Have you ever heard of a man named mihšihkinaahkwa? How about Little Turtle?
He was an important Miami chief, who led a confederation of natives in several major Victories against American forces in the Indian wars.
Little Turtle is the one who kept the Miami tribe out of Tecumseh's war.
He stepped down as the intertribal war chief of the confederation after he could not convince them to sue for peace.
Afterwards, he spent his life assimilating to American culture except for his adamant refusal to drink alcohol.
He met with George Washington where he was presented with a sword.
He spent his life trying to peacefully and “legally” resisting U.S. expansion.
He eventually retired to a Village near Fort Wayne, Indiana.
This is where he died from natural causes and was given a military-style funeral.
He there rested peacefully….for a while.
A hundred years pass, Fort Wayne grows, roads are extended, more land is bought, houses are built, and orchards are planted.
Chief Little Turtle was accidentally uncovered.
Dr. George  W. Gillie bought a strip of land and contracted the Lochner brothers to build his house.
While the brothers and their laborers were digging out what would become the cellar, they came upon the burial.
Seeing this, the Lochner brothers called off their workers and notified Dr. Gillie. Together, the three uncovered the rest of the burial.
Along with the sword from George Washington, there were many other items buried with Little Turtle, most of which have been lost.
At the time, no one knew the identity of the person they uncovered.
So, some of the laborers were allowed to take some of the stuff they found as “curious mementos,” and the skull was presented to Dr. M. W. Ivins (the dentist).
Eventually Little Turtle’s skull was sent to the US Museum (now known as the Smithsonian) for study.
When the Tribe requested its return, the people at the museum said that the skull they received was that of a young woman,
and, upon later inquiries, that it was lost.
Today his remains are buried beneath a monument, except for the goods he was buried with
and his skull which is now missing from the Smithsonian.
The goods are scattered throughout the U.S. but are being sought after by the Miami tribe for reburial.
The whereabouts on Little Turtle’s skull is still unknown. The real question is what now?
How can archaeologists right this wrong and all those like it?
It is a field of study that has the power to do some real good for oppressed peoples,
but instead this power was used to further subjugate people who were already under the yoke of colonialism.
But why are the remains of Native Americans so disproportionately in the hands
of colonial institutions like universities and museums?
Why are museums and archaeologists so reluctant to return things that don't belong to them?
Why do they feel so strongly about maintaining control of the remains of other cultural and ethnic groups?
To answer these questions, you have to go back to the 19th century concepts of Hyperdiffusion and Cultural Evolution.
Hyperdiffusion proposes that the origin of all culture came from a single, technologically or spiritually
advanced group of people and diffused out to the rest of humanity over time.
Advocates of this concept believed that Diffusion alone could not account for similar architectural and artistic
styles around the world, so they turned to the lost continents.
This was justified by comparing Mayan Temples and Egyptian Pyramids,
and by conjuring hoaxes like the Crystal Skull of Doom or the Mu Stones.
Just because modern archaeology dismissed this idea, it doesn't mean that the idea went away.
You may recognize elements of it in Ancient Aliens. How are Extraterrestrials any different than Atlanteans?
They’re not. They are both fictitious and imply that indigenous culture is not original,
arguing that they are derived from a more advanced, civilized, and mysterious other.
They both steal the history and accomplishments of indigenous people and attribute them to people that don't
exist because of a belief that  ‘primitive’ cultures were not capable of doing it...which leads into our next theory.
Cultural evolution proposes that communities evolved from non-organized societies to large nation-state societies over time,
which could sound reasonable in certain contexts. The problem is that 19th century Western thinkers
put themselves as the pinnacle of human society.
Therefore, as the more evolved culture,  they had a responsibility to colonize others and help them catch up.
Archaeologists like to think that they have walked away from the worst of this idea, but ask yourself something;
if this is the case, why do museum specialists and archaeologists position themselves as caretakers and interpreters of history?
Long story short it's because of the Victorian ideals about the role of the colonizer and the colonized persist.
Indigenous people are still characterized as not capable of managing their own history.
Ultimately, whose history is it? How do we correct the colonialist reality of our current institutions?
Archaeology and by extension anthropology used to be ethnocentric, colonial, and racist and it reflected the power structure of the time.
Today…. It is getting better. Natives themselves can be the archaeologists or ethnographers that do the field work,
they can have a say on how and what is done in anthropology especially with the implementation of nagpra in 1990.
Nagpra is a very powerful tool that Natives can use to get their ancestors' remains and grave goods back but is not the only one.
Native owned companies like Algonquin consultants can conduct archaeological excavations while being respectful of decedent's wishes.
Universities and museums are actually listening to what tribes have to say.
Still, institutions, museums and even archaeologists still hoard the material remains of natives with a terrible fervor that has yet to be wholly cured.
Now, Little Turtle was neither the first nor the last Indigenous person to have their remains disturbed, stolen, and held in museums.
Ishi was a Yahi man from what is now northern California who had lost his entire community to war and disease.
He eventually came to be a living exhibit for the University of California, working with the anthropologist Kroeber.
When Ishi died in 1916, Kroeber had his brain removed, sending it to the Smithsonian.
It was kept there until 2000, when it was returned to  the Yana Tribe.
A more recent example is Kennewick man, or rather The Ancient One as he is called by his decendents.
He lived 9000 years ago and was a prehistoric ancestor to the First Nations of the State of Washington.
Archaeologists stumbled upon his remains in a riverbank near the city of Kennewick in 1996, and quickly sent him to the Smithsonian for study.
In 2004 his descendants requested his remains be returned to them for burial under NAGPRA.
After over 12 years of legal fighting, he was tested for DNA and repatriated to the Colville Nation for reburial.
Institutions and museums like the Smithsonian have the bulk of the say when it comes to deciding who owns what.
In Western culture we tend to focus on the idea of the museum as a space for preservation, we feel that there is
an obligation to keep and display items in both the pursuit of knowledge, and the pursuit of power.
Defining museums in this way does a disservice to native communities and public audiences.
It leaves out the agency of the tribe and attributes a false representation of complete objectivity to institutions.
One of the myths that museums use to justify not repatriating artifacts is that they do not see native communities as capable of managing them.
According to Dr. Christina Kreps, museums should not be thought of purely in the Western context.
Instead, we should integrate practices regarding the treatment of objects from the descendant communities.
This allows the community to exercise agency over their cultural and material heritage.
So besides attitudes and opinions about repatriation, what is keeping museums from giving more artifacts back to tribes?
Surprisingly, semantics. Under NAGPRA, different phrases that museums use to describe objects
for repatriation are to match their purpose, for example “Sacred Objects” are those used to practice religion.
However, whatever term is chosen to designate an item is up to the museums and not the tribes,
leading to a discrepancy that favors the museum.
Discrepancies like this call into question not only museums’ intentions, but the overall effectiveness of NAGPRA in serving native communities.
Institutions often do not want to give up their academic freedoms.
While remains and objects are left on shelves and in drawers in storage, some scientists feel that reburial is directly opposed to  archaeology.
“If we lose our data, how are we to fight against incorrect assertions?”
One way is to effectively consult with native scholars themselves about artifacts and to include them in the design of exhibitions.
When we fail to do this, we perpetuate falsities, and do a disservice to our audience as well as to the communities represented.
The Plains Indians: Artists of the Earth and Sky exhibit, shown at the MET, fell into this trap when it failed to include native curatorial partners
As a result, the exhibit was criticized by Joe Horse Capture, a native scholar.
The exhibit creators asked him to give his input on the exhibit but he refused when he learned that none of the staff working on the project were Natives.
As is the case with most museums, the MET relied heavily on free consultation provided by Natives who they claimed were difficult to locate.
This puts the museum in the position where they have the power to reject the input of their Native consultants,
while still asserting that they made the effort.
One way to improve the relationship between museums and the descendant communities,
is to include native scholars in the exhibit staff - and to pay them accordingly for their cultural knowledge.
Going forward, museums cannot be half in-half out, using laws and loopholes to get around accepting responsibility for their past and present mistakes.
Institutions should not be on the wrong side of history once again.
Archaeologists and museum specialists have used racism and ethnocentrism to justify their acts throughout history.
But things are shifting. These fields are gradually becoming more inclusive,
with Natives’ general participation in exhibition, return, and reburial of artifacts becoming more common.
One of the ways that archaeologists and museum specialists can fight against injustice
is by combating the myths that were allowed to persist within their frameworks for so long.
Furthermore, archaeologists and museum specialists need to work with native communities and employ their scholars wherever possible.
Not because they are required by law, but because they recognize Natives’ valid interests in the past.
Organizations like the WAC have been making strides in this regard,
requiring that archaeologists develop their research questions in conjunction with Natives.
By cultivating healthy relationships with communities archaeologists and museum specialists
may have better access to avenues previously closed to them.
There will be an inherent change if all of these measures are adopted.
The disciplines will no longer be the same. But we only stand to gain from these changes.
Today there are all sorts of people who are writing and working on improving archaeology.
For example, Dr. Joe Watkins, a Choctaw archaeologist, worked at the University of Oklahoma where he was the director of Native american studies at the university.
In addition to teaching, he was on Time Team America,
a U.K. archaeology show that tried its hand at a U.S. audience.
However he is not the only example of a native archaeologist.
Algonquin Consultants is a Native owned archaeology firm based in Oklahoma but with an office in New mexico.
Rebecca Hawkins founder and CEO spends her time digging in the dirt as well as fighting for native rights over their own material past.
It is not just Natives who are fighting for their rights, many members of the community at large
as well as professors and politicians are fighting to change the practices of archaeology and museum curation.
Natives are not alone in their fight for rights, with allies like Dr. Leighton Peterson of Miami university and Dr. Randall McGuire of The State University of New York.
Allies who are fighting back against the stereotypes and misinformation spread over the literal centuries of racism that Natives have had to deal with.
Archaeology and museums are often seen as separate from the public, spaces where you as a layperson cannot influence.
However, there are plenty of opportunities out there for you to get involved.
You don’t have to be an archaeologist, a museum professional, a scholar, scientist, etc. to become educated on native issues and the importance of repatriation.
Becoming an important voice in your community could involve something as simple as attending local meetings like one with your local archaeological association,
your local museum association, a statewide association, or the American Association for State and Local History.
It could involve volunteering with the National Parks Service working as a docent
or creating educational materials like this video.
Playing a part in the management of your community’s heritage is a rewarding experience.
Every step we take in this direction is a step forward,
and with the help of your voice and ideas we can further the cause for the inclusion of native scholars and repatriation.
