Museums cover Native displays after new repatriation rules

Several museums across the country are covering displays of artifacts from federally recognized Native American and Native Hawaiian groups in response to newly bolstered regulations that require museums to obtain consent for such exhibits from the communities, and to hasten the return of human remains and other culturally significant objects to them.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was enacted in 1990, requiring museums and federal agencies to identify and send back stolen sacred items to their respective cultural groups, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb

Haaland said in a statement. But after widespread complaints of poor compliance, the Department of the Interior issued new rules this month that strengthen the law, setting a deadline of five years for the federally funded entities to ensure their collections comply.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York will close two halls dedicated to Indigenous cultures of North America and seven additional cases while staff review whether artifacts within them need consent, the museum’s president,

Sean Decatur, announced in an email to staff on Friday.

“While the actions we are taking this week may seem sudden, they reflect a growing urgency among all museums to change their relationships to, and representation of, Indigenous cultures,” Decatur said. “The Halls we are closing are vestiges of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives, and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples. Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”

The law’s updates were based on input from more than 180 individual submissions, many from members of Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations, museums and students who want human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and other culturally significant objects to be returned quickly to their ancestral communities.