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[article provided by Lona. Thanks!]

EDITORIAL

 http://www.seattlep-i.com/opinion/metred1.shtml
 

Meteorite claim bad use of graves protection act
Wednesday, February 23, 2000
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

If the members of Congress who passed the Native American Graves Protection
and Repatriation Act of 1990 were asked how they envisioned the law being
correctly applied, this is the last scenario they would have dreamed up:

Force the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to partly
dismantle its new planetarium so that a 15-ton meteorite in its possession
for nearly a century could be returned to Oregon, where a recently
re-recognized band of Indians claims it is a holy tribal object.

Sometimes what causes problems is not the law itself but the use to which it
is put. That's certainly been the case with this federal act, which was
designed to make amends for the callous treatment by some scientists and
other non-Indians of what are obvious Indian remains and artifacts.

Instead the law has been routinely misapplied, as shown by the government's
refusal to allow scientific testing of skeletons that may or may not be of
Native American origin (see Kennewick Man).

Lest the law itself be further desecrated, the federal government should
deny the claim so that the meteorite's more pertinent purpose, education,
can be fulfilled.
 

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