Oneida Nation reclaims ancestors held by museum at Harvard University

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A delegation of the Oneida Indian Nation poses at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 3, 2024. Photo courtesy Oneida Indian Nation

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Indianz.Com

The Oneida Indian Nation has reclaimed the remains of seven ancestors who were being held by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.

According to the tribe, the ancestors were removed from their resting places in 1878. Funerary objects were also taken from the burial grounds in St. Lawrence County in upstate New York.

“There is much work to be done in righting the wrongs of the past, yet today, we came together with Harvard University to set a new course,” Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said in a news release on Wednesday. “From ensuring that one day no Native American ancestors are insensitively displayed or forgotten in storage rooms to prioritizing our voices in discourses of history and culture, this is a unique opportunity to forge a better future as partners.”

Representatives of the Oneida Indian Nation and Harvard University pose at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 3, 2024. Photo courtesy Oneida Indian Nation

A tribal delegation traveled to Harvard University in Massachusetts on Tuesday to reclaim the remains and burial objects. The ancestors and items are being returned pursuant to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the federal law known as NAGPRA.

“Samuel W. Garman removed the human remains and associated funerary objects from Brier Hill in St. Lawrence County, NY, in May of 1878,” a March 26 notice in the Federal Register reads. “Garman presented the human remains and associated funerary objects to Alexander Agassiz, who donated them to the Peabody Museum that same month.”

The tribe’s ongoing NAGPRA efforts were profiled by ABC News last week. The November 26 report focused on an Oneida ancestor being held by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter speaks at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 3, 2024. Photo courtesy Oneida Indian Nation

NAGPRA was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. The law requires museums, educational institutions and other facilities that received federal funds to repatriate ancestors and artifacts to their rightful American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian owners.

Despite the law, compliance has been slow. New NAGPRA regulations finalized by the Department of the Interior in January of this year imposed new consultation guidelines and deadlines going forward, as well as requiring institutions to obtain free, prior and informed consent from Native peoples before displaying items belonging to their communities.

ABC News: Native American leaders’ decades long fight to reclaim their ancestors’ remains