The American Museum of Natural History’s shuttered Native American exhibits are still gathering dust four months after they closed, and tribal groups are “blocking” the return of the priceless items. “It has said.
In January, the Manhattan Museum’s new director, Sean Decatur, closed the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains exhibit hall, which displayed artifacts from its Native American collection.
At the time, museums were required to comply with new federal regulations that gave museums five years to comply with a 1990 law that ordered institutions to return human remains, sacred objects, and cultural property to indigenous peoples. He said he took action.
The exhibit, which spans more than 10,000 square feet and features spears, tools, headdresses and mannequins wearing traditional costumes, has been on permanent display for 57 years.
Decatur said they “fail to respect Indigenous values, perspectives and indeed our shared humanity.”
New rules from the U.S. Department of the Interior require museum directors to submit an inventory of artifacts and consult with indigenous groups to return them or obtain permission to display them.
This includes any human remains that may have been obtained through the looting of sacred burial grounds, which AMNH acknowledges is in storage. Other items were obtained from private collectors.
But Native American groups told the Post they have not heard anything from the museum about returning the exhibits, or even a list of what they are keeping. Cultural Resources Room The agency announced it has begun consultations with the 574 federally recognized tribes, as well as Native Hawaiian groups, state-recognized tribes and bands, and other Native American groups.
The museum told the Post that the items on display remain in their original locations, but the gallery doors are locked.
The museum houses 2,039 Native American remains and 3,884 sacred grave goods, according to the president of the American Indian Affairs Association, a Maryland-based nonprofit representing Native American groups across the country. It is said that there is.
“They are one of the largest and most feared holdouts in all of our institutions, and they remain woefully out of compliance,” said Shannon O’Loughlin, AAIA’s chief executive and attorney.
Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Chicago’s Field Museum have also been slow to respond, she said.
“We haven’t heard from them yet,” said Crystal Seebearing, deputy director of the Northern Wyoming Arapaho Nation Historic Preservation Office.
“We want to know an up-to-date inventory of what they have in their collections. We work with a lot of museums, and that museum is one of the worst. The response was very slow.
Max Baer, tribal historic preservation officer for the Cheyenne Arapaho Tribe of Oklahoma, told the Post he had been trying to get information from AMNH for at least a decade.
“Under the new… rules, we have to start a consultation process,” Baer said. “They may have a lot of human bones in their collection and they may not know where it came from. They may not know where most of their collection came from.”
A member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, who requested anonymity, said he “regularly contacted the museum and requested an inventory.”
“My feeling is that museums don’t know where to start when it comes to compiling their catalogs. Collections are in poor condition, undervalued, and poorly managed. When I was in New York, I took my children with me. and refused to go see it.
“Part of the problem is that their egos are so big that they won’t admit that they don’t know anything about the artifacts in their collection,” the Kiowa tribe member said.
O’Loughlin, president of the American Indian Affairs Association, said “we are starting to see a change” in Decatur, a former president and chemistry professor at Kenyon College in Ohio, who succeeded longtime AMNH president Ellen Futter. Stated. This institution since 1993.
In her final year at the helm of the museum, she pocketed nearly $12 million, including deferred compensation, according to federal tax returns.
The repatriation process began in 1990 with the passage of the American Indian Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This law established rules for museums across the country to return sacred objects and remains to tribal nations.
But the process dragged on for decades, and in December Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the job, announced new rules to speed up the process.
Interior Department documents say museums and other institutions have been “inadequate” in repatriating Native American items.
A spokesperson for AMNH told the Post: “We do not have any updates at this time.
“The object remains in a closed hall as next steps will be determined on a case-by-case basis.”
The last recorded return was in 2021, when the museum announced it returned more than 120 items, including ceremonial items, to the Tohono O’odham Nation in southwestern Arizona.
