Thoughts on Repatriation
by Wiley S. Thornton (Osage/Cherokee)

I would like to talk about the repatriation of sacred materials and the remains of our ancestors. I speak from my experience as a Native American person of Osage and Cherokee blood who started working for the National Museum of the American Indian in the summer of 1993. I speak only for myself and cannot speak for all Native people.

I knew that museums across the country had human remains and sacred material that had been taken from our people. My Grandparents always told me not to go to museums because they held Indians taken from graves along with sacred things that no one had a right to see. They said the spirits of these people were in these museums. It was not good for us and could cause us harm to be around these bodies taken from graves.

It was not until I started working at the museum and seeing what was in the collection that there came over me a feeling of shock and anger at what had been done to our people. I also had a feeling of being ashamed of what was in the museum even though I had nothing to do with these things being in the collection. There were medicine bundles from many Nations, clothing and hides taken from bodies left on the battle fields, human remains and grave goods. This was just in one museum.

The National Museum of Natural History in Washington has thousands of human remains. Museums around the world have thousands of human remains along with sacred materials. I thought-how can people do this? You don't dig up graves and pull bodies from the earth. It is not right! These people were put away in a sacred manner.

These people were prayed over that they would have a safe journey to the Spiritland All the medicine people and elders that I have talked with said that digging up these remains and then putting them in a museum causes conflict among people. It can be harmful to the people where these bodies are stored. The people back home are also adversely affected by the remains of their ancestors being dug up and put in museums. The question came to me of why these things were collected by non-Indian people. What was the purpose of their collecting these things from our people? Why collect medicine bundles and other ceremonial material along with human remains and grave goods?

I think this clash of cultures has to do with respect. What would happen if Native American people went to cemeteries and started digging up the remains of non-Indian people all in the name of science? Non-Indian people would not like it. Indian people are raised to have respect for things in this world. The way we treat our elders, the way we treat each other, the way we conduct our ceremonies are all done with respect. The old people said even these ceremonial objects, the drums, the hides, and the eagle feathers are still alive. They said that you should talk to them and hang them up so that they can get some air and sunshine-they have to breathe too!

We are taught to have respect for these things. All the ceremonies of the different tribes have purposes-for healing, for renewal, to ask God or as my people call him Wah-Kon-Tah, the Great Mystery, for a blessing or to thank him for all the things he has given us. This ceremonial material should be with us-not on some shelf in a museum. These things need to be cared for in a proper way. In the traditional Indian way only certain people even have the authority to touch these things.

Much of this material was taken from us in the last part of the 19th century. It was a bad time for our people, our lands were taken from us and we were put on reservations. Our children were put in boarding schools and were punished for using their own language. Our ceremonies were banned and sacred materials that we used in our ceremonies were taken from us and put in museums or ended up in the hands of collectors.

The non-Indians thought we were heathens and that we didn't know about God. My Mom told me that when the non-Indian first met us he tried to tell us about God, but our people already knew about God. We had been worshipping him for thousands of years. She told me of how her Grandfather use to go up on a hill to fast and pray for three days to Wah-Kon-Tah to ask for a blessing or somebody to be healed.

We are a praying people and respectful of all the things in this world. All the tribes worshiped God in different ways. Left Hand, an old Comanche Peyote man at the turn of the century, said that there is more than one way to worship God. The elders of my tribe always say that the Pawnees have good ways, the Otoes have good ways, and the Kiowas have good ways, but that we have good ways too. How we run our ceremonies and the meaning of everything we do came to us from God. To us everything has a meaning. If we don't have these things we can't conduct our ceremonies.

It is hard for me to talk about repatriation because it makes me sad and angry at the same time. My people say that we are pitiful and that we are too small to understand why things happen in this world, that we have to be humble. I have tried to talk in a humble and good way in this article and if I have left anything out I ask the Creator to take care of it for me. I do feel that when these sacred items are returned to our people and when all the human remains and grave goods are returned to Grandmother Earth, our health and well being will be in balance once again. Things will change for us and it will affect us in ways that we can't even imagine at this time-but it will be a good thing.

Wah-Kah-Nah