In last week’s column about the Indian-artifacts trafficking ring in the Four Corners area, I ended with a mention of American Indian remains that will be buried this fall.
There’s more to that story. First, a quick reminder. A skull, or, more accurately, pieces of a skull were possessed by a Pueblo man. Pueblo the town. Not the Indians. He turned it over to law enforcement, saying he thought it was American Indian and that he thought it might be responsible for his run of bad luck. A physical anthropologist confirmed that the remains were, in fact, American Indian. And they are now in the custody of the Colorado Historical Society.
Which brings me to where we left off: reburial. The remains of 68 American Indians and items found with them will be reburied this fall. They were discovered on state or private land in Colorado. All are more than 100 years old, and none can be traced to a particular tribe.
They will buried in three separate ceremonies in three regions of the state. Where this will happen, I don’t know and don’t expect to find out. Such knowledge is limited to a few. This secrecy is an acknowledgment both of the sacredness of the ceremony and of the fact that, for some, nothing is sacred.
Make the sites public, and it’d be only a matter of time before some “treasure hunter” would show up with a shovel or, as is the practice, a backhoe.
The last reburial of what are called “culturally unidentifiable” American Indian remains in Colorado was in 2001, when 187 individuals were reinterred. “Individuals” is the terminology of the archaeologists of the state historical society and is a clue to the way in which the discussion over Indian remains has changed.
When the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act passed in 1990, “individuals” were called “collections.” Museums were not their custodians but their owners. It was not unheard of to store remains in cardboard boxes, to sort bones like coins, femurs with femurs, tibias with tibias. When the historical society completed its NAGPRA- required inventory in 1995, it reported 351 remains in its collection. When those remains were put back together, the number was far fewer, and today about 60 remain in a secure room that is off-limits to most employees.
NAGPRA required institutions receiving federal funding to make every effort to return human remains, funerary items and sacred objects to associated tribes. The law took us into an arena of competing value systems and worldviews. It meant speaking of how we value and preserve history. It meant weighing scientific record and oral history. It was a “sea change in the world of museums,” says Bridget Ambler, curator of material culture for the CHS.
But what became increasingly difficult was not so much what NAGPRA said but what it did not. What is to be done when the bones on the shelf cannot be tied to any modern-day tribe? What is to be done when no one claims them?
You could say the upcoming burial of the 68 American Indians has been more than four years in the making. Fours years of talks with 47 tribes that had historical ties to Colorado. Four years and 130 tribal consultations. Four years of long, often emotional meetings in which tribal leaders had to consider what science demands and scientists had to consider differing tribal perspectives.
What was key, says Ernest House, executive secretary of the state Commission of Indian Affairs, was getting all the tribes to agree: “We don’t know whose ancestors these are, but we do know we share the belief that they belong back in the ground. Reburial is much better than having those remains sitting on shelves somewhere.”
What emerged is a balancing of state and federal laws and tribal values that mean culturally unidentifiable remains found on private and state land will no longer languish on storage shelves. Tribal representatives will be brought in immediately for consultation and the remains reburied either where they were found or nearby. If that’s not an option, the state has 100 days to determine whether they can be connected to a modern-day tribe. Otherwise, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute will take the lead in reburial.
This fall’s reburial is the first to take place under the new protocol, and Ute Mountain Ute spiritual leader Terry Knight, who has been trying to get American Indian remains out of museum storage rooms for more than 30 years, says he expects to be present to offer a prayer.
What will you say? I ask him.
“I will ask the spirits for forgiveness,” he tells me. “I will ask God to make things right.” Where the souls have been, where they are going, Knight says, “that’s God’s business.”
Tina Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-1416 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
