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http://www.globe.com/news/daily/22/artifacts_harvard.htm

American Indians says Harvard reluctant to give up remains, artifacts
By Associated Press, 02/22/00

CAMBRIDGE -- Harvard University says it is doing its best to comply with
laws governing American Indian remains and ceremonial artifacts.

American Indians around the country, however, say the university is
reluctant to give up its collection.

The 1990 federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or
NAGPRA, requires federally funded museums and universities to return human
remains and sacred objects to the tribes.

Harvard's David Schafer said the university is doing its best to comply with
the law. But he said the statute is vague and full of loopholes.

Schafer noted that Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has
already consulted with more than 200 tribes, and has agreed to repatriate at
least 5,000 remains to more than 50 tribes across the United States.

"There is always contention on some fronts," Schafer, project manager of
North American Archaeological Collections at the Peabody Museum, told the
Boston Herald. "But for every case of someone who is upset, there is another
situation that has been successful."

The Harvard museum has almost 12,000 American Indian remains, the largest
collection outside the Smithsonian.

Under the graves protections and repatriation act, museums and universities
decide if remains should be affiliated with current tribes, based on the age
of the bones and whether accompanying artifacts exist that would link
remains to modern tribes. Older remains or remains about which scant information is
available are classified as culturally unidentifiable.

"Harvard is using their clout as the premier education institution in the
United States to bog NAGPRA down and they have been very good at it," said
John Brown, NAGPRA officer for the Narragansetts of Rhode Island.

Last year, the Peabody's repatriation staff was expanded from four to 20.
Assistant Director Barbara Isaac estimates that the museum has spent $7
million on the project so far.

Many museums report problems with funding the staff to do the extensive
documentation and consultations stipulated by NAGPRA.

"Lawmakers just assumed we could afford this," said John Pretola, curator of
anthropology at the Springfield Science Museum, which has a collection of
90,000 American Indian ethnographical and archeological items.
 

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