The Repatriation Movement Revisited

In our original discussions, you talked about repatriation as being a tiny part of the overall movement of Native American rights. Is it still? Has it become more or less important over the intervening years? Are there other aspects that appear to have more clout with the public?

There are two issues that have great currency within the politically active Indian communities but leave many people outside those communities scratching their heads: sports team mascots and repatriation.

Both issues seem trivial to people outside them, at least compared to crime issues, health issues, education issues, but both issues are at root about respect. All those other problems are typical of a marginalized community. So, (in the case of the mascot issue) not being subjected to public ridicule and (in the case of the repatriation issue) having your dead treated as human beings rather than specimens are very connected to the other problems in Indian country.

While my own religious views do involve respect for human dead, this is not about religion v. science, and you will find Indians who have no tradition of returning to their dead demanding repatriation. This is about recognition of our common humanity. There really are plenty of white people out there to dig up, and there is plenty to be learned by doing so. Scientists don't dig them up because they don't dare. As to Indians, they have no fear, not even the modest amount of fear they had during the 19th century about what Franz Boas called "most unpleasant work."

Native American archaeologists are still pretty few and far between. Nonetheless, archaeologists such as Joe Watkins have done quite a bit for raising the profile of indigenous people's direct roles in telling archaeological stories about the past--that is, that's the way it looks to me as an archaeologist. Does that get into the public perceptions? How do you see the role of NA archaeologists today?

The role of Indian archaeologists is, I hope, to tell stories with an Indian voice. I am betting the voice makes as much difference to archaeology as it does to cultural anthropology.

Anything to add?

When the original interview was published, several people wrote me to say that "The Thing," the alleged dead Indian being displayed at a Dairy Queen on Interstate 10 in Arizona, was in fact a fake.

I didn't touch it and I am not sure I am qualified to have an opinion even if I had, but whether it was a fake misses the point. Disrespect for Indian dead is an outward manifestation of disrespect for living Indians. That's not all it is, but anyone who does not understand that will never understand the repatriation movement.

Would there be billboards on an interstate inviting tourists to view the bones of "an Irish pioneer who drunk himself to death"? Would it be less offensive if the dead Irishman was a fake? Only to his mother.

That is not how we treat people. We don't turn their bones into roadside attractions. Indians are people. Not curios and not science projects. People.

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