Reading List: Repatriation

Battlefield and Burial Grounds examines the double standard of the treatment of grave sites, and the struggle of Native Americans to reclaim and rebury their dead often against the competing interests of archaeologists and anthropologists.

Omaha oral narratives tell the story of the Sacred Pole (Umon’hon’ti, the Venerable Man). The Omaha relinquished the sacred Pole to Harvard’s Peabody Museum in 1888 under pressure from the U.S. Government. The Sacred Pole was returned by the museum to the Omaha in 1989.

A bi-annual journal edited by Patty Gerstenblith, Esq., includes sections on General and Participants’ Perspectives, Case Histories and Case Notes, Documents on a Selection of Ethical Codes, Conference Reports, and Book Reviews. Professor of law, Patty Gerstenblith edited this special issue, calling it, “a significant milestone…of the Cultural Property Society.”

(Introduction by Daniel Shapiro.)

This book explores ethical, legal, and intellectual issues related to excavating, selling, collecting, and owning cultural artifacts. Twenty-two contributors, representing archaeology, law, museum administration, art history, and philosophy, suggest how the numerous interested groups, often at odds, can cooperate to resolve cultural heritage, ownership, and repatriation issues, and improve the protection of cultural property worldwide.

This book reports on a decade of museum experiences with NAGPRA, including such topics as museum policy and procedures and discussions of the meeting of two world views around museum implementation of NAGPRA. There is also a chapter on the control of cultural property as human rights legislation.

Provides factual accounts of the ongoing expropriation of land and traditional subsistence rights of Native Americans.

This anthology focuses on issues surrounding the repatriation of American Indian remains and artifacts, providing a wide range of viewpoints on ethical, legal, and cultural issues.

This book combines native oral histories, photographs, drawings, and case studies vital to the cultural preservation of America Indians,
Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Commentaries by curators, Native Peoples, and archaeologists, discuss the repatriation of human remains, the curation and exhibition of sacred masks and medicine bundles, and cultural compromises the in protection of sacred places on private, state and federal lands.

In 2007 the United Nations approved the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. United States endorsement in 2010 ushered in a new era of Indian law and policy. This book highlights steps that the United States, as well as other nations, must take to provide a more just society and heal past injustices committed against indigenous peoples.

Presents recent photographs of important historic sites, many of which have been transformed into recreational areas or urban spaces.

This ACLU handbook discusses the powers of Indian tribes; civil and criminal jurisdiction on Indian reservations; Indian hunting, fishing and water rights; taxation; the Indian Civil Rights Act; the Indian Child Welfare Act; and tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians.