NAGPRA: erasing the treatment of humans as objects

I just spoke with relatives back home and heard news of a trip to the National Museum of the American Indian to 'repatriate' remains of Yoeme ancestors back home to Sonora, Mexico. The news made me recall the first time I had the pleasure to visit NMAI's Cultural Resource Center located in Suitland, Maryland. Walking into that impressive edifice was like walking into a church: the sense of presence was strong. Rationalists might say, 'Well, a lot of busy people work at the CRC, organizing artifacts, conserving, researching, and preparing exhibits,' or, kindly, 'Well there is a lot of history there.'

But to me, knowing that on those shelves, in those drawers, lay the bones, masks, and other personal items of thousands of people whose graves or homes had been dug through by entrepreneuring archeologists was what caused the great sense of pressure, presence, silence, and quietude.

Quietude, because at the time, I didn't give myself permission to speak about or even really think about the enormity of that knowing.

But the body knows. The heart knows.

Prayers to my family working hard to hold strong and bring the ancestors back to a proper resting place.

And for those of us who continue our work in tribal libraries, museums, and archives: let's think real hard about what we need to do to change prevailing use of the secular term 'burial site' in place of cemetery.