By Malcolm Gay Globe Staff, January 26, 2024, 8:48 p.m.
Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is removing Native American funerary objects from exhibitions across the museum.
The decision follows new federal regulations to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which governs the repatriation of Native American ancestral remains and associated funerary objects. The updated regulations, which went into effect earlier this month, prohibit museums from displaying such sacred items without first consulting with tribes and getting consent.
In a statement to the Globe, the Peabody said it has a history of consulting with tribes about its exhibits.
“Exhibitions have always been discussed during Tribal consultations and cultural items have been removed from display at Tribal request,” the museum said. “With the new NAGPRA regulations the Museum is in the process of removing all funerary belongings and likely funerary belongings off display in anticipation of consultation.”
The Peabody is one of several museums across the country that has begun removing or covering exhibitions since the new regulations took effect. The New York Times has reported that the Field Museum in Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art have both covered displays, while the American Museum of Natural History has closed two large halls in response to the directive.
The Peabody, which has been criticized in recent years for foot-dragging on repatriations, published a lengthy mea culpa in 2021 after the university acknowledged it harbored human remains of 15 Black people who would have been alive during the time of slavery.
In an open letter, director Jane Pickering said the museum is “intricately linked to 19th-century legacies of settler colonialism and imperialism both in the United States and around the globe.”
The “Peabody directly benefited from collecting practices that we recognize today ignore the wishes and values of families and communities, particularly people considered to be outside of western traditions,” wrote Pickering. The museum “apologizes without equivocation for not confronting our historic collecting practices and stewardship of all of these human remains and for our failure as an institution to face the ethical and moral issues that undergirded the practices that brought them to our Museum.”
The Peabody has since increased its efforts to repatriate Native American objects, and has recently transferred ownership of numerous such items, including a pipe-tomahawk to the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and a kayak to the Alutiiq Museum in Alaska.
Still much work remains: The Peabody is now in the process of returning hair samples collected from approximately 700 Native American children at US Indian Boarding Schools during the 1930s, and it still needs to consult further on the remains roughly 5,000 ancestors.
It’s unclear how many objects the museum plans to remove from its exhibits to adhere to the new regulations, but a notice on the Peabody’s website indicates that nine galleries are scheduled to be closed at different times through Feb. 16.
“The Museum has collaborated with Tribal Nations on new exhibitions for many years, including the ongoing exhibits The Legacy of Penobscot Canoes in collaboration with the Penobscot Nation and Wiyohpiayata: Lakota Images of the Contested West co-curated with Lakota artist Butch Thunder Hawk,” the Peabody said in its statement. “The Museum has not exhibited ancestral remains for more than twenty years.”
SOURCE
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01...removes-native-american-objects-from-display/
The decision follows new federal regulations to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which governs the repatriation of Native American ancestral remains and associated funerary objects. The updated regulations, which went into effect earlier this month, prohibit museums from displaying such sacred items without first consulting with tribes and getting consent.
In a statement to the Globe, the Peabody said it has a history of consulting with tribes about its exhibits.
“Exhibitions have always been discussed during Tribal consultations and cultural items have been removed from display at Tribal request,” the museum said. “With the new NAGPRA regulations the Museum is in the process of removing all funerary belongings and likely funerary belongings off display in anticipation of consultation.”
The Peabody is one of several museums across the country that has begun removing or covering exhibitions since the new regulations took effect. The New York Times has reported that the Field Museum in Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art have both covered displays, while the American Museum of Natural History has closed two large halls in response to the directive.
The Peabody, which has been criticized in recent years for foot-dragging on repatriations, published a lengthy mea culpa in 2021 after the university acknowledged it harbored human remains of 15 Black people who would have been alive during the time of slavery.
In an open letter, director Jane Pickering said the museum is “intricately linked to 19th-century legacies of settler colonialism and imperialism both in the United States and around the globe.”
The “Peabody directly benefited from collecting practices that we recognize today ignore the wishes and values of families and communities, particularly people considered to be outside of western traditions,” wrote Pickering. The museum “apologizes without equivocation for not confronting our historic collecting practices and stewardship of all of these human remains and for our failure as an institution to face the ethical and moral issues that undergirded the practices that brought them to our Museum.”
The Peabody has since increased its efforts to repatriate Native American objects, and has recently transferred ownership of numerous such items, including a pipe-tomahawk to the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and a kayak to the Alutiiq Museum in Alaska.
Still much work remains: The Peabody is now in the process of returning hair samples collected from approximately 700 Native American children at US Indian Boarding Schools during the 1930s, and it still needs to consult further on the remains roughly 5,000 ancestors.
It’s unclear how many objects the museum plans to remove from its exhibits to adhere to the new regulations, but a notice on the Peabody’s website indicates that nine galleries are scheduled to be closed at different times through Feb. 16.
“The Museum has collaborated with Tribal Nations on new exhibitions for many years, including the ongoing exhibits The Legacy of Penobscot Canoes in collaboration with the Penobscot Nation and Wiyohpiayata: Lakota Images of the Contested West co-curated with Lakota artist Butch Thunder Hawk,” the Peabody said in its statement. “The Museum has not exhibited ancestral remains for more than twenty years.”
SOURCE
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01...removes-native-american-objects-from-display/
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