Native American Tribe Wants to Promote Ignorance

The tribal leaders who are promoting this agenda are disgusting. They want to repatriate remains and artifacts from a museum and rebury them (indeed, from the sound of the article, they want to repatriate everything in every museum in the country, and deprive everyone in the United States any access to the pre-European history of this country), so that people can no longer look, study and learn. That stance is nothing less than the willful promotion of ignorance. If this tribe truly wants Native American remains to be reburied (assuming they are Native American), fine - but the artifacts belong to everyone, to be available for learning and educating everyone on the history of mankind. From United Press International Tribe wants university to return remains Published: April 17, 2008 at 7:47 PM DETROIT, April 17 (UPI) -- A group of Native Americans is demanding that the University of Michigan return the tribal remains and artifacts it has acquired. Led by the Saginaw Chippewa of Mount Pleasant, Mich., the Native Americans say hundreds of human remains, and the funerary objects buried with them, are being wrongly held, and they want to rebury them, The Detroit News reported Thursday. The controversy pits one of the nation's most renowned archeology departments against one of the nation's most wealthy tribes. "This is a first step. The University of Michigan was a logical move," said Shannon Martin, director of the tribe's Ziibiwing Center, a $9 million museum on the Chippewa's reservation. "We thought we would go with the most difficult (institution) and stake our claim and position." David Hurst Thomas, the curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said the controversy is simple. "It's about power and control of the past and who gets to tell the story of the past," he said. © 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form. ****************************************************************************************** Consider the wider issues. This isn't just about reburying remains. James Cuno is president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the author of “Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage,” published by Princeton University Press in 2008, writes about the issues and problems in Who Owns the Past? - Antiquities from great cultures belong to humanity, not nation states that emerged centuries later (April 21, 2008).