Закон о защите и репатриации могил коренных американцев

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Шаблон:USPL, 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural items and human remains to their respective peoples. Cultural items include funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.

The act divides the treatment of American Indian human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony into two basic categories. Under the inadvertent discovery and planned excavation component of the act and regulations, if federal officials anticipate that activities on federal and tribal lands after November 16 1990 might have an effect on American Indian burials—or if burials are discovered during such activities—they must consult with potential lineal descendants or American Indian tribal officials as part of their compliance responsibilities. For planned excavations, consultation must occur during the planning phase of the project. For inadvertent discoveries, the regulations delineate a set of short deadlines for initiating and completing consultation. The act allows archaeological teams a short time for analysis before the remains must be returned. Once it is determined that human remains are American Indian, analysis can occur only through documented consultation (on federal lands) or consent (on tribal lands).

Under the inventory and notification provision of the act, Federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funds are required to summarize their collections that may contain items subject to NAGPRA. Additionally, Federal agencies and institutions must prepare inventories of human remains and funerary objects. Under the act, funerary objects are considered «associated» if they were buried as part of a burial ceremony with a set of human remains still in possession of the Federal agency or other institution. «Unassociated» funerary objects are artifacts where human remains were not initially collected by—or were subsequently destroyed, lost, or no longer in possession of—the agency or institution. Consequently, this legislation also applies to many Native American artifacts, especially burial items and religious artifacts. It has necessitated massive cataloguing of the Native American collections in order to identify the living heirs, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations of remains and artifacts.

Return to the Earth project

Return to the Earth is an inter-religious project whose goal is to inter unidentified remains in regional burial sites. Over 110,000 remains that cannot be associated with a particular tribe are held in institutions across the United States, as of 2006. The project seeks to enable a process of reconciliation between Native and non-Native peoples, construct cedar burial boxes, produce burial cloths and fund the repatriation of remains. The first of the burial sites is near the Cheyenne Cultural Center in Clinton, Oklahoma.

Kennewick Man controversy

Compliance with the legislation can be complicated. One example of controversy is that of Kennewick Man, because the direct descendants of the nearly 10,000-year-old remains are uncertain. Kennewick Man is a skeleton found near Kennewick, Washington. The Umatilla, Colville, Yakima, and Nez Perce tribes have each claimed Kennewick Man as their ancestor, and sought permission to rebury him.

Archaeologists claim that because of Kennewick Man’s great age, there is insufficient evidence to connect him to modern tribes. The 9300-year age of his remains makes this discovery valuable scientifically, but archaeologists have determined that the man is of Native American origin.

See also

• American Indian Religious Freedom Act
• National Museum of the American Indian

Further reading

• Fine-Dare, Kathleen S., Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA, University of Nebraska Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8032690-8-0.

• Jones, P., Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West, Bauu Press, Boulder, CO. ISBN 0-9721349-2-1.

External links

• NAGPRA information from the National Park Service
  • Summary of NAGPRA laws from the National Park Service