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Meteorite Dispute Greets Opening of Planetarium

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/021900sci-planetarium-opening.html

02/19/2000
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Over the last few years, as the American Museum of Natural
History put up its sleek new planetarium on the Upper West
Side, its enormous sphere and glass walls were erected
around one of the museum's oldest treasures, a great 15-ton
meteorite that fell to Earth 10,000 years ago.

For almost a century, the Willamette Meteorite -- a behemoth
believed to have come from the asteroid belt between Mars
and Jupiter and brought to the museum from the Pacific
Northwest in 1906 -- has been seen and touched by
generations of awed schoolchildren and other aficionados of
the cosmic mysteries.

But as the $210 million Rose Center for Earth and Space
opens at 81st Street near Central Park West today to crowds
that are expected to swell to 4.5 million visitors a year,
the destiny of the dark, deeply gouged meteorite, seemingly
secure on its steel pedestal in the planetarium's Cullman
Hall of the Universe, has been cast into doubt.

Acting under a federal law written for the preservation and
repatriation of Native American cultural and religious
artifacts, an Indian group in Oregon has submitted a claim
for the meteorite, saying it is a holy tribal object that
brought messages from the spirit world long before the
arrival of white men.

"This is a sacred object to the people of the Willamette
Valley," Tracy Dugan, speaking for the Confederated Tribes
of the Grand Ronde of Oregon, said yesterday. "It was used
by our ancestors. We want to bring it back here to our
reservation and make it available for people to use in the
traditional way."

The museum has until Feb. 29 to respond to the claim, which
was filed Nov. 30 under the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. The case could wind
up in court and take years to resolve, but if no settlement
is reached and the claim is upheld, it would be necessary to
partly dismantle the new planetarium to get it out.

On the eve of the planetarium's widely publicized opening,
museum officials were focused not on the meteorite but on
smoothing the way for up to 18,000 visitors today, the
vanguard of crowds expected in the weeks and months ahead.
Already, 100,000 advance tickets for the tour-of-the-
virtual-universe shows have been sold, although tickets for
half of the seats are to be held back for sale at the museum
for each of the 14 to 20 daily performances.

Anne Canty, a spokeswoman for the museum, declined to
comment yesterday on the claim for the meteorite. But she
acknowledged that removing it from its new home would be
difficult. "Because the meteorite is so massive, parts of
the facility had to essentially be built around it," she
said.

The Willamette Meteorite, a mass of metal and rock the size
of a small car, is thought to have plunged down in flames
somewhere in the Pacific Northwest 10 millennia ago, a
gnarled monster from space. Shifted by an Ice Age glacier,
it came to rest on a hillside in West Linn, Ore., just south
of Portland.

There, the Clackamas tribe -- one of many groups now part of
the Grand Ronde confederation -- took it to be a sacred
representation of sky, earth and water, and adopted it. They
called it "Tomanowos," or Sky Person. According to Ms.
Dugan, rain water collected in its craters was considered
holy, and Clackamas youths were sent on vigils to the
meteorite to receive messages from the spirit world.

A century ago, the tribe was confined to a reservation away
from the meteorite and its use as a sacred object declined.

In 1902, Ellis G. Hughes, a miner and farmer, discovered it
on land owned by an iron company and had it moved to his
barn. He began charging visitors 25 cents to see it. In
1905, the iron company sued for its return and repossessed
the meteorite, which had become a local attraction.

A year later, a visitor from New York, Mrs. William Dodge,
bought the meteorite for $20,600 and donated it to the
American Museum of Natural History. It was moved to New York
and became part of the museum's permanent collection. In
1935, when the Hayden Planetarium opened, it became a
centerpiece of its exhibit and over the years was seen and
touched by millions.

Five years ago, when the museum began work on the Rose
Center to replace the old planetarium, a decision was made
to incorporate a few of the old treasures -- including the
meteorite and scales showing what a person would weigh on
the Moon and various planets -- into the new building.

The meteorite was so large and heavy that it had to be
installed first, in effect, and the planetarium built around
it. Two years ago, contractors sunk three steel pilings into
the ground to support its bulk, and it was swung in on a
crane and mounted in a permanent exhibition hall on the
lower level.

Last September, with the planetarium still under
construction, a half-dozen representatives of the Grand
Ronde confederation visited museums in Chicago, Boston and
other cities in the East, including the American Museum of
Natural History, in search of cultural and religious
artifacts that they might have a right to claim.

The confederation has a reservation and headquarters in
Grand Ronde, Ore., 60 miles southwest of Portland, and 4,500
members in five main tribes, situated in the Willamette
Valley, which stretches south from Portland about 100 miles.
The Clackamas tribe is a subgroup of one of the five main
tribes, Ms. Dugan said.

Like many Native American groups, its chances of recovering
lost cultural and religious artifacts seemed hopeless years
ago, especially after many of the smaller tribes were
officially "terminated" by the federal government in 1954,
under an Eisenhower administration policy aimed at greater
assimilation of Indians into American culture.

But after years of lobbying, many of the groups, including
the Grand Ronde, were officially resurrected in 1983, and in
1990 the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act gave
new hope to tribes seeking to recover objects, including
bones of ancestors and relics, that had been sacred or
culturally important.

Under a federal grant, the delegation from Grand Ronde --
Ryan and Adrienne Heavy Head, June Olson, Lindy Trolan and
others -- visited the Natural History Museum over a period
of six days, taking thousands of pictures to document
objects for possible repatriation.

Ms. Dugan said the group was treated civilly, but
encountered resistance from museum officials when they
sought to take pictures of the Willamette Meteorite. It was
in a hard hat construction area, they were told. But they
were eventually allowed in under supervision and took
pictures.

Before leaving the museum, the delegation filed the claim
directly with the museum on behalf of the Grand Ronde, Ms.
Dugan said. Documentary evidence to support the claim was
filed with the museum on Nov. 30, she said. Under the
federal law, the museum is obliged to respond within 90
days, which she said would elapse on Feb. 29.

Proof of ownership appears to be the critical issue -- the
museum citing its acquisition of and long protective
association with the meteorite, versus the Grand Ronde's
claim of ancient tribal religious and cultural ties. The
case could go to a federal review committee or to court, and
it could take years to resolve.

Or the two sides could agree to settle it, although Ms.
Dugan suggested that that was doubtful. "So much of Indian
culture has been lost," she said. "Our people were
discouraged, even forbidden, to practice their religion. We
want the meteorite back, and not some settlement."
 

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