"There are unclaimed bodies of ancient elders in the basement of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The story of their journey to that place includes desecration, disappearance, murder, mayhem, and attempts to do right. It is a story that cries out for an ending that concludes with the word repatriation.

The Carnegie Museum, like many museums, used to display remains. To their credit, following the development of repatriation law, museum curators anted up any questionable artifacts. They went a step further and invited representatives from the Native American community to help create accurate historical displays and have integrated modern indigenous art into the museum�s displays as well.

As I talked with the Carnegie curators and worked with McKees Rocks historians, a single question nagged at me. In a conversation with a Carnegie representative I heard the words I didn�t want to hear. Some of the bodies were reburied when the Gerrodette-Carnegie dig ended. More than likely many of them were lost to the river during one of several collapses and floods in the years that followed. But, yes, more than 100 years later, nearly one-third of them are still in the basement of the Carnegie Museum. The Carnegie�s rep was quick to point out that the museum would be more than happy to turn the remains over to anyone who can claim them under repatriation law. They�re not holding them hostage; it�s just that no one had stepped up to claim them.

Surely that could be easily remedied, I thought.

I was wrong."

Get the Story:
Alyse Urice: Land of the giants-a look at battle for repatriation (The Native American Times 8/17)

Relevant Links:
National NAGPRA - http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra

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