The Trouble with Romanticizing

In December 2010, the magazine that I am on staff for, Consider Magazine, published an issue concerning the controversial issue of NAGPRA on U-M campus. For those who did not have the pleasure of reading the issue, here is a summary of the controversy: the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is federal legislation that was passed in 1990 in order to protect the rights of Native American tribes. The Act is meant to ensure that all skeletal remains and respective sacred and funerary objects are rightfully returned to the tribe in which the body or item is culturally affiliated. This entails that all museums take serious note of their inventory and do whatever possible to locate this “cultural affiliation” and if successful, they must be properly repatriated.

However, because many museums take such pride in these artifacts they have acquired for so long, this implementation of the law did not run without controversy. The debate that surrounded the University of Michigan began after NAGRA expanded the law in 2010 to include the transfer of culturally unidentifiable human remains. This means that though a body or artifact might not be specifically identified with a tribe, they must research to find the tribe or tribes that were historically located in the area where the article was gathered, and surrender them over respectively. Soon after, it was reported that U-M did little to repatriate over 1,000 artifacts and was faulted for clinging to their inventory for future research instead of locating the rightful historic proprietor of the remains.

                                                              

While the connection might not seem obvious, after reading William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” piece, I immediately thought about how this issue on our campus is a reflection of our skewed perception of what belongs to us and exploiting other’s property for our own personal gain. Cronon’s article explains that we romanticize nature and thus we have put a sentimental value on certain places. This leads us to refuse to acknowledge the true history of man and nature, which has essentially always existed. We idealize this concept of ‘pure nature’ so much that we even gone to such lengths as kicking out American Indians from their homes in order to make this space ‘sacred.’ Well now, once again, Native American tribes are being stripped of their rights and property so our modern world can hold onto something that does not belong to us, and lock them up in a box, ensuring no one can access it. 

After much debate, the University announced that they have confirmed the decision to return their artifacts to respective Native American tribes. The Museum of Anthropology has spent the last year working with the Native American Student Association and other members of the community and now promises to change museum practices from here on out.

Vice President for Research, Stephen Forrest, assured that,

“Although the formal documentation of the policies and procedures has just been completed, we have been making steady progress since the law was clarified. Our approach is to follow both the letter and spirit of the law, and to respect the cultural requirements of the tribes in the process.”

This is a huge step for the University and we can only hope that our relationship with the Native American tribes and community can be restored and that we can once again share a mutual respect for once another.

To better understand this sensitive issue, here is a short video made by someone with cultural ties to the issue which urges University of Michigan to return these sacred artifacts:

So why is this so important? As Cronon argues in his article, it is simply dangerous to set aside land as special, because it is not productive and denies the true history of nature. He says, “Without our quite realizing it, wilderness tends to privilege some parts of nature at the expense of others” (Cronon 16). Similarly, U-M has been denying the true history of these artifacts and human remains and decided to set them aside for their own museum collection. This privileges the university’s researchers and institution as a whole, at the expense of the tribes who have rights to the artifacts. In both cases, our modern world is taking pride in something that does not necessarily belong to us in the name if history and holding them on display – just took look at, not to touch.

Do you think that Cronon’s article can be extended to other issues outside of wilderness, or are these two topics just individual examples of our society's tendency to idealize concepts?