NAGPRA and its Struggle to Protect the Kennewick Man

The Native American Grave Protection and Repatration Act (NAGPRA)

NAGPRA was made with the intention of protecting ancient burial grounds from destruction along with protecting indigenous rights. Along with returning them to their living descendants and have them reburied as they would have wanted. However, NAGPRA focu. In this case we also believe it is more important to protect the rights of the dead. We know they most likely would not have consented to being examined and would have wanted to be buried by their surviving relatives. Now doing more research we believe it is, and can be, so much more than that.

The Story of The Ancient One

The Discovery

The Kennewick man was discovered during the summer of 1996, when two students from a nearby college tripped on his skull while wading in the Columbia River. They were concerned that they had just stumbled upon a homicide victim and immediately called the police. It came as a surprise when it was discovered that the skeleton was a 9,000 year old man of likely Indigenous ancestry (Preston). Once this news circulated, an immediate battle over who had custody of him sprang out of the woodwork. The group that managed the land where he was found, the Army Corps of Engineers, claimed they had authority and stated that they would be making the decisions of this case moving forward. They tried to halt all scientific study and begin the repatriation process, but the coroner argued that it was he who actually had authority, which led to the Kennewick man being placed in an evidence locker until the issue was resolved. Following this, five tribes from the surrounding area, including the Colville Tribe, formed a coalition and demanded that the Ancient One's remains be returned to them for reburial. This then led to a lengthy legal battle between anthropologists and scientists against the Army Corps of Engineers and Indigenous tribes.

The Dispute

The Plaintiffs

The Plaintiffs consisted of the scientists and anthropologists that wanted The Ancient One to be released to them for research. They believed that it was wrong for the Kennewick man to be given over to the tribes, as he is one of the most well preserved, practically complete ancient skeltons ever. Their argument was that there was no solid proof that the remains were related to any living tribe in the coalition (“Repatriation Case Studies.”). NAGPRA only applies to ancestral remains of living tribes, and because there was no undisputable evidence linking the remains to any tribe, or that the Kennewick man was even Native American, NAGPRA couldn't protect him. The anthropologists won with this argument, which released the Kennewick man to scientists for study.

The Defendents

The Defendants were made up of the Colville Tribe and the Army Corps of Engineers. They argued that The Ancient One was an ancestor of theirs and that he should be returned to them immediately for reburial, as in a lot of indigenous culture, a body needs to be buried so the soul can rest (“Repatriation Case Studies.”). However, this argument did not hold up in court as genetic analysis in the 1990's wasn't advanced enough to prove that the Kennewick man was Native American. Although the condition of the teeth and age of the remains pointed to them being of Indigenous ancestry (Preston), that was not evidence to win them the trial.

The Outcome

Due to the constant improvement of DNA analysis, the Kennewick man was finally confirmed to be of Indigenous ancestry by the Army Corps of Engineers urging to have his DNA tested (“A Long, Complicated Battle Over 9,000-Year-Old Bones Is Finally Over.”). It also revealed that The Ancient one was most closely related to the Colville Tribe. This meant that the Kennewick man was, in fact, protected under NAGPRA and was returned to the Colville tribe for reburial. In February of 2017, he was buried at the Columbia Plateau (Green). Although eventually The Ancient One was returned to where he belonged, it took twenty years. NAGPRA was enacted to protect the remains of Indigenous individuals and the tribes they are related to, yet it continues to struggle to help the people it was designed to protect.

Weaknesses

Although NAGPRA’s intentions were to protect the rights of the Indigenous Tribes and their ancestors, many of its shortcomings are revealed through the story of the Ancient One. NAGPRA prevents the start of new scientific studies of Indigenous remains, but it doesn’t necesarily force the end of current studies or require museums to determine the cultural affiliation of the remains (“Repatriation Case Studies.”). This means that museums and scientists have complete say over which studies are necessary to continue, or they could just refuse to figure out which tribe the remains are most closely related to, making repatriation impossible. Another issue is that NAGPRA can only protect indigenous remains on federal land, it has no power over remains discovered on private property. Many believe this is due to it infringing on the landowners rights, yet many states have passed their own legislation protecting remains on public and private property. These legislations were deemed constitutional, so many Indigenous peoples don’t understand why NAGPRA wasn’t expanded to include private land. This causes a problem because, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1978, 33% of U.S. land is federally owned and 60% is private land (Wunderlich). Although this is a fairly old statistic, current documents suggest that privately owned land has only increased by one or two percentage points. This leaves over half of U.S. land not under NAGPRA, leading to a vast amount of remains unprotected.

Looking to the Future

For the Future of NAGPRA our hopes are that there is an overall improvement in ethics. In this case, and we continue to see this problem, the scientists just see the remains bones that we need to study. “Hundreds of thousands—some say 1 million—Native American skeletal remains are held in institutions around the world (Thornton).” Since the 90’s we’ve seen more collaboration with museums but, they are not always compliant. With the Kennewick man’s remains being one of the oldest remains found so far means that it holds a lot of information. People forget about Native American culture because all they see is something to study and sometimes are used as a source of entertainment like the museums. Since this case there have been improvements but there seems to be a lack of respect for Native Americans in this case and as anthropologists, we tend to look at their culture from an ethnocentric point of view. Which means we view their culture comparing it to our own. Which we should try to view it from their cultural perspective as items that we may not view as religious are to Native Americans. We should and that is something that we would like to see changed in respect to Native American Culture.

We would also like to see for the future of NAGPRA to change where items found on private property can be repatriated as well. Right now, it is just Federal or tribal lands we think that if it could be culturally affiliated it should be reported no matter if it’s on private property. The last point that we would like to see future improvements on would be that it is for tribes that are federally recognized. It takes a lot for tribes to be federally recognized and feel that if remains or artifacts can be culturally identified to a non-federally recognized tribe then they should be returned to them. Whereas right now it wouldn’t. According to the National Park Service “NAGPRA does not require museums and Federal agencies to consult with non-federally recognized Indian groups. However, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee has recognized that there are some cases in which non-federally recognized Indian groups may be appropriate requestors for cultural items”(NPS).” It would be nice to see more of non-federally recognized tribes be considered as the “appropriate requestors” as they deserve the rights to the remains/items. NAGPRA has made a lot of progress since the Kennewick Man to which there have been more collaboration and native American rights, but it would be nice to see it continue to grow in respect to Native American Tribes. For more information on Native American collaboration visit here.