Galen Axel Anderson
Staff Writer
On Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 6:30 p.m. in Allen Commons, Ricardo Higelin Ponce de León gave a talk on the repatriation of Native American cultural artifacts. Ponce de León is an assistant professor of archaeology and anthropology at The College of Wooster and the selected Native American Heritage Month speaker presented by the Office of Equity and Belonging.
Ponce de León began by discussing the historical background of repatriation, touching on the treatment of Indigenous communities by the U.S. government between the era of colonial settlement and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Following his discussion of the early historical background, he described the role and significance of archaeology and anthropology in local and national politics before the adoption of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Ponce de León concluded the discussion with an overview of active and ongoing repatriation practices and movements in the U.S.
Ponce de León then transitioned to discussing the background of repatriation, with sharing his first experience in learning U.S. law and national policies, saying, “when I came here, I [started] to hear how the laws are completely different, and I was like ‘wait a minute — all my textbooks are from the United States, and I’m learning all my methods from the United States. Why is [it] different here in practice?’” He then went on to describe the historical treatment of Native American tribes, with precolonial Indigenous self-governance. After the U.S. became an independent country, Indigenous governance was regulated under Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution, granting Congress the essential power to regulate otherwise independent tribal policy. Between 1770 and 1870, approximately 370 treaties were signed between Indigenous tribes and the federal government, before the landmark Marshall Trilogy — three Supreme Court cases named for Chief Justice John Marshall — which provided a specific description of tribes as “domestic dependent nations,” in an attempt to prevent state interference with tribal affairs. The U.S. government currently recognizes 574 tribes.
The modern movement for repatriation began in the late 1960s with the American Indian Movement (AIM), which worked for better treatment of Native Americans and more accurate representation of tribal culture. As described by Ponce de León, the attitude of the movement at the time was in opposition to “talking about [tribal people] without getting to know [them].” This was accompanied in the academic field by a culture of “many people just [trying] to collect artifacts and sell [them], and that’s why many museums get a lot of big collection[s],” which resulted in large stockpiles of artifacts and cultural items at museums and academic institutions, according to Ponce de León. The distribution of these objects became a legal issue as federal policy on the protection of tribal cultural sites and items continued to expand with the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) in 1979 and NAGPRA in 1989. NAGPRA is a widely-used tool in aiding further artifact repatriation efforts, as it supports federally recognized tribes in requesting the repatriation of culturally significant items. The consolidation of culturally significant tribal items into academic institutions has led to slow progress, as described by Ponce de León, who stated that “in 34 years, we [have] only repatriate[d] 58% [of stolen artifacts].”
Quoting a colleague, Ponce de León wrote in his presentation, “NAGPRA … is emotional because the law is not in itself a solution to colonialist practices so much as a framework that establishes a process or restitution.” For faculty at institutions who have stockpiles of artifacts, the question of repatriation is an active discussion. Describing his former colleague’s stance, he said, “let’s do research, let’s keep doing this, we should not repatriate.”
The denial of repatriation requests by universities such as Harvard, which, as of Dec. 4, 2024, had “yet to return more than half of the human remains it reported holding under NAGPRA” (per ProPublica), has led to culturally significant objects and artifacts not being returned to their tribes of origin. The 2024 changes to NAGPRA, including a stated goal of 100% repatriation by 2029, have led to a change in institutional policy, according to Ponce De León. “[These changes to NAGPRA are] forcing every institution … [to repatriate] … no matter what.”
