Updated U.S. law still leaves Indigenous communities in Canada out of repatriations from museums

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A new amendment to the United States’ Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) came into effect in January 2024. The amended law now has some teeth to penalize museums who have thus far been very slow to engage with Indigenous communities. It puts pressure on them to create and share inventories of the remains and artifacts they hold.

NAGPRA regulates the repatriation of Native American human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony from federally funded agencies to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations.

Museums must now get prior and informed consent from Indigenous communities before displaying and studying cultural objects. They must also incorporate Native American traditional knowledge in the storage, treatment and handling of remains and cultural items. The act now gives museums and other federal agencies five years to “consult and update inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects.”

NAGPRA is an important step in a long history of Indigenous Peoples’ struggle to govern their heritage. However, its authority stops at the U.S. border.

We are First Nations historians and professors working in Canada. Our communities are also impacted by the loss of cultural patrimony to museums in the U.S. and the laws covering repatriation. Mary Jane Logan McCallum is a member of the Munsee Delaware Nation and Susan M. Hill is a Haudenosaunee citizen and resident of the Grand River Territory.

The U.S. law provides Indigenous communities in lands claimed by Canada no legal or financial support to repatriate human remains, funerary and sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony held in U.S museums. These institutions hold many items purchased or obtained by anthropologists and others from communities north of the border.

For Indigenous communities outside of the U.S., the act does not compel museums and institutions to work in good faith to facilitate repatriations, regardless of how much evidence Indigenous communities are able to provide supporting the origins and sacredness of those items.

Indigenous communities in Canada are impacted by the law because these items are important to community-based research of material culture and its connection to intellectual, social and political histories of our nations.

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https://theconversation.com/updated-u-s ... ums-223617