More on repatriating indigenous bones:
Prime Ministerial Joint Statement on Aboriginal Remains: July 5, 2000 -The Australian and British governments agree to increase efforts to repatriate human remains to Australian indigenous communities. In doing this, the governments recognise the special connection that indigenous people have with ancestral remains, particularly where there are living descendants.
Repatriation in the Phillipines: Repatriation of ancestral remains is a worldwide issue and they would not lack for sympathizers. Among Filipino indigenous peoples, repatriation is not a novel concern for which there are eloquent precedents. Sometime ago, the mummified remains of a Cordillera ancestor were repatriated from Manila to its original burial chamber in the hinterlands.
Background from the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 was an attempt to correct some of these abuses. Helping to pave the way was the Vermillion Accord, an agreement between archaeologists and indigenous peoples at the 1989 World Archaeological Conference in Vermillion, South Dakota, which was a reach for ethical archaeology
Bibliography of repatriation issues
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission News: The return of the Edinburgh Collection, one of the largest of its kind in Europe, marks one victory in a long battle waged by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have ancestral remains as well as cultural objects returned to Australia and ultimately to their communities of origin. Despite this and previous repatriations, the remains of hundreds of people are still in British institutions, and it is estimated that more than 7000 items remain in Australian collections.
From the Smithsonian to Haida Gwaii: Yesterday, the Haida delegates performed native songs and dances at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan. The sound of handheld drums thundered through a large domed hall as men and women danced and chanted aboriginal songs. One man wore the costume of an eagle, another that of a raven, representing two towns on the northernmost island � Old Massett and Skidegate, about 70 miles south.
There is a special repatriation song based on a butterfly, Ms. Collison explained to the crowd.
“The butterfly is a culture that represents the traveling spirits and wandering souls of those who have left,” she said. “Those ancestors are wandering.”
On Thursday the delegates will meet with American Museum of Natural History officials for the first formal ceremony leading to the actual repatriation. After that, the remains, which are sealed in plastic containers, will be prayed over and spoken to in Haida, to comfort them. The only time they are to be left alone, Ms. Collison said, is during the plane trip back to British Columbia. Ceremonies on the islands will take place Sept. 26 and 28.
Dorothy Bell, 85, of Old Massett, is the oldest of the delegates. She joined the group on a recent repatriation trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. “We talked Haida” to the remains, she recalled, “and said they’re going back to Haida Gwaii, and they should be happy.” Then everyone heard drums in the distance, and took it as a sign that their ancestors “were happy to go home.”
Indian Burial Grounds and Sacred Sites Watch
Salon review of “Bones: Discovering the First Americans”: The ongoing debate over where the first Americans came from has anthropologists battling with Native Americans, white supremacists and the Army Corps of Engineers. (Kennewick Man).
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Who is leading the charge for the repatriation of the bones of indigenous peoples?
It often appears that the battle for the bones was launched by indigenous groups themselves. In the past, while white graves were deemed sacred, those of indigenous groups were often looted by collectors. Native peoples finally seem to be gaining the ability to determine the fate of their ancestors. Native representatives argue that their emotional and spiritual link to the bones outweighs the interests of science, and that repatriation means recognising some of the damage done to Native societies, and attempting to make amends.
But back in the 1980s, when repatriation became an issue in the USA and Australia, few tribes showed much interest in becoming involved. Anthropology professor Russell Thornton, who was working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC when the museum first contacted tribes about repatriation, says that most Native groups did not respond because they were ‘generally focused on local issues’
[from spiked culture]
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LRB | John Sutherland : The Fight for Eyeballs An early attempt to describe what Matt Drudge is doing as “blogging” but without that term. Neat turn of phrase here:
The Drudge report takes the form of his latest ‘scoop’, accompanied by a gateway-link service to a hundred or so other proprietary news services and syndicated columnists. What most visitors do is click their Drudge bookmark, scan his text of the day, and then go off to their regular supplier. What the Drudge Report offers is ‘hot news, right on the edge’. With this hot news still tingling in your mind, you can look for ‘coverage’ and ‘in depth’ material from the usual places, using Drudge’s website as a stepping stone. He claims six million hits a month and as many as a million a day when a really hot and edgy story (like ‘Monica II’) is fresh. He has monitored up to three thousand hits in one day from the White House – which has a staff of a thousand.
When (as he has recently been doing rather often) Matt Drudge addresses journalists’ conventions he likes to strike a crusading pose. He foresees, as he told the National Press Conference of 2 June, ‘an era vibrating with the din of small voices . . . I envision a future where there will be 300 million reporters.’ The implication is that his ‘scoops’ are harvested from the thousand e-mails he receives every day from ‘little people’. In fact – despite the McLuhanesque rhetoric – it is clear as day that his biggest stories have arrived as lettres de cachet from insiders and lobbyists using the protective anonymity of e-mail and Drudge’s lack of scruple to get their stories out.
From 1998.
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Geol 456/656 – Velocity Structure of the Earth Discontinuities arise at changes in composition. Plus, the earth as lava lamp.