of the Ontonagon band consistently articulated to American officials that they saw copper as an important aspect of their sovereignty, calling it "our hope and our protection." From its removal from Michigan in 1843 to the denial of the Smithsonian to repatriate it in 2000, the Ontonagon boulder tells an important story of how the Ojibwe experienced colonialism. Removal was central to American colonialism. It was not just people who were removed, but objects and resources were also separated from tribal homelands. During the time of the removal of the boulder, Ontonagon band leaders knew that what threatened Ojibwe sovereignty most was American desire for copper, not land. Most Ojibwe people were not directly evicted from their lands by white settlement during the era of treaty making. Instead, American desire to exploit Ojibwe resources such as copper posed the greatest threat to Ojibwe sovereignty during this time. While there was not widespread white settlement in Ojibwe territory in the decades following land cession treaties, the resources exploited in the region were critical for American expansion across the continent. Historian David R. Wrone argues: They provided several of the essential ingredients for the industrial transformation of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century America. The ores of the Mesabi enabled the steel mills of Pittsburgh to flourish, the copper of the Keewnanh [sic] poured into wires made the telephone system possible. Power sites created paper mills, part of the industrial glory of Wisconsin. The lakes and fish offered a recreational paradise.3 Exploration of Upper Michigan's copper preceded and fueled American attempts to extend control over the lands of the Lake Superior Ojibwe. In the decades immediately following the Civil War, three-fourths of all copper produced in the United States came from Upper Michigan during an era when the United States produced half the world's copper. It all started with the removal of the Ontonagon boulder. [End Page 225] the ontonagon band and copper The Ontonagon band was one of the...