{"id":20591,"date":"2022-01-31T21:09:28","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T02:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=20591"},"modified":"2022-02-02T09:18:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T14:18:07","slug":"full-time-nagpra-investigator-hired-for-first-time-in-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2022\/01\/31\/full-time-nagpra-investigator-hired-for-first-time-in-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Full-time NAGPRA investigator hired for first time in decades"},"content":{"rendered":" \"<\/a>
The Effigy Mounds National Monument is home to tribal burial grounds and other places important to nearly two dozen Indian nations. Photo: Jimmy Emerson, DVM<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
Full-time NAGPRA investigator hired for first time in decades<\/div>\r\n
Monday, January 31, 2022<\/div>\r\n
By Acee Agoyo<\/div>\r\n
Indianz.Com<\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C. —\r\nThe Biden administration is taking greater steps to enforce the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act<\/a>, more than 30 years after the law went on the books.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOn Monday, officials announced the hiring of the first full-time NAGPRA investigator at the Department of the Interior<\/a>. The new employee will help ensure that museums and other institutions are complying with the federal law, which requires the return of ancestral remains and cultural property to their rightful American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian caretakers and owners.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cRepatriation is a sacred responsibility for many Native Americans,\u201d Chuck Sams<\/a>, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation<\/a> who serves as director of the National Park Service<\/a>, said in a news release<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cWe hope our efforts to streamline the requirements of NAGPRA and invest in additional staff will lead to more instances of proper repatriation and reburial of Indigenous ancestors and cultural items,\u201d said Sams, who is the first Native person to lead the NPS<\/a>.\r\n

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Repatriation is a sacred responsibility for many Native Americans. Today, the @NatlParkService announced the hire of a full-time investigator to enhance oversight and museum compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. https:\/\/t.co\/PVN6BHh0PB<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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<\/p>\r\nAnd just as significantly, the NAGPRA investigator will look into violations of the law, possibly even criminal wrongdoing. Such a role is familiar to David Barland-Liles, a long-time federal government employee who helped investigate the theft of tribal ancestors from a national monument<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cDavid is a proven leader and skilled investigator who has helped us strengthen our government-to-government relationships with Native American tribes and I am pleased to have him serve in this critical role,\u201d Sams said of the new NAGPRA investigator.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nBarland-Liles has worked for NPS for 33 years, according to the department. He was part of a team that received the John L. Cotter Award of Special Achievement for Excellence in Archeology<\/a> for helping resolve the theft of ancestral remains from the Effigy Mounds National Monument<\/a> in Iowa.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe crime was an inside job — carried out by Thomas A. Munson<\/a>, the former superintendent at Effigy Mounds. He admitted he took tribal ancestors from the federal site and kept them in garbage bags<\/a> in his home.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThis was a racist and bigoted act,\u201d Patt Murphy, the NAGPRA representative for the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska<\/a>, wrote in a victim impact statement submitted in federal court.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThomas Munson stole them and then dumped them into cardboard boxes,\u201d Murphy said of the ancestors that were taken from their resting places.\r\n

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<\/P>\r\nMunson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 consecutive weekends in jail, 12 months of supervised probation and home detention for 12 months. He also agreed to produce a videotaped apology to the tribes affected by his crime and to have a written apology published<\/a> in Indianz.Com and other Native news outlets.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nMore than six years after the November 2015 plea agreement<\/a>, there is no record of a videotaped apology in Munson’s court file. No one from his defense team or the federal government ever contacted Indianz.Com to publish the apology either.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nDespite the apparent lapses, the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System in July 2017 said Munson \u201ccomplied with the conditions of probation imposed by the court\u201d and recommended that \u201cproceedings in the case be terminated.\u201d There are no further entries in the case docket.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe high-profile case, though, is something of an anomaly. Rarely has anyone — an individual or an institution — been punished for violating NAGPRA since the law was enacted in November 1990.\r\n

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A bald eagles flies over the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa. Photo: National Park Service<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe lack of accountability was brought up during recent consultations on proposed changes to the NAGPRA regulations<\/a>. One Native Hawaiian advocate said it was almost pointless to seek investigations into alleged violations of the law.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cWe submitted 12 requests for investigations to National NAGPRA over the last, I don\u2019t know, how many years,\u201d said Edward Halealoha Ayau the former executive director of Hui M\u0101lama I N\u0101 K\u016bpuna O Hawai’i Nei, a group that has helped return Native Hawaiian ancestors to their resting places.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n \u201cOnly one case was investigated,\u201d Ayau said during a NAGPRA consultation on August 17. The Bishop Museum in Hawaii paid a civil fine of $13,500<\/a> as a result.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThis has to improve, because we\u2019re still getting notifications from museums of inventories that they didn\u2019t file by the deadline, but nothing seems to happen if\r\n they don\u2019t comply,\u201d Ayau added.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n \u201cSo if you want to say facilitating respectful return, then\r\n please mean it, and those who didn\u2019t comply should be investigated to\r\n determine whether or not they have legitimate grounds for not\r\n complying and if not, then they should be fined,\u201d Ayau told officials and employees at Interior, including Barland-Liles, who participated in the consultations last year. \r\n

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