State Museum continues to repatriate indigenous items

For more than 30 years and prior to the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, the New York State Museum has worked to repatriate items of cultural and national significance to the indigenous nations of the state. In 1989, the museum was at the forefront of repatriation and returned 12 Haudenosaunee wampum belts to the Onondaga Nation. The museum cared for the belts since 1898 and returned them in recognition of their national significance to sovereign Haudenosaunee Nations. This act of trust, respect and commitment continues today.

Working with the nations,

the museum has returned hundreds of individuals and thousands of cultural items — related funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony — to the rightful nations, according to the process of federal law.

The recent repatriation of 170 individuals and 3,289 funerary objects involved a multiyear process of collaborating with the respective nations. The museum’s ongoing commitment is to return all such items as quickly as possible, in collaboration and consultation with the nations through the streamlined federal process.

Not all things are meant to be kept in perpetuity by a museum. Museums, as cultural repositories, are caretakers of our shared past. However, we honor and respect the need to return such deeply sacred material to the rightful owners and are committed to full compliance, working in trust with the nations.

Mark Schaming

Albany The writer is deputy commissioner of Cultural Education and director, New York State Museum