This is a short essay discussion on Native American art and issues concerned with its ownership in museums and understanding in the greater history of art and our culture.
After you have read the article included in the link below and the excerpt from an article in the New York Times, I would like you to choose one object from Chapter 36. In a short essay, please discuss this object (list title, material, tribe, provenance, date) with regard to the debate/discussion of Native American and indigenous peoples’ art that is kept in museums (maybe illegally acquired) and the NAGPRA which would require it to be repatriated. How would you feel if this work of art was wanted by the tribe but the museum refused to return it? Does the educational value outweigh the spiritual value for tribal members? Is it important for this work of art to be kept in a museum or protected collection? Does the act (NAGPRA) hurt the public more if the object is removed the museum, kept in storage, or returned to the tribe because the public will no longer have access to seeing it on display? Or is it the right (ethically) thing to do?
Other aspects to consider (remember, this is an opinion-based essay so I want to read about your interpretation on the matter): Were you aware of the ongoing cultural debate about repatriation of Native American art? Why do you believe popular news or headlines typically cover the repatriation of art work from ancient Greece or Mesopotamia (Ancient Near East) but tend to ignore Native American art?
200-400 words. Use correct grammar and punctuation. Citations are not necessary unless you use quotes but I would prefer the essay be written using your own words. Please proofread and use spell-check.
Read this article:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/indigenous-americas-apah/north-america-apah/a/terms-and-issues-in-native-american-art
Read these excerpts from this article:
NY Times December 24, 2000 by Stephen Kinzer
——- ”This is not just art to us,” Mr. John continued. ”It’s something far deeper, something with a healing and spiritual aspect. When our artifacts left us and were scattered across America, they left a void. We lost our honor and our value system. We were overwhelmed by social problems like suicide and alcoholism. Now that they’re coming back, people look at them and feel their honor and their self-respect coming back as well. There are still a lot of festering wounds, but the process of healing has begun.”
The law under which the beaver prow was repatriated, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, was signed by President George Bush in November 1990 after years of discussion among scientists, museum curators and Indian groups. It seeks to reconcile two profoundly different value systems, one based on the primacy of reason and science and the other revolving around spiritual and religious values.
In the decade since the law was passed, it has had a profound effect on museums and the philosophy on which they are based. At the same time, it has had incalculable emotional and social impact on Indian tribes across the country that have recovered long-lost artifacts, many of which have enormous spiritual significance, as well as the remains of thousands of their ancestors. […]
”I’ve visited quite a few museums and generally found them to be very friendly and welcoming,” said Dorothy Davids, who directs repatriation efforts for the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nation, now based in Wisconsin. ”It was rough going for a while because museums really kind of hate to give up what they have, but now there’s a law. Most of them respect that.”
There are still some areas of conflict, especially over efforts by some tribes to recover remains that are many thousands of years old and that scientists say should be studied for vital clues about the history of human migration to the American continent. But many curators have come to agree that Indians have a right to recover their sacred artifacts and the bones of those they can legitimately claim as ancestors.
Indians involved in the reclamation process have also come to respect the role museums have played in preserving and displaying artifacts that might otherwise have been lost.
In some cases, museums have reached agreements with tribes under which the museums keep artifacts but agree to treat them in special ways. Some have been taken off public display, others are stored in rooms that face in a particular direction, and still others are periodically sprinkled with chopped tobacco or ground corn. ——–
The 1990 law affects every museum and federal agency that owns ”Native American human remains and associated funerary objects” as well as ”unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony.” It requires each museum and agency to compile an inventory of its holdings, identify them by tribal origin and notify existing tribes of objects that appear to come from that tribe’s tradition.
Under the law, museums must return all remains and artifacts to any tribe that requests them and that can prove a ”cultural affiliation” with the tribe from which they came.