The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) requires museums, universities, and federal agencies to return Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and items of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, federally recognized Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations.
It was passed in 1990 with the intent of allowing tribes to reclaim certain artifacts tied to their history.
The law underwent regulatory actions in 2023 to expand "duty of care," which essentially means that those in charge of caring for the remains must do so with the tribes' best wishes and traditions in effect.
However, as many tribes still follow ancient discriminatory traditions that only allow their artifacts to be viewed or handled by men, this has proved problematic. In some cases, women are being excluded from field work, lab work, or conversations with tribal leaders due to cultural beliefs.
Elizabeth Weiss, an American physical anthropologist and professor emeritus at San José State University, says anti-discrimination laws mean not all practices are acceptable.
"It's similar in a sense to if you would have other religious or traditional cultural practices that would exclude females or make females do certain things that are not part of their own culture," she explains.
Under NAGPRA, tribal workers can also declare pieces of evidence as "sacred knowledge," and their unwillingness to share that information leaves holes in research findings.
In other words, if the tribe consultants, who "go first," say something should be off limits to all researchers, then it's "game over."
Weiss recently warned that repatriation activists are weaponizing the law to rebury (i.e. destroy) ancient materials that once formed the foundation of archaeological research and are emptying museums of modern Native American artwork under the banner of decolonization.
Meanwhile, female scholars are facing increased discrimination thanks to the Biden-era regulation that requires universities and museums to defer to tribes about the "appropriate" handling of cultural artifacts.
This has reportedly led to a huge drop in articles about Native Americans and the closure of museum exhibits across the nation.
