New York’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is closing two halls featuring Native American artifacts, a move in compliance with federal regulations recently updated under the Biden administration that now requires permission from tribes to display their objects.
Earlier this month, newly revised regulations surrounding the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Nagpra) went into effect, mandating that museums and other institutions obtain consent from tribes in order to showcase or research human remains or cultural items. The new guidelines also give institutions five years to prepare all human remains and related funerary objects for repatriation while giving more authority to tribes throughout the process.
In December, the secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, hailed the updates to Nagpra, which was initially enacted in 1990.
“Among the updates we are implementing are critical steps to strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process,” Haaland said. “Finalizing these changes is an important part of laying the groundwork for the healing of our people.”
In a Friday announcement to museum staff, the AMNH’s president, Sean Decatur, said that the museum will be closing its Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls starting this Saturday.
“Both halls display artifacts that, under the new Nagpra regulations, could require consent to exhibit. The number of cultural objects on display in these halls is significant, and because these exhibits are also severely outdated, we have decided that rather than just covering or removing specific items, we will close the halls,” Decatur said.
The Eastern Woodlands hall features cultural exhibits from the Iroquois, Mohegan, Ojibwa and Cree nations who lived in the eastern woodlands of North America through the early 20th century. The Great Plains hall focuses on exhibits from 19th-century Hidatsa, Dakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow and other nations of the North American plains.
In addition to the closure of the two halls, Decatur announced that the museum will be covering three cases outside the Eastern Woodlands hall and two cases in the Mead hall of Pacific peoples, which display Native Hawaiian items. Two cases in the Theodore Roosevelt memorial hall will also be covered, he added.
“The halls we are closing are vestiges of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples. Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others,” Decatur said.
Speaking about the significance of the AMNH’s decision, Sven Haakanson, the chair of the University of Washington’s anthropology department, said: “The message it sends to museums is they must review and update their exhibits to reflect the voices of these communities. Let the communities speak for themselves. We are still here and it is important to consult with the communities they are exhibiting.”
James Owen, the assistant director of the University of Georgia’s institute of Native American studies, echoed similar sentiments. Pointing to the closures, which the New York Times reports will leave nearly 10,000 sq ft of exhibition space inaccessible to visitors, Owen said: “While some may see the closure of tens of thousands of square feet of exhibit space as dramatic, this is nothing in comparison to the over two centuries of systematic collection of artifacts that include human remains, funerary objects, and the desecration of sacred sites and Native American burials.”
“Native American communities and leaders were never consulted, as they were portrayed as poor, dying savages incapable of grasping the lofty goals of archaeologists and museum curators,” he continued. “These new revisions give the law fresh teeth that empower Native Americans to assert their rights as human beings and US citizens to determine for themselves how their past is presented to or protected from the general public.”
With Nagpra’s updates setting up a new path for increased tribal inclusion in repatriation processes, the need for collaboration between tribes and institutions has never been more important.
Shannon O’Loughlin, the chief executive of the Association on American Indian Affairs, said: “The mainstream museums and other institutions, they see that they have some kind of unilateral right to have custody of our bodies, our cultural heritage and religious items. It has been looked at that museums and academic institutions are the appropriate place to secure those items for the legacy of public interest in education. But what Nagpra has shown is that museums and institutions do not know what they have in their collections. It is not until they actually consult with Native nations that they learn what these items are for.”
O’Loughlin went on: “During the repatriation process, relationships are built that actually are able to produce truth-telling in this education and opportunities for better and more interactive … academic information that comes out. The collaboration and consultation have actually helped the legacy – not the items, not the bodies. It is the relationships between tribes and these institutions.”
Last October, the AMNH announced that it was removing all of its 12,000 human remains, including skeletons robbed from the graves of Indigenous and enslaved people, from its display collections.
The museum’s latest decision follows in the footsteps of several other museums. Earlier this month, Chicago’s Field Museum announced that it had covered several display cases that featured cultural items from Native American communities in response to Nagpra’s newest regulations.
“Pending consultation with the represented communities, we have covered all cases that we believe contain cultural items that could be subject to these regulations,” the Field Museum said in a press release.
The Cleveland Museum of Art also covered its displays of Native American exhibits this month, saying: “Out of respect for the Native American tribes and Nagpra, the [museum] has covered the display cases that contain items that might fit the new Nagpra definitions until the appropriate determinations can be made and, if necessary, consents obtained.”
As museums across the country remove Native American exhibits, Candace Sall, the director of the University of Missouri’s museum of anthropology and American archaeology division, raised concerns over Nagpra’s five-year deadline for institutions to prepare all human remains and funerary objects for repatriation with tribal authority.
“Consultation is the best and only way to work through this process. We meet with tribal partners to get their thoughts and then work together to make things go as smoothly as possible. We do worry about overburdening tribes with requests as the regulations put a five-year deadline on this work and we collaborate with them to do it carefully and with respect,” said Sall.
Meanwhile, O’Loughlin, who praised Nagpra’s newest regulations as “extremely strong”, added that they still do not provide a remedy for private collectors and auction houses that are auctioning off the same types of items that are protected under the act.
“That’s how Nagpra needs to be expanded so that we can end this horrible illicit market in the sale of Native American religious items, burial objects and cultural patrimony,” she said.
