Has this new law affecting US museums gone too far?

[unicorn]

A new law in the US has required the covering up and closure of exhibits of Native American culture. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/arts/design/native-displays-museums-law.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20240222

"When new federal regulations took effect last month requiring museums to get consent from tribes before exhibiting certain Native cultural items, museums across the country began to remove objects from cases, cover up displays and even close entire halls...". 

The New York Times gives an example, which I believe demonstrates the over-reach:

Accession Year: 1893

Description: These oblong ear ornaments made of shell were part of the Field Museum’s exhibit on objects from the Hopewell mounds, a series of earthen structures in Ohio that were estimated to have been built between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago. In the early 1890s, the archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead excavated the site and displayed his findings at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The objects collected for the exposition became the foundation for the Field Museum’s collection.

Why it’s off display: The federal repatriation law applies to funerary objects, or belongings that were buried with the dead, often as company on their spiritual journeys. Helen Robbins, the repatriation director at the Field Museum, said it was likely that these items and others in the Hopewell cases are funerary.

I should note that the Hopewell people no longer exist, so there is no one from whom to obtain consent, nor is there anyone who could possibly take offense at the display of the ear ornaments. What's next? Should museums have to try to track down relatives of Egyptian mummies to obtain their consent? Here's another Hopewell example:

Accession Year: 1893

Description: This pipe made from stone was also dug up from a Hopewell mound by Moorehead’s team.

Why it’s off display: The pipe is likely funerary, and there is also the possibility that modern-day tribes could consider it sacred. In the past, museums considered objects as old as this pipe, which could be more than a thousand years old, difficult to repatriate because determining which modern-day tribe they should go to could be complicated. But the new regulations direct institutions to consult with federally recognized tribes connected to the geographical area, which in this case includes the Shawnee Tribe and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, among others.

 

Why should one have to try to obtain consent from clearly unrelated tribes, whose language and customs are clearly vastly different? The New York Times link may be under a paywall, so if you can't access, here's another link to an article which describes the problem:

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/01/29/us-museums-nagpra-native-american-displays-new-regulations

 

 

[vinapu]

another example of idiocy sweeping the world. No wonder that Trumps, Orbans,  Le Pens and the likes find receptive auditoriums.

Museums world over are filled with items which millions, perhaps billions may consider sacred. Are we supposed to close Louvre because some modern day Greek will claim that Nike is representation of goddess his ancestors considered sacred ? What about all those museums of religious art every self respecting city in Latin America claims to have ?.

[omega]

14 hours ago, vinapu said:

another example of idiocy sweeping the world. No wonder that Trumps, Orbans,  Le Pens and the likes find receptive auditoriums.

Museums world over are filled with items which millions, perhaps billions may consider sacred. Are we supposed to close Louvre because some modern day Greek will claim that Nike is representation of goddess his ancestors considered sacred ? What about all those museums of religious art every self respecting city in Latin America claims to have ?.

I think its just bad law making. They were focused on fixing the wrongs and didn't give enough thought to unintended outcomes. It's not surprising that organisations prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to legal requirements, especially when it may cost them money.

The Trumps, Orbans, LePens will always find receptive auditoriums because they know how to exploit peoples prejudices and fears. There will always be something that they will dress up as being an overwhelming threat to their audience.

In this case, how many people *actually* care that the Museum has removed these pieces from display? The objects are still safely stored, and I would imagine are still accessible to historians who request access. The display spaces will be used to show a different exhibition.

[Keithambrose]

I agree it's bad law making. In the UK, the government is apt to pass laws they think will get them votes, without thinking of the consequences.  For example, in a sop to the anti immigrant lobby, all transit passengers arriving in the UK, will need an electronic  permit, even though they are merely  changing planes, and do not go through  passport control. Heathrow  pax are 35 % transit, and the airport is saying this is just a gift to Amsterdam, etc. The government made vague comments  about securing our borders!

[vinapu]

4 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

 all transit passengers arriving in the UK, will need an electronic  permit, even though they are merely  changing planes, and do not go through  passport control. Heathrow  pax are 35 % transit, and the airport is saying this is just a gift to Amsterdam, etc.

thank you for letting us know. Yes , I agree it's gift to Amsterdam and other transit - heavy  airports in Western Europe

[reader]

12 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

I agree it's bad law making. In the UK, the government is apt to pass laws they think will get them votes, without thinking of the consequences.  For example, in a sop to the anti immigrant lobby, all transit passengers arriving in the UK, will need an electronic  permit, even though they are merely  changing planes, and do not go through  passport control. Heathrow  pax are 35 % transit, and the airport is saying this is just a gift to Amsterdam, etc. The government made vague comments  about securing our borders!

As if there was need for another excuse to avoid UK connections. Yet leave it to pols to find one. 🙂

[unicorn]

[caeron]

 

Context helps. US museums held in the 1990s more than 200,000 native human remains. As of the 2022, only about half had been returned to their people. Human remains were still being given to museums in the 60s. Those looted graves also included funerary objects which were taken. 

I would personally be pretty appalled if my ancestors were being dug up and stuck in museum basements gathering dust because somebody thought their interest in how they were buried trumped any decent respect for the dead.

US museums are stuffed with looted artifacts. I think it is long past time to hold them responsible for their collections. The law may have unintended consequences, but the problem it is very real and very current.

I suggest anybody who is curious spend a few minutes with google to educate themselves.

[vinapu]

I fully agree that displaying or even keeping in storage human remains, including even very ancient pharaonic mummies is to be condemned. Nothing noble in displaying other people bones.

About objects dug out from their graves I would not be so sensitive if enough time passed. After three generations not only we are dust but also memory about us is unless we were very famous but even that is not guarantee. Visiting European cathedrals we see many opulent tombs of people whose names  and achievements , if any are long lost in obscurity. 

As for educating ourselves on google, any medical doctor knows perils of their patients trying to cure themselves  way of Dr. Google. Problems is,  most of us does not possess enough specialized knowledge to assess accuracy of  information given there on any subject.

[Riobard]

It’s an example of analysis paralysis, an oversimplified and indolent way of getting off a seemingly endless and irreconcilable hamster wheel of disagreement about who owns history, the narrative of the past, how and where to display it and its tangible physical representations. 

In a way, not unlike the construction and attempted implementation of law related to the oldest profession. Never to be settled.

Perhaps the intent is to lay down the foundation of a reset, yet it doesn’t have the feel of a new day a new dawn, that very much in terms of productive next steps will unfold other than a pattern of certain objects trickling back to origins in some fashion. How do you re-curate all the vast collections spanning millenia?

[unicorn]

10 hours ago, caeron said:

 

Context helps...

Context helps understand the impetus for writing certain laws, but one can also assess that a law may have been poorly-written. There is a difference between looting a graveyard and bona-fide archaeological work. I do agree that graveyards should be considered sacred if the culture that built them is still around. However, unearthing funerary objects which are many centuries, or even over a thousand years old, serves genuine archaeological and educational goals, and does not have the potential of truly offending anyone. For example, the Hopewell culture has been gone for centuries, and there are valid reasons for studying funerary objects, which help us understand these ancient cultures. Having to ask "permission" from people belonging to a completely different culture makes no sense. In the US, the Cahokia Mounds are another example of an archaeological site from a fascinating culture which has been gone for 1000 years. 

There are probably countless other cultures that have long since disappeared. I personally feel that displaying these cultures' funerary objects honors these ancient cultures, and keeps their memory alive. We can learn much about ourselves by studying these ancient cultures. I agree we shouldn't condone looting graves of existing cultures (most especially when these graves are still being tended). However, once a culture has disappeared, I support almost any effort to learn more about that extinct culture.

[vinapu]

8 hours ago, unicorn said:

 

There are probably countless other cultures that have long since disappeared. I personally feel that displaying these cultures' funerary objects honors these ancient cultures, and keeps their memory alive. We can learn much about ourselves by studying these ancient cultures.

+1

[caeron]

Pretty sure if we dug up catholic relics and displayed them in museums with signage about the catholic burial customs there would be a lot of pissed off people. If Catholic skulls were gifted to a museum in the 60's that were used to study "characteristics of catholics", I'm pretty sure we would be appalled.

They were digging up native burials into the 1900s.  This isn't ancient history.

[unicorn]

10 hours ago, caeron said:

...They were digging up native burials into the 1900s.  This isn't ancient history.

No one is arguing that digging up burial sites of existing tribes shouldn't be forbidden. The issue is whether there is any sense in forbidding archaeological activity to find out more about long-lost cultures. My fiance and I just went to Egypt in January, where there is lots of archaeological activity, mostly in ancient burial sites, and where we have learned a tremendous amount about how our culture came to be. We were surprised to learn, for example, of the Egyptian roots of Christian stories. Whole books have been written on the subject.

You can buy these on Amazon:

"...The very thing that is now called the Christian religion was already in existence in Ancient Egypt, long before the adoption of the New Testament. The British Egyptologist, Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, wrote in his book, The Gods of the Egyptians (1969), "The new religion (Christianity) which was preached there by St. Mark and his immediate followers, in all essentials so closely resembled that which was the outcome of the worship of Osiris, Isis, and Horus." 

The similarities, noted by Budge and everyone who has compared the Egyptian Osiris/Isis/Horus allegory to the Gospel story, are striking. Both accounts are practically the same, e.g. the supernatural conception, the divine birth, the struggles against the enemy in the wilderness, and the resurrection from the dead to eternal life. The main difference between the “two versions” is that the Gospel tale is considered historical and the Osiris/Isis/Horus cycle is an allegory. The spiritual message of the two is exactly the same..."

Of course, we also saw evidence of the attempts of ancient Christians to try to erase their history with their defacing of Egyptian temples:

Fortunately, they didn't find many of the tombs, so their attempts to erase history didn't pan out. Of course, neither my fiance nor myself consider the Gospels to be "historical" or factual in any way--just old rehashing of Egyptian lore (which we don't consider historical either, of course). Of course, once Christianity took over Egypt, their civilization soon fell. It wouldn't take too long for Christianity to destroy the Roman Empire and civilization as well--plunging Europe into many centuries of ignorance and stagnation. Those who don't remember history suffer the consequences. 

[vinapu]

8 hours ago, unicorn said:

. It wouldn't take too long for Christianity to destroy the Roman Empire and civilization as well--plunging Europe into many centuries of ignorance and stagnation.

isn't it too far fetching ? After fall of Western Empire, Eastern one ( Byzantium ) thrived for another couple centuries before started crumbling under pressure from Turks. Decline of civilisation  in the Western Europe doesn't equate decline of civilisation overall, no?.

[unicorn]

On 3/1/2024 at 8:57 AM, vinapu said:

isn't it too far fetching ? After fall of Western Empire, Eastern one ( Byzantium ) thrived for another couple centuries before started crumbling under pressure from Turks. Decline of civilisation  in the Western Europe doesn't equate decline of civilisation overall, no?.

I did say that Europe, not civilization overall, faltered under Christianity. Mathematics, science, and other cultures flourished in areas controlled by the Muslims, Chinese, etc. European civilization began to move again with and following the Renaissance, when Copernicus and Galileo were able to deduce that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, artists started painting non-religious themes, the printing press allowed the dissemination of new ideas, and so on. Fortunately, once the Muslims took over Egypt, the attempts of the Christians to cover up Egyptian history were halted. Of course, now some Muslim fringe groups such as ISIS and the Taliban have used dynamite to try to erase their countries non-Islamic history. 

[Keithambrose]

On 3/1/2024 at 4:57 PM, vinapu said:

isn't it too far fetching ? After fall of Western Empire, Eastern one ( Byzantium ) thrived for another couple centuries before started crumbling under pressure from Turks. Decline of civilisation  in the Western Europe doesn't equate decline of civilisation overall, no?.

I seem to remember  the Renaissance? Quite civilised,  I thought. 

[unicorn]

2 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

I seem to remember  the Renaissance? Quite civilised,  I thought. 

Yes, Renaissance refers to the rebirth--after too many centuries of Christians controlling all "learning," which consisted mainly in studying the Bible. Only once Europeans embraced art and science, instead of only religion, was their society able to move forward.