 Good afternoon, everybody. We're going to start in just a minute. My name is Mike Morneau. I'm with Learning Times. I'll be your producer today, and it's a pleasure to be here with you. Before we get started, I'd like to draw your attention to a couple of things. One, you'll see that there is closed captioning in place for this webinar. If you do not see it, you can click the CC Live Transcripts button at the bottom of your screen and select Show Subtitles. If you wish to hide them, simply turn them off by clicking CC Live Transcript High Subtitles. You'll also see at the bottom of the screen are two opportunities for you to interact. One of them is the chat window. The other one is the Q&A. We will ask if you could please submit questions for our presenter today via the Q&A box, and if you have any just general comments or if you want to tell us where you're coming from, use the chat window. I'm joining you from just outside of Toronto, Ontario, where it is very cold by my standards, but anyway, probably colder for some of you. And I spoke to somebody yesterday in Minnesota who was having an absolutely frigid time, so I felt better, but anyway, hopefully you're all keeping warm wherever you are. So without further delay, if you have any questions with regards to the Zoom platform, please feel free to let me know in the chat. I'll help you out, and we'll pass things off to our host, Robin Bauer-Kungo. Robin, go ahead. Hi, everyone. Welcome to our C2C Care webinar basics of NAGPRA. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that this webinar is being moderated on the traditional lands of the Mikosuke and Seminole people and their ancestors, and I pay my respect to elders both past and present. Well, again, welcome. This is another one of our C2C Carefree webinars. We're happy to have you join us. Please go ahead. Everyone's using the chat wonderfully saying hello from the location throughout, which I appreciate. I'm beaming in from the Florida Keys, so this time of year I tried not to talk about weather because for us it's actually really nice out right now. I'm going to go through a couple of quick introductory slides, and then I'm going to hand this over to our presenter, which we're very excited to have today. So give me just one second. Again, we are here for basics of NAGPRA. We're going to be running this program from 1 to 230 Eastern. My name is, again, Robin Bauer-Kilgo. I am the C2C Care coordinator and you just saw Mike Morneau. He's our senior producer at Learning Times. If at any time you have any questions about the platform or anything else, please go ahead and put them in the chat and we'll give it an answer to you as quickly as we can. This is our home on the web. If you are joining us for the first time, it is ConnectingToCollections.org. I encourage you to go check it out for archives of all of our past programming. We have a lot of programming, so I encourage you to go check that out. We also have our courses listed there, our course archive, which are slightly different. Our courses are a little bit more in depth, but after a year of it being a paid program, you can actually access the content for free, so I encourage you to go there as well. We also have a link to our community. Our community is a moderated platform where you can go and ask questions of professionals to get answers when it comes to collections care and preventive collections or conservation. So again, I encourage you to go check that out as well. We also have curated resources on my website. So again, go there. You can find all sorts of fun resources on all sorts of projects or things related to the collections world. So again, I encourage you to go check it out when you can. Currently, we have one CDC care webinar on the books coming up in April. There's a lot more in the works. We're probably having another one. We try to do one a month. So there's one happening in March that's almost ready to be launched. So again, go to our website. You'll find information on it there probably next week. So we are definitely doing one on collections intake in a remote work environment, which is a nice long title but basically as the past couple years have showed us we now work from home mainly so we have a presenter talking about a bunch of different things that we've dealt with come to virtual signatures come to looking at collections they come to us, mainly through a virtual setting now so again I encourage you to sign up for that webinar should be really interesting to kind of hear some of the technologies folks are dealing with. So we're doing programming being scheduled for the annual May Day of, I guess celebration that FAC and AIC have every year where we really focus on emergency and disaster planning so again go to our website and you'll be able to sign up for those webinars for free. We have two places where you can find information for us in social media as well we have our Twitter feed and our Facebook page announcements for all upcoming programming can be found there. Like said, as attendees to this program you have two ways to interact with us one is via the chat box and one is via the Q&A box. Chat boxes for technical questions general comments folks saying hello which you guys are doing wonderfully at for usual Q&A box is for questions we will have a Q&A period at the end of the presentation. I do encourage you to use that Q&A box for questions so if you have a question at any moment put it in there and we'll track it at that point. I'll also note that we are recording this webinar and there's certain resources in a presentation that are going to be available for you on our website after it's done as well. So I'm going to stop our share and see about handing this over to our speaker today. Our speaker today is Eric Hemingway from the Anishabh Ottawa tribes. He is director of department of repatriation archives and records little traverse fans of Ottawa Indians he has worked in the tribal archives for 16 years and has extensive experience under NAGPRA. Whenever you're ready Eric you're more than welcome to take over the presentation and we will see you at the end of the Q&A. Thanks and go right ahead. All right. Well I'd like to say thank you Miigwech. Thank you in my native language. I'd like to give a traditional introduction of who I am it helps get me centered, helps my train of thought and any type of engagement talks that I give. I apologize for any mistakes I make in advance I'm still trying to learn my native language, day by day word by word. I'm Eric Hemingway from Aka Cross Village Michigan that's in the land of Wagon Uxing is basically Emmett County northern Michigan, and I am the director of archives and records for little traverse Bay Bands of Odell Indians, one of 12 federally recognized tribes here in the state of Michigan, and I'm very happy to be here to share my, my work in my life that have now intersected completely at this point, and to share a little bit about NAGPRA. For a little bit about my experience with NAGPRA I was doing NAGPRA exclusively for about eight years of my work here at Little Travers I no longer do NAGPRA officially for the tribe or any tribes at this point, I've kind of stepped into a training role a helper role and helping museums and institutions understand NAGPRA, but for about seven to eight years. That's all I did was repatriation. I stepped into this role I had no idea what repatriation like had a clue what repatriation was but I didn't know what NAGPRA was until my boss and one day we're going to hand this duty off to you I just started my job so I just knew nothing about it. But I do you know did my research very quickly and found out what it was and it just was a no brainer that you know we work to have our ancestors returned and sacred objects returned as well. And a lot of my, well, all of my experience has been through doing the work. So I, in my trainings I share a lot of stories that I've accumulated over the last 16 years of doing the work, and plus you know, some of the experiences that help build the foundation for doing the work I'll be sharing with you this afternoon, but with repatriation. It's it's a very important and ongoing. I don't want to say chore, but it's a task it's a it's a sacred duty for a lot of tribes to do this. And, you know, it comes in a lot of different forms so we'll look at that but I want to say me Gwetch to everybody for taking the time to be here it's always humbling to be, you know in front of people sharing especially in this day and age when we're sitting in front of screens and devices all the time so few so for people to take even more time to be sitting in, you know, a chair in front of a computer is very humbling to me. So we'll get right into it nagpah. So nagpah is a federal law, it is a federal law that was passed in 1990. And in my mind, the Native American grace protection repatriate repatriation act is an extension of the 1978 Indian religious freedom act. So native people had to have a federal law pass late in the 20th century to ensure that their constitutional human and civil rights are honored in the terms of religious and spiritual practice no other race has a law that pertains strictly to the religion like natives do. So 1978 it was finally passed, but there was a lot of oppression and a lot of damage done up until that point with natives not being able to fully practice their religion, their traditions or spirituality, but also during this time a lot of ancestral remains were taken out of the ground and put into museums and federal agencies and private repositories and, and the like so we needed, you know, the Indian religious freedom act to express and practice and carry out our beliefs, but it needed to go one step further in my mind and that was with nagpah where we had to have the ancestors come back and a large component of a lot of native beliefs are the ancestors. They all differ in some regards no no one tribe is the same as the other tribe and it's a thing I want to get out there right away that we're not this homogeneous people, we're not all Indians. We're all sovereign independent tribes and nations and communities who have different languages, beliefs customs, interactions with our environments. So that's something that needs to be addressed immediately because I've gone into conversations with museums who had never talked with a native person had never dealt with the native person and they're drawn upon their preconceived notions of what a native is a lot of times from pop culture and movies and media, and we have to just start breaking you know misconception down immediately that we are an issue of a we're all down these are our beliefs. This is where we're from. So that's one of the starting points, but the dead, the ancestors is something that transcends a lot of different tribal communities, but how the interact with their ancestors is unique to them so you have to take that into account when you have these. I always call them collections always call them, you know, ancestors or, you know, these people, if you have them in your collection that they have to be dealt with individually, but I'm going to a little bit ahead of myself. So that was this law is passed in 1990. And it's very specific and what it applies to. So it applies to ancestral native American human remains, and is this broader term called cultural items and under this term it's sacred objects objects of cultural patrimony. So we'll get into what those are in more detail later, but we're just going to go through the basics. So what are our objectives what is NAG for who's it applied to what are some of the basics and why was NAG for creative. So this is just the nitty gritty I call it if you want to look you know up what the law is and what the regulations say I mean, I always encourage anybody do to do this when I was practicing NAG for full time. I had a copy of the law and regulations right on my desk so I could refer to those, and I would highlight certain sections that I would was more. You know, rhythm with at the time and especially with human remains that was a large priority for the tribe that I was working for at the time. Doing this was get the ancestors back first, and then we'll concentrate on sacred items and object items object cultural patrimony to me with which are very close. But again, this is what the tribe I was working with the priority for them this could differ from tribe to tribe, but it seems like across the board that return of ancestral human remains was the priority. And NAG pro applies to any institution that has received federal funding. So it can be a municipality, it can be of course a state it can be a university museum, a township, you know, if you've received federal funds. But to be a one time basis a grant to fix a roof or road, or you know some funding for for scholarships whatever you apply as a museum under NAG pro. So, it was very diverse and what type of organization or group you're going to work with it wasn't always the, the atypical museum or university worked a lot with cities. You know they would be going through and doing road construction and do water main maintenance and so on and so forth and they would find individuals, maybe just one individual it'd be a mass burial. And then once they take control and possession of those ancestral remains, then they become a museum and have to comply with the law and there's some things are going to have to go through that we'll talk about. The Smithsonian does not fall under NAG where they have their own set of rules and regulations that is just specific to the Smithsonian. So, natural history and National Museum of the American Indian, they have their own separate repatriation law that you can look up. And NAG, NAG towards multifaceted property law civil rights, human rights and but it's also Indian law. And this is something that's very specific for for tribal communities and tribal nations these laws, whether it's any child welfare act any religious freedom act. So natives have a lot of legislation that applies to them more so than any other population in the United States. So this is a long line of federal legislation that is applied towards native individual but it's just more recent. And it's also a little bit more diverse in terms of where, where it can go into, you know, such as a city or museum or federal agency. It addresses tribes, and it also addresses native Hawaiian organizations, and they're, they operate differently than tribes in the lower 48. And it also applies of course communities in Alaska, which operate a little bit differently. But also touches on religion science, land history and the relationship of native communities with the federal government, all of this falls under NAG so it's a pretty dynamic piece of legislation. And it's not for apply to like you said anybody who has received federal funding. When I first started doing repatriation work, one of the first tasks I had to perform and execute was where the museums in my state, you know, I'm focusing on Michigan, and who does this apply to. And so once I figure out, you know how, how this works under the law could be a city, it could be, you know, a local organization started to reach out to these different institutions that have received federal funding, and how I knew that they had federal funding or museum under NAG is that under the regulations, if you are a museum under NAG, but you have to submit an inventory of all the native human remains you have in your collection, that inventory is uploaded to the National NAG for website. You go to the National NAG website, you go to the inventories and summaries databases, and you can browse by state or institution so I went to the state of Michigan, and all of the museums who submitted inventories were listed, and it said it had the data of how many individuals they had. If we knew the provenience in any funerary objects, but the big number was we call MNI minimum number of individuals they had to know exactly how many individuals that were in their control. And so, when they found this out they would have to upload it's part of being in compliance with the law. All these institutions these museums would upload these inventories into the national website so I go in I go to Michigan, and then there's just dozens of institutions that had submitted these because that's what they're supposed to do under the law. So from that point on I would just contact those institutions and say you know I got your information from the database. I know you have these individuals. So what let's go to the next step you know let's let's go through consultation, because it is our desire to have these individuals returned and rebury. So, some of the institutions I worked with immediately were the smaller museum sometimes they'd have a staff of two or three, a budget of next to nothing. They got in compliance immediately as soon as they could, you know some of these institutions got their inventories and you know 1992 93 94. Some didn't at all, it just kind of fell through the cracks. And so they had to submit their inventories much later, but long story short we will start in these discussions about you know what repatriation is and but before I started to get into the nitty gritty of the law. You know I would explain to this, this museum, why it's important for the tribe. Why are we here in these conversations, and we would explain that to the odawa care taking for the dead is one of our longest and most steadfast traditions. You know that we have what we call a ghost supper to this very day or G by supper G by is our native word for spirit of the dead. So this record is called the feast of the dead. And we still have these ghost uppers to this very day in our communities. And I grew up with these ghost uppers in my home, I'm going to other homes of a no odawa in northern Michigan as a very young child to my earliest memories. So, these experiences became part of the consultation. And I would talk about, you know, going to these uppers and feeding our ancestors and it's more than a memorial. It's so we're actually having a connection to our dead and we're keeping them fed and prosperous and they return, you know that to us when we take care of them. And so this, you know, retrieving repatriation and reburial is an extension of that care taking for the dead it's something we never did before. So we go in and, you know, claim ancestors that were taken out of the ground it's it's something that just did not happen but now it has. So we've adjusted, you know, our beliefs to go and get them and bring them back. So that's really, you know, some of the basis for why this is important I think that's very, very important if you're stepping into these, you know, conversations and consultations with tribal nations to let them express that if they feel comfortable but this really helped accelerate the process when we were able to have these conversations in a safe place. Preferably face to face consultation we would explain why we're doing this, the importance of it. And once we had, you know, that conversation or conversations. You know, it just seemed to go pretty well, you know, they understood the museum's understood what was going on. And we started to look at the details of the law, but I wanted to bring forth, you know, the culture traditions beliefs. Just at the same time as a lot because in our minds, they were equal, you know we needed to law to accomplish this, but this was also important in our community this is why we're doing it. So it's very important to have this these conversations during consultation. So, again, who does this apply to applies to any museum that's received funding all federal agencies across the board no matter if you're the Department of Defense, the Army the Marines, the Bureau of Land Management, National Forest, you know if you're a federal agency, you have to comply. And they have some of the largest collections they have very large collections especially out west I've seen some of the Bureau of Land collections, you know they covered me literally millions of acres. So it just depends on your state in your area. You know in Michigan we don't have a very large presence of a federal land management there's some, some national parks and so on and so forth but it's not like out west. And so it really varies from state to state area to area. Again, it applies to all tribes. It applies to native wine organizations, Alaska corporations, but also applies to we call a lineal descendant. And this is an individual can trace an unbroken kinship to an individual or an item. So, we know descendant claims actually are the strongest under the law they will actually override a tribal claim and the lineal descendant and it doesn't have to be, you know, a member of a federally recognized tribe. So we know that they have an unbroken connection documented to an individual and or January objects or sacred objects. So, they're a little bit rare. Actually quite a bit, but they do occur. So these, this is where an Agpro applies. An Agpro also covers a lot of land. And it applies to all federal and tribal lands across the board so whether it's, you know, and tribal land also includes within the boundaries of a reservation. So reservations are different from tribe to tribe nation to nation they're not all the same. I mean that's just something I want to get out right away that everything is unique to each individual tribe, especially when it comes to land. Like, for instance, you know, east of the Mississippi we don't have the real large reservations like west of the Mississippi and Wyoming and Arizona and New Mexico. They're very different but they're still there. And when, as that applies, it applies to within the established boundaries of a reservation so if those boundaries are established. So the land within those boundaries that can be whether it's private state tribal, you know if it's within that established boundary Nagpro applies. And so it applies to all trust lands applies all federal lands. And again this is more of an issue out west, because of the huge amounts of federal land so if there's, you know, an invert discovery of human remains or cultural objects. So the agency, you know, should have some type of protocol protocol in place where they contact, you know, the set tribes who have Aboriginal ties history to that area and they go through the process consultation what to do next and so on and so forth. And not every tribe has a reservation. Not every tribe has, we call, you know, a defined reservation boundary so you have to really know your Indian country and Indian country is a term that's like law culture populations news pertaining to tribes. And if you're a museum in a certain state, you know, I really behooved you to look at, you know, what tribes are around you and what is, what is their status do they have federal recognition do they have reservations, you know, you know, who are their contacts, where is their home base at and so on and so forth. So when the time comes to carry out the consultation, you know, you know who you're dealing with. And you have, you know, at least a basic idea of, of their, their standing. So this can vary from tribe to tribe and just within a state. So again, if you're interacting with one tribe that doesn't mean that that same experience resources etc applied to all these other tribes within your state. Again, I also encourage you know look at each state has its own burial and antiquities laws. Some are stronger than others, like for example here in Michigan. It's not so strong. We've gone through some cases here in northern Michigan, where, you know, we've had private landowners who have, you know, putting in a foundation or a pole barn, and they discovered burials and under the law here in Michigan specifically. You know whatever is found on private property belongs to the property owner. So they can do whatever they want with these individuals. So we've tried to work out, you know, some type of awareness to the general public here that, you know, the tribe takes repatriation very seriously under the law. But, you know, when the law doesn't apply we still can repatriate. So, you know, when we were doing this work. We would, you know, engage in the media a little bit and do some articles and just let people know that this is something the tribes do and you know the public was pretty interested about this you know that the tribe would go through and say wow you know they're, they got this whole department and and staff and there's this federal law that, you know, says we're going to go and, you know, we, you know get our ancestors back and this is you know something that transcends a lot of human beliefs that you know care taken for the dead. And doing this individuals were coming to us, you know, and said hey you know we were doing this work and we found this, and they would bring them to my office and, you know, say hey you know we know this is a resource now. We want you to do the right thing so we would, you know, of course take them and rebury them in the fashion that we were taught and so it's became, it still goes on. You know people are finding individuals or, you know, we've gotten contacts when people and one of these scenarios this woman called me and she goes out I want to talk to you I see you do this work and can we meet somewhere but make you know it's not too public you know she suggested we meet behind the grocery store and but a little bit later like eight o'clock and night it was in the summer and this kind of sounds kind of shady but you know I gotta see what's going on with that she said she really wanted to give, give us something. You know, go in and go behind the store and there's this of course it's a white van no windows and I'm like great this is. This isn't going so well and they flash the lights and I knew as an individual and this you know, little old lady gets out and, and she says you know I want to give this to you and I'm pretty shamed about this that you know my father passed and we're going through as a state and we found this box of human remains and he was a quote unquote amateur archaeologists and he was digging around the area when he was a young man and taken out individuals and he kept them. But inside the box you know we had handwritten notes you know Ottawa burial so and so and so we knew you know it was our people. And so we took the individuals and this is NAGPRA didn't apply whatsoever because NAGPRA NAGPRA doesn't apply to private collections or international collections. But we use NAGPRA as sort of a way to open the door a segue into this broader, you know, work of repatriation so we got these individuals back and reburied them so this still goes on. So this is really the spirit of the law that you can open up the conversations even broader. And then it's really important with with NAGPRA is control and possession. So these are two very important legal terms and that you have to have control legal control of the remains or items in order to carry out the law. Now just because you have physical possession doesn't mean you have legal say over those items or individuals. Sometimes things will get loaned to different institutions, museums, federal agencies. And man did we see this trade of items go on a lot in the early 20th century, where we contact one museum, and they say well, you know, in 1940 this item was loaned to another museum from here. And it was kind of wink and a handshake and a nod, there was hardly any paperwork. So we go to that museum and say oh yeah we have this item, but then this item was loaned in return so it's become was a real struggle at times to figure out exactly who had control, who could, you know, legally repatriate the items back. Just because you have possession you have it in your physical custody doesn't mean you have the legal say to go and do this. And so it's really important to have, you know that information in line immediately is what is ours. And what isn't if we have things not alone, you know where's the loan agreement. Where's the paperwork saying that this other institution has control and we have only merely possession that that's absolutely critical. You can't go forward, you know under the law without having that established from the get go. So thankfully, most of the institutions I dealt with they had a pretty good idea of who had control and who had possession but loans were very common. And in one instance we were dealing with a federal agency, and it was for human remains. And we were going through the process I contacted them. And they said yes we have some of the remains that's listed on the inventory. I said wait, what do you mean you have some of them like well the other half of the collection or remains is that this other museum. So I contacted the museum, like yes we have this other collection, but we don't have control we just have possession. It's not loan from the agency. So I contacted the agency back say oh no no they have control, we only have possession we're just holding them for the museum. There wasn't a lot of communication going on. I don't think there've been communication going on concerning this collection for decades. So it took years for the situation to finally resolve and say that the agency had control. They had the legal say. And when that happened, the remains went from the museum back to the agency. We went through the repatriation process we put in a claim for the remains. The claim with multiple tribes could be shared this ancestral territory with different tribes, we put a joint claim in, and the remains were returned to the tribes. And at the end of the day we were able to go back and rebury, almost exactly to where the remains originally came from within the park so that's possible. So when you have a situation where you have, you know, federal land. I really strongly urge, you know, to, to explore that option because reburial for tribes isn't isn't always set a lot of tribes don't have, you know, land to where they, you know, secure land where they can rebury. So sometimes tribes explore the option of reburying on federal lands especially if they can get it close to where the individuals are from that's goal of a lot of tribes. So, we were able to actually rebury within actual feet where the where the remains which is pretty rare, but we had to get that settled first of who had control and who had possession. So some key terms that we want to look at real quick. And that, you know, museum. And with tribe. That's a, that's a, that's a pretty broad term and there is a, you know, there's what we have in the United States we have federally recognized tribes and not fully recognized. And this is a slippery slope at times, and I'm not going to get into who's a tribe and who's not. But there is a hierarchy, you know, the federally recognized tribes are the tribes have preference first. And then but it's not to say that non fairly recognize can't operate under the law they can. So, there's different avenues where non fairly recognized tribe can go in and repatriate. Many times they have to be in cooperation with the locally federally recognized tribe. But if there is no locally federally federally recognized tribe, then the non federally recognized tribe can go in and execute repatriations. Sometimes they have to go before the review committee to do this the National NAC review committee. Sometimes they don't. So I don't want to say that it's always federally recognized that that's not the case. The federal agency is pretty self explanatory talked about when you'll descendants native Hawaiian organizations are obviously Hawaii and they have different relationships with the federal government they don't have treaties, like the lower 48 do they don't have reservations like the lower 48 do so it's a very different dynamic in Hawaii. So if you have collections from Hawaii, you have these NHOs and I believe there's over 200 of these NHOs. There's quite a bit. So you have to go in and just really immerse yourself into Hawaii. It's not like here in the lower 48. So sacred objects sacred objects are one of the, the key items that fall under NAG from this is something that I worked a lot with smaller institutions. When I was doing NAG for full time, and the sense that they were so inventories apply to human remains and associated theory objects with those remain that's very straightforward. I would encourage you if you have human remains, you know, complete your inventory of course or update it, but also when we're working with smaller institutions who had human remains that you have an osteologist or some type of forensic anthropologist go through, you know, a lot of times we're finding animals that were buried with people. And so they had to go through and say okay this is an otter bone or a bare bone or whatever. And that would become an associated theory object to that burial, because a lot of you know they were just coming out they would literally put this animal on top of the individual as part of, you know, the burial. So we had to go through and it changed the number of the inventory the minimum number of individuals, then it changed the number for, you know your funerary objects. So if you don't have that really dialed down I really encourage you to go through and do that work. But then consulting with museums, you know what is a sacred object. And that became the million dollar question a lot of time because you know sacred objects vary from from tribe to tribe individual to individual. So, a lot of times we'd have to just go through and just kind of walk through the collections with museum staff as part of the consultation. And just pull drawers open and look, and I would give my my opinion of what is sacred and what isn't based on my experiences. I've been in Ishinaabe, growing up in the culture and the heritage and traditions, and also, you know, from my historical knowledge. And this is my opinion, you know, you know, you can bring other native individuals to consult what they may have different opinions that's fine. But we go through a look. And it really stand out for our tribe. And this usually applies to other tribes like eagle feathers, hawk feathers, drums pipes made out of pipe stone or catlinite it's a redstone that's found in Minnesota, a lot of tribes use this pipe and ceremonies. So those are, you know, things that kind of I call the low hanging fruit you know we see eagle feathers that's a sacred object we use these a lot different ways. But then there was other things that are more specific to the Odawa, you know, certain rattles certain types of drums, certain types of carvings. And they would just label these as dowels, like no that's an effigy at something that was using a certain type of ceremony. So this item that was flying under the radar as a dowel now all of a sudden becomes a sacred object. So you really have to bring in, you know, tribal individuals tribal experts, and have them look at your collections, because it is so varied it can be simple little rocks. You know from your archaeology collection, but a lot of rocks are using ceremonies for different tribes. And I've seen rocks using ceremonies so I would know, you know, very specific types of rocks I would see these I was like that that's using a ceremony. I've seen the ceremony first hand. And so again that shifts from one collection to and to the sacred objects. And through the process, you know we would determine on our end. And again this is just from our perspective. Do we pursue this item or not. I've talked to some other tribal individuals, you know, who don't pursue the objects immediately because they're not ready to have the objects come back in their communities. So you may be going through the process and have an object labeled as a sacred object, and the tribes don't put in a claim. That's that's a discretion of the tribe. And there's a lot of discussion and consultation within the tribal communities that has to go on first whether we can manage it, who can use it, so on and so forth. A lot of times, these sacred objects have to be brought back and put to rest. So who's going to do that, how's it going to go down, and so on and so forth. And so, when doing the consultation with sacred objects, I mean just, I really encourage you to have an open slate, you know, very open mind on this, and also that no tribes have gone through quite quite a bit of change in the last 300 years. I mean there's been a lot of traditions that have been lost individuals have gone to carry that knowledge. And it's really unfair to come in and think that these tribal individuals are going to know everything. You know there's been concentrated efforts to eliminate tribal culture, language, religion for the last 300 years. And one of these vehicles for this force of simulation is Indian boarding schools. So this has been in the news quite a bit lately. In Canada last year they found literally hundreds of children buried around what they call residential schools it's the same as our boarding school same institution, no government run institutions of force of simulation. So I brought up this whole painful history that most tribes know about, you know they know about these boarding schools there's over 360 of these schools in the United States. So that's part of this legacy is very dark legacy of loss of knowledge and culture and tribes are piecing it together some some tribes have more tradition and cultural knowledge and other tribes. But it's very unfair to expect that tribes know all of this stuff right from the get go as soon as they come in. And this happened in some consultations. And other times I haven't. So I just want to put that out there that tribes may have had this item taken out their community over 100 200 years ago, and it never came back. So you have to find people who have pieces of this information and have to consult amongst themselves with these sacred objects and not know all these items are always used for positive manner. So there actually was a city in Michigan, and it's one of the last concentrations I did for the tribe here and they just received a large collection from a private donor. So these individuals, especially during the early 20th century, they're buying they were taking they were leaving I mean they were just accumulating all this stuff. They just had this, you know, thousands of items and he donated it to the city right before he died in the city said, Oh, we have this stuff what do we do with it. And, you know, when they're one of their lawyers said I think some of the stuff applies to Nagpro we have to talk to tribal nations about this, and we're going through the collection and they just had just the stunning items you know they had go stand in the Shemout West and they had this wedding dress from. I think it was a Cheyenne or just had all these elk molars and it was just stunning. And I think, you know, I don't know anything about this I think it's culturally relative to little tribes you have to contact them. But then we got to a few items that said, you know, Ottawa, and it had, you know little pouches, and, and some of the descriptions of this, you know what we call medicine. And medicine is a very broad term in Indian country to apply to a lot of different things. But how they were phrasing the term medicine wasn't in the most positive way. And I think it had some hair in there and so I was like we don't. We're not ready to engage with this yet. You know this may be a negative type of thing but it's still a sacred thing. So if you're working with the museum and say, for this item we asked that, you know, it's off limits that people don't touch it that be wrapped in certain colors cloth and that we provide other medicines to be housed with it. And those would be cedar and sweet grass and some other things sort of bounce it out. So this may be something that you may engage with with a tribe when talking about these sacred objects that they may ask you, can you, you know, have these cultural objects in place, while they're here, before we pick them up. And so you, I've been in a lot of museums where they have a long list next to a box, and you know, do this do this don't do this don't do this. And so it's really, really gratifying to see that the museum was honoring those those beliefs that's again the spirit of the law they didn't have to do this for these sacred objects. We also, you know, have to know about contamination, that if there was something used on this item to preserve it, especially in like the 3040s and 50s. Arsenic lead, these really harsh chemicals, especially the you know real fragile organics like feathers. If I see a feather that's in pristine shape that shiny from 1920. I'm not going to touch it, you know, we got to get this thing tested stones and metal not so much but the leathers and the feathers, things of that nature. If they're really, really good shape and got that sheen. That's those are some red flags. So we encourage you if you have items to get them tested at some point. And, you know, make sure that they're not just safe for the tribal people for your staff as well. And so that's one of the first things we have to establish is this thing even safe to handle for us and for you. So something that we work quite a bit with smaller museums was grants. And so I know, you know, from experience working with some smaller museums, you know, times are tight, always tight museums so what can we do to help, you know, financially to get this done. And grants are a great way. I mean there was, there's several types of grants. Repatriation grants actually go and physically do the repatriation. The tribe can apply for it or the museum can or we work together we work together with museums on several different repatriation grants, and it funded just that for for me to go out and retrieve the individuals. And then there was these larger documentation consultation grants up to 90,000. And this really helps with the smaller institutions who are struggling to get their inventories completed their summaries completed, because you have to complete a summary of all the sacred objects that you have, or you think you have, and submit that to the National Nag for so to, you know, carry out all these consultations and have you know staff to do this can be pretty taxing. So these grants definitely help offset that. So definitely worth exploring is go to the National Nag website, go under the grants they have a grants compliance officer this is what this individual does, and the repatriation grants are on a first come first serve basis. Beginning of the fiscal cycle for the for the feds, you know get your, your grant and there's requirements that you have to meet. But the consultation documentation grants are competitive. So, you know, having you know strong letters of support and you know a game plan really goes a long way with these competitive grants. And like I said we've utilized these multiple times to go and mainly get ancestors if we didn't feel didn't feel too good about flying with remains it just didn't settle well like, if you can't carry them on with you, then they'd have to be checked and I don't want to, I don't want to do that we didn't want to do that. So, some of the remains that we had to go in and get where as far, far away as Nebraska that's the farthest I've had to go personally to get remains, and this was during this depression era by and sell time of human remains. It was a commodity the individuals are going across the country and looting native graves and selling them to collectors museums and the like. So, it was a little bit. It was a shocking and disturbing not a little bit quite a bit, you know, see these ledgers these receipt books. But they're, you know, this was the roadmap that we had to use to get these individuals back because in the receipt book the ledger would say, you know, native six native skulls from this county and Michigan sold to so and so on this date for five bucks per person. So we're able to use that ledger to say you know this individual, or these individuals are from Michigan. This county, this county has very strong historic ties to the Odawa therefore as the Odawa today we're here to claim our ancestors. So it became part of the evidence. But in this one case we utilize repatriation grant to go out and get the individuals from Nebraska. And, you know, we rented a car I was by myself. And I just didn't realize how far in Nebraska was from Michigan at the time it was quite the hall but, and I went out and I think late April early May tornado season it wasn't the best time to go that's for sure. Sirens, it's wicked thunderstorms, but got to the museum and you know, all the paperwork and telephone calls and emails resulted in that moment of physical transfer. And the staff, you know, lady was just excellent to work with the whole time, you know, brought them out and they're ancient they were pre contact individuals, you know, between 1000 and 2000 years old. And she asked you know how you so sure as somebody that's 2000 years old is related to you. And immediately, you know, I go back to that time when I was a child at these ghost uppers, we're talking about the ancestors the ancestors I've always been here and we are an issue of a people. And this is our original home the Great Lakes Michigan. And so, you know, relating that in the consultation that you know, this is just part of our, our tradition, you know our beliefs. And it's all passed on orally and it's also practiced through our, through our ceremonies. And she said, I just had to ask, you know, you know, you went through all this trouble to get these six men and take them back home. And it was really sobering because at the time I was in my early 30s and they went through the work and said these are six men who are in their early 30s so as a real sobering realization these are. And so we packed them up and then she went a step further and said, you know, we have all these funerary objects you know these carvings were found with the individuals. And at the time she didn't have to give those back, because they were classified as culturally unidentifiable and this is a term that a lot of tribe just agree with. And we were saying they're not culturally identifiable they are identifiable as Anishinaabe people, but this is a scientific term that's been used to label these we call pre contact. I don't want to say pre history and we had history before contact. These pre contact individuals, but as the law sits even to this day, a funerary objects associated fury objects from culturally identifiable individuals don't have to be returned. But the lady said this is just the right thing to do, you know, they, they came here with them they should go back with them. They were some of the most amazing things I've ever seen, these carvings on shells of different spirits. And a lot of these spirits I reckon you know I seen these designs in other places and just reinforced, you know this continuity of tradition and believe something 2000 years old. It has the same design as something you know rock painting from 400 years ago in the Great Lakes. So, brought them back, and it was a, it was a different road trip for me, you know having all these individuals. Not to my first stop I couldn't drive all the way back in one day it was impossible. So God, you know, do I bring all these, you know these these men in with me to my hotel room or not. Of course I did it would be disrespectful to leave them in a car lock they've been locked up for a century. So I brought them in. I didn't sleep too good that night, you know I was just a little bit nervous but the second night I slept fine, and then immediately reburied them when we got back home. And it was just a real journey, but I thought about the journey for those individuals, you know it's been over 100 years. You know that they've been on this journey, and we were able to bring them back we weren't able to bring them to the exact spot where they're from it's a parking lot now it's you know it's not the same. But at least we were able to get them back on the ground, and it fits into our, our traditions as an issue of a people of taking care of our dead which is something that a lot of native nations across North America believe So I know we're running a little bit short on time. Something else is a key part of the NAG programs and that per view committee. I sat on this committee myself for four years, and when you have disputes, you go before the NAG for review committee to have those disputes heard it's advisory, it's not legally binding in any way, but hopefully when things somewhat get back to normal things are in person. I encourage you to go to that per view committee because you see that the process play out not just with disputes but people come in they're given presentations about updates, but it's also a really, really fantastic way of networking and seeing you know who's doing the work. If we have to consult with a tribe or NHL, you know a lot of times you can meet them at these review committee meetings and have an impromptu consultation. And when hopefully things are back to somewhat normal, I really encourage you to go to one of these meetings. And a very key part of NAGPRA is a federal register process this is laid out in the regs it's in the law it's on the website, so I won't take up too much time and go into this but you have to publish a federal register notice as part of a repatriation, you just can't give something back. One of the consultations I was having with an individual, he goes oh yeah we got this skull I'll send it to you FedEx I'm like no no don't send anything FedEx, we got to go through a process you got to publish a notice. And if the skull applies to our tribe will come down and retrieve it. Okay yeah whatever you whatever you want to do I was like I like the enthusiasm but no no FedEx you know we'll we'll handle this a different way through the consultation we we know found that that that individual wasn't even from Michigan. It was an error in the record so, but you have to go through and publish a federal register notice for any repatriation of human remains, second objects or objects of cultural patrimony. The federal register notice is also a great source of information because it's a snapshot of an individual repatriation so if you need to find a contact and a tribe. You need to find a contact in a museum or federal agency. I would just peruse a federal register and that's a really great way to start because those are usually the most up to date contacts. So finding contacts at tribes can be can be difficult I'm not going to lie. Each tribe is different they have a different levels of resources. But I encourage you to, you know, just go and see what tribes are in your state if they're at on and also you can't forget the removed tribes out in Oklahoma Kansas. I looked over quite a bit, but they're still part of the process so if you're from like Kentucky or Tennessee, Georgia and you know these, you know southeast where there's a lot of removal but there's a lot of removal in Indiana Ohio. So there's a northern removal there's some tribes removed out west so I would look you know, who are the historic tribes in your state and you can't find any, you got to look at, you know, Oklahoma Kansas. But also in Wisconsin there's some removed tribes up there as well as the Oneida and Stockbridge Muncie. So, don't forget to remove tribes in the process there are over 40 tribes in Oklahoma alone and I believe the vast majority of those tribes are armed from Oklahoma and then you got Kansas. So, you got to engage with them as well through the Niagara process. And this before we get to our questions on human remains human remains seem to be the priority for a lot of tribes, and the regulations changed in 2010. Before pre 2010. So the module that was labeled culturally unidentifiable did not have to be returned under the law there was a process for them to go back. But that change in 2010 where it said all human remains have to be repatriated under the law, whether they're culturally unidentifiable or not. And that process is laid out in the new in the regulations in 2010 it's 10.11. If you have human remains, you have to repatriate them if you are an institution that falls under NAG pro. And with that Robin, bring me right to my 45 minutes I believe for our and we'll jump into some questions. That was wonderful. Thank you I'm actually putting a quick note in the chat because we have questions popping into both the chat and the q&a so I'll just remind everyone that if you can try to put the questions in the q&a because it's a little more it's a little easier just to track them while we're doing it. And actually before we get into questions, one of our participants noted that the II archives and Santa Fe is about to release the finding aid for the Susan shown. Arjo papers which contains numerous files about her work and crafting the language of the NAGPRA act so if you really want to do a deep dive. I would say keep an eye on that. See if you can see how the act was created and crafted. All right, so let's start with some questions. Is NAGPRA applicable to institutions that receive federal funding before but not after the act was passed. No specific instance in mind she's just curious. Absolutely. Yeah, I think almost all the institutions I worked with receive their funding. In 1990, like, like University of Michigan. They got some funding a long time ago. So yeah, for sure. From my understanding it is just like if you receive federal funding like it was a real flat like just if you get it you know what I mean like that's the thing you're looking for. Do us territory, such as the US Virgin Islands fall under NAGPRA, or did they have another set of policies and laws. That's a good question. That's a good question. I don't believe so I don't think territories. It's not applicable to territories. I don't think so should be I in my mind it should apply to territory, but on all my years of doing this, I'd never seen anything from the territories. We've been pointed out that the National Park Service is on St. John's so they receive federal money so it would be interesting to follow up on that at some point from what someone, or if anyone in the community knows feel free to put it in the chat but that is an interesting place to go look out or get some clarification on. I'll clarify whether NAGPRA applies to museums that receive federal funds or any institution non museums that receive federal funds. Any institution. So I dealt with cities I've dealt with states. I've dealt with state police. I've dealt with mom and pop museums I've dealt with, you know, with the field in Chicago I mean, if you read it doesn't matter if you receive federal funds in your museum. Someone asked can you talk about the consultation process after tribes are invited to consult what does the process look like, especially for consultation related to human remains. How much of that process is driven by how the tribes want to proceed versus a process the museum might establish. The definition of compromise, you know, meeting both ways and it's all individual and what, you know what tribe you're working with. So I would just start by having some very honest and open conversations, understanding what the law states, and also at the end of the day, these individuals have to go back after after 2010. So understanding that at some point these individuals will go back to the appropriate tribe or individual, but in person consultations is the best for this. It's very sensitive have have patients have grace and try to understand, you know, this longer history I consider taking, you know, there's the taking of land ancestors traditions children. It's a part of a bigger picture of colonization so in realizing that you know you might have tribes who've, you know, might be angry they might be frustrated and that's understandable. But you know have patients and have a mutual, you know a neutral place to meet at first. You know always bring in the museum or always bring them to museum is a can be seen as a show of force or you know show of power like you're always on our terms you're always in our place. Pick a neutral place and have a meal. I mean, I mean food goes a long ways you know it's a sign of care taken and respect so maybe you have a neutral place you have a nice meal you talk. Have it over and over it's not a one and done type of thing and this takes time and for some of the larger repatriations I worked on was over 100 individuals. We met dozens of times because the museum was going through all of their bureaucracy, you know, their CEO their board their staff, they're coming with all these different tribal people. It took years, but we got it done the right way it wasn't rushed. And then, when it was all said and done. We had a relationship built and we went further and with this one museum. We're still working with them on exhibits on professional developments, we're working with them on presentations all the time. And it was built on that you know respectful work that we did with ancestors, but now it's like we're doing the fun stuff in my mind exhibits I mean that's that's, but we had to get the tough stuff done first. I think you said some really key points there one was that meeting initially on a neutral ground, I think is a super good idea because you're right like just walking in and being like here's everything like that that would shock anyone right just walking a somewhat sterile museum experience and just being like here it is what do you want us to do with it like that's shocking so you definitely want to treat it. You know calmly and lightly, the length of the process of my the folks I know who have gone through it it takes a long time, so I think that's a truly good point about that. This person went on to ask kind of what cultural sensitivity should museum should be aware of in terms of dealing with consultation related to human remains. That again, those points that you said of just taking your time really talking slowly introducing the concept. I do also want to point out you mentioned this earlier which I really liked was that is there's no universal cultural attitude towards this you're dealing with so many different people and so many different tribal communities and everything that it's that's going to fluctuate a little bit I think when you start really getting into the nuts and bolts of dealing with these what like can you talk a little bit more to that a little bit of just, you know, what's the best way to approach it for first baby steps you think. It's like even beyond baby steps it's like crawling. He's just got to go super slow because each each tribe is different I can't stress that enough we're not all the same. And I've gone to some some larger museums and they just had a whole. This is what can be intimidating you go to a museum and there's a whole room for the people. Boxes and boxes are remains it's overwhelming. You know it can be heartbreaking it can be sad, you know, and one of the largest repatriations I did was about 60 individuals. And the day came where we went and retrieve them and I say we as me myself and I and I went down to the museum and got the the remains and they were just all stacked outside of this museum. And boxes and I was conditioned for that. And I've been going through the work for a while but if you're not it can be pretty overwhelming. And so, knowing that tribes have this different idea about them. A lot of times that they're they're animate they're alive. They're not collections are not specimens that their ancestors and very rarely do you tribes you know use the term artifacts to describe people. It's the ancestors so there's this there's this connection, but then there's also different beliefs like I've gone to some museums. And they said Eric, we, we published a federal register notice we want to repatriate these people back to their tribe but they won't come get them. I go that's their tribe's discretion I can't talk on be their behalf you know, though, will beat me up you know it's like no that's their thing. This from my very you know broad knowledge, you know that tribe isn't into bringing people back. You know, once they go out of the ground that's it. And that's their belief, maybe at some point things will change. But that's their belief and the museum was like well we had these for years. We want to do this I'm like well you got to do what the tribe does you got to follow their lead because that's part of their belief. This is religious this is spiritual. And sometimes like I said tribes don't have land they want to do it. Where are you going to rebury, and we still have problems, Robin with diggers, you know people who go out and dig stuff up. So our, our place is secret. I can't tell anybody. It's in the middle of nowhere. So we still have that issue of security, but just realizing that every tribe is different but then some tribes have protocols they wish for you to enact while you have them. Like certain people don't touch your remains usually nobody. They're wrapped in certain cloths, certain colors. There's certain, you know people will come in and interact with them. So that's something you could ask as you know museum staff like what, what, what can we do to make this better. Yeah, I think it's to me it really boils down to disrespect, you know what I mean it's just respecting kindness is kind of what what you really have to ask yourself just how you know it goes down when I first was learning about all this back in the 90s when I first did my undergrad in anthropology. And to me I just kept thinking, you know like it's just respect and trying to honor what either the beliefs of people or groups want, you know what I mean is really what you're boiling down to. And your point about how you know there are some communities who might not want the objects back right away but if you can provide them a sense of, of care and respectfulness that you're caring for these things the way they want to be that the museum person puts you in a better place, I think just generally speaking so I really appreciate you bringing that all that up. I'm going to go back to questions because they're still they're still rolling in which is not surprising. So let's go on to, you talked a bit about pesticides on collections which is something I also have a soft spot for. Someone asked what do you, what do you do once you know there are pesticides present on something that is sacred and or we'll come back to your community. So what are your thoughts on like if you are able to identify something what should you do to help the community or help the group. Well, if. First off, you know, identifying while it's such a museum read, and I'm just speaking on my personal belief behalf I'm not speaking on behalf of all tribes, not to bring that back to the community. Ideally, you know tribes are going to want to use this or at least people will touch it or interact with it. So they'll bring elders in or spiritual leaders to these touch it. And if it's got arsenic and things like this I mean people get sick pretty quick. So I would have these things tested immediately, you know, and if they are diagnosed with having these higher levels of contaminations and it's on the responsibility of the museum to properly store these. You know, they've gone to museums and they have these like industrial bags essentially these really thick bags that are, you know, and it has a biohazard symbol right on the bag, and it says contaminated. And so they have it way in the corner, you know, away from usually in a, you know, some type of box or container, and say well this is this is, you know, been labeled as contaminated so the tribes don't want it back. We don't want to touch it so it is kind of a holding pattern to figure out how you can clean it. So that's like the next phase. Right. I also like you, you're absolutely right where if it looks good is from the 1930s don't mess with it. There is something on there that kept that thing nice looking so like I yeah I'm the same opinion. There are a few questions in the Q&A that people are asking for specific geographic locations where they live I'm going to recommend we might hit those eventually but for a lot of those I'm going to really say if you can go we have a resource sheet online that lists resources on where to figure out where you're like your local geographical tribes are right so I'm going to really recommend that you guys go access those, and then start the communications with those groups because as we've been saying Eric is not representing all people right now so you really need to talk to them to make sure that things are happening because that's, I just want to clarify that while looking through some of these questions. Someone sent me a news article that suggested that the NAGPRA laws were changing again. Have you heard anything about the laws about them being adjusted or changing anytime soon? Yeah, I mean, one of my colleagues because I'm not practicing the law right now. So I'm a little bit out of the loop. So I need to get more in the loop I'm doing the trainings but yeah I believe there is some talk of amending the regulations. And I have to do my homework but there's been a lot of talks since 10.11 was passed about the unassociated funerary object or the funerary objects with CUI so I imagine that would be part of the conversation. So I'm going to ask any recommendations on how to locate a forensic anthropologist to identify fragments and remains. What is the proper way to go through with this, especially with culturally unidentifiable remains that's a good question you might have, especially you know with these local with our smaller institutions sometimes you get a shoebox full of stuff right and it's like okay how do I even start that first process of trying to recognize these. There's consultants and you know I look at your local university first and foremost and see you know if they have any type of staff for departments that would specialize this or your state. You know they usually have a list of consultants who do this like, whether it's archaeology or forensic anthropology, because you know state police will find a person or a sheriff, and sometimes they just kind of farm that and work out to different individuals because they don't have enough staff to do it. So I look at you know your state governments and your universities. And this is really important and we had one repatriation where it was a trunk full of people, and with just all these bones commingled this it was just a mess they just dumped them in this literally this trunk from the 1800s. It was creepy because it was in this basement there was a trunk and I was like this, this isn't cool, you know, and, but you're going through and it's just like how many are in here like we well, we think it's this number it's like you can't think you got to get your MNI pretty nailed down. So they hired somebody I think they actually got a grant, you know they got one of those documentation grants and, lo and behold, there was 10 natives. And, you know, for African American it's like everybody was put together. And the number change and then at the end of the day. The museum said well can you take the other individuals and rebury them that NAGPRA doesn't apply to them like of course that's the humane thing to do they were not going to leave them. Nobody's going to claim them. So we took them and rebury them there's no big deal but it changed the whole number change everything. It's interesting, but like yeah and like I know I've come across situations like that myself so it's not that unusual. Someone says so the process of consultation is where how we can find out the items we have in our collection are required legally to be repatriated is that correct so it's consultation the first place to start. It is, it's the first it's written right into the law multiple times that you have to consult with tribes. And part of the consultation process is not just acknowledging tribal oral traditions, but also recognizing that they are equal line of evidence compared to Western knowledge. So this is one of the only federal laws it says that tribal oral traditions heritage is equal with Western evidence. And so when tribes are committed and telling these stories and given their family histories, that's part of the evidence as you know, it's not just a story. It's, this is somebody's dissertation it's their life, you know it's their expertise and their knowledge. So, you have to go through the consultation process and consultation isn't just okay I sent a letter, you know, it's engagement it's a conversation and that's are the experts on what's sacred. It's bar none, you know they're going to tell you this object is sacred this one isn't some things like I said are pretty, pretty obvious like eagle feathers. Eagle feathers are a big one, hawk feathers, all feathers raven pipe, but there's certain specific things like, what's the Apache I think the Kachina dolls they're very specific to that tribe we don't use Kachina at all. That's them. That's 100% them not aside all so you got to and each tribe is different specially by regions like the plains in the southwest and the Arctic and the Great Lakes. You know they all use different things a lot of it is in relation to their environment. You know we're not using ivory, you know that's Arctic tribes, you know, and we're not using sandstone, that's the Southwest. So, you know the environment plays a big role in this and so you just have to really figure out who you're talking to can express that enough. And the other thing I'll say that I really like that other point you did earlier in the conversation where you said that you know this could be the first step of a lifelong relationship with these communities that could result in so much more fun stuff like what you were saying like we, we've done other programming where we talked about how to build these relationships and like this is kind of a sad early step but at the same time it's a good step because it's returning things that should be back with the communities they belong to and then you're forming these relationships to do programming and all the stuff that we want you to bring to our public so I think that's an important point to you know, an excellent benefit to this whole process as well. And it's not just a benefit to the the tribes but a lot of the museum staff we worked with. You know, one of the big repatriations we did, you know the, our main contact through the whole process she's like this was one of the best things I've ever done ever personally and professionally. You know it just, you just you can't explain it once you go through it, you know you'll never do it again hopefully, you know once you do it it's like done. Unless you're going to basement and find something else which happens all the time. I don't begrudge a museum and says hey Eric you know, we went in a room we haven't been in in 10 years and guess what we found. Yeah, this happens constantly. And one of these scenarios ahead, it was really bizarre this guy he was a professor at a university. He got when that you know the university had to comply with nagprop. And he literally started to take remains out of the university's lab and hide them. And he was trying to transport them to his private lab, and the police had to intervene and threatened to arrest him, but he had written all this work on this collection he had, you know, dug the remains up himself. He was so invested in it he couldn't fathom them going back to be reburied. Wow. So sometimes it gets extreme on the other end. I mean it is it. You know it's interesting like I said I started my, my professional career in anthropology in the 90s when an agro was still like brand new right and so there was a little bit of that resentment and the university circles, you know what I mean of man we got to do these you know what I mean like it was this upset it is to it, but as I've followed in the museum field now for the past 1520 years almost now. I have left out where I started working at a tribal museum so like we were on the receiving end of it and it was more like I saw this huge beneficial part of it like you said like this great positive experience and I think that that's, that's an important part to really think about as, as people approach it. Someone says since the compliance for applying to a consultation grant is to have an inventory of human remains and associated funerary objects. Can you give more detail on the definition of associated and unassociated funerary objects. So associated fear objects are the objects that are with the remains. They are literally with them in the collections. So unassociated is a known burial object but there's no remains to go with it. For example, we got back quite a few unassociated funerary objects, because we look through the summaries. You know we request summaries from these museums, and they send the summaries, and they list, you know, unassociated very object because when it came into their care, their possession control. You know, it says this like kettle Ottawa grave, and there was a market for this that people would go through, and you know either take the people or the objects and sell them. Now a lot of times these objects were just either disassociated from the remains or the remains are sold to somewhere else, but the fact remains that that's from a burial, but it's unassociated with a current set of remains. So do AFOs include funnel and animal remains. Yes, yeah. And so do unassociated. Now this gets tricky because, you know, if you have a bunch of like bear skulls or teeth. Are those from a burial, it could be people were buried with these. You can't rule it out. Yes, as someone who's getting training to work in the conservation of historical items. I wonder how Nagpro would affect concern eight conservation. What does their tribe do if your patriotic pieces come back and they have been conserved in either an insensitive dangerous or non traditional method. How should concert conservators and restores go about conserving items how should they go about contacting people determine the steps to take regarding conservation. Well, I mean I would just, you know, start right from the very beginning of reaching out to the tribes first, and then having that relationship because there's going to be questions as you go along. And then also realizing that once an item is repatriated, you know, the tribe or individual takes full control of that item. And what they do with it after the repatriation has occurred is no longer the concern or the museum's completely out of the process I've seen this happen a few times because the museum was like, what are you going to do with this and how you're going to take care of it. That's not their concern. You know, so there might be some little bit of rub, because some items might have to be buried or burn. And they've, you know, gone through their, their, their life cycle essentially, and having them not go through that ending process is detrimental. So it all depends on the tribe and just having conversations. Is there a timeframe going back into the history that NAGPRA covers paleo American Clovis. So is there like a beginning date to this? You might know, you know, and I get into these terms quite a bit, you know, I that these are Western terms, you know, paleo archaic, white woodland early woodland. In my mind, in my world, you know, these are all an issue of a. It's old. Old Anishinaabe. So no, I've we've repatriated individuals that are thousands of years old and it was never ever this half step like oh they're really old should we do this. No, it's absolutely has to get done. So it's really surreal to hold somebody that's 3000 years old, you know, from your homelands, very sobering. And you know one of these repatriations we did we got the individual back and it was in January. And I was like, man, I don't want to have to sit in my office, you know, for five months, because the ground frozen. So I got all, got all riled up and I put my snow shoes on and headed out in the woods with my shovel and I think I'll make a fire and put the ground out if need be. This person has to go back. So I was digging and it was a miracle the ground was unfrozen. So I was like okay I don't have to sit out here for five hours and you know tend to bonfire. But, you know, you do it. So those those titles those labels. Kind of connected to it this next question it says in cases where broad ranging collectors donated their collections, likely containing cultural objects, often but not always 19th or early 20th century. Where do you start if accession information is missing or unhelpful. Do you even know what tribe to start with so this kind of connects where you know a lot of people will come across things they'll be like these are human. We know that like let's say we figured that out. But then we're like what would be, I mean I guess I would start with probably trying to get a forensic anthropologist or someone because sometimes there can be some generic. Okay, this is a white person this is a you know whatever you can get the basic ideas down. But do you have any other thoughts on that. Yeah, this is a pretty common issue. You know, I would under the law this we will recall them. It's preponderance of evidence. That's the standard that you have to show about 51% in favor of. So it's not like it has to be definitive that this is, you know, affiliated to this tribe, or this individual you just have to have that 51% standard established. So you look at all the different things that you know associate with the museum, you know, the location of museum, if it's in a certain state, it's most likely to collect from that state, unless you're like this huge museum that takes everything from everywhere. But you look at where you're at, and then who are the tribes around you. And then what is the collection history of the museum. And then if you have known, you know, individuals who have interacted with with the museum over time, you know what is their collection history. Is it Midwest, is it Southwest, where they all over and just can't just happen to come here. And usually these collectors kept some some decent records, because they were selling, they were bartering. So you look at that and then bring in your tribal individuals, you know, if there are items that will have certain patterns or colors, you know, these all can be pieces to help, you know, tell the story. So that's, it's, but some of these it's almost impossible like, you know, they have no records, nothing and they fall under this category of human remains called unknown, or Z unknown. There's literally thousands of these individuals across the country. But under the process of 10 point 11 there, there is a process for them to be returned to be buried. So they don't have to sit forever. Right. Um, to kind of rapid fire questions, does Nagpro applied to 501 C three foundations that received federal grants I'm going to guess yes. Yeah, yes. Okay, does Nagpro applied institutions that received coven relief money. I mean, yeah, that's a new one I haven't, I would assume, if it's federal money I don't think there's any caveats, or you know, asterisk to say, you know, no. Yeah, I mean, I would think if the code money came from the federal government right because some people might have gotten coven money from state, you know what I mean or other groups but if it's if it's federal relief, yeah. That's interesting. That's something I didn't consider either. Yeah, but I mean it falls in line with all you know other federal funding I would say yeah. Someone says, could you please explain what is considered non identifiable objects is that term only applied a pre contact era objects. I wouldn't say no it doesn't apply just to pre contact. I mean, a lot of pre contact items are identifiable. So, again, this goes into your consultation with your tribes and they'll tell you, you know what what these items are and a lot of times items will will simply be utilitarian. You know, it's a tool, like a basket or it acts. So, again, this gets into individual tribal consultation I can't stress that enough. So in my time of doing repatriation, you know, I was part of 36 over 30 successful repatriations, and the secret sauce is consultation that we were having these conversations. This is interesting if a tribe decides not to pursue repatriation of an item. And it says a sacred object or cult or object of cultural patrimony after consultation do they retain the right under Niagara to pursue repatriation at a later time. Yeah, yeah. It's different if they, if a Federal Register notices published, and that item is affiliated to that tribe, then they can come and get that item at any time. And no other tribe can come in and take that item. But if the Federal Register notice is not published that leaves that window open. There are a couple questions in here about paper records like people are asking about associated photographs or even archival records that are kind of connected to this world. I don't know I don't really think they're connected are they they're not objects or how do you know anything about that. Oh, yeah, I've never I've had this brought up a few times photo is definitely good. If it's a burial, and it's part of, you know, this whole burial ritual or ceremony. But records I mean this could I mean with songs and ceremonies I don't know it depends on the tribe and what they do demon sacred. The tribes I, you know, talk with years ago in the Great Lakes here. One of their first big repatriations was a Bible. I was like, interesting, but it was like literally like three feet by two is a giant Bible that they carried from the East Coast, you know multiple states over hundreds of years and had all this family history and all this stuff like a Bible and what they deemed it sacred and they got it back. So it's up to the tribe. Yeah, and I'm going to say a lot of these questions are people asking, you know, again they're saying like, well what about in this case and in this case and again, some like broken record a little bit but it is going to be really up to the tribe that you're talking to in that consultation process is going to have to be the one that answers that. It's going to be up to them. I mean I think of it and this is me is like, you know, I'm high I'm a mutt from Europe, but it's basically you know I was raised Catholic so they were very definite things that my father wanted when he was, you know, when he passed away and so we followed them because we followed the Catholic traditions of what he wanted right, but you know other relatives in our family have done something very different because they don't follow a religion so it's just it's up to that group and what they want to do. Let me see what else we have three minutes left so I'm going to see if I'm going to get a couple more questions in. I'm also going to say that we'll grab I'll grab all these questions and pass them along to Eric as well because you can grab them from the zoom reports just so you all know. And you got my contact info Robin so people want to continue further conversation that's fine. Um, do you have any suggestions for discussing with indigenous communities the inability to repatriate objects that are not nag car related for example made for sale ethnographic basketry donated by specific individuals. It's a tough one. Yeah. I mean, you just have to build that relationship with whoever owns them. And, and this could take time. I've seen this loosen up a little bit with collectors where they'll start returning things. But you just really have to have a one on one relationship with that person or family to get the stuff back. Um, do more recently created objects fit into Niagara, for example, modern kachina dolls feathers or other sacred objects. Depends on the tribe, you know, I say good items are always being made. You know, pipes are being made for as we speak somebody's at, you know, pipe stone might not right now but they will be the summer you know mining pipe pipe stone to make pipes that are sacred. You know, somebody will get an eagle feather that fell, you know, a lot of times, as tribal people, we have to put in applications to get eagle feathers. You know, from a national park or so on and so forth, and people put in, you know, request, not a permit or request to get eagle feathers. And they get the feather and it's, you know, it's it's sacred right then and there. So new, new things. Absolutely. Um, it's probably be our last question but before I do that I will note that someone says cares money does trigger compliance with 1013. So someone put that in the chat. What are some difference associated with repatriations for an individual of lineal descent versus repatriation to a tribe, which sounds more common. Tribes is definitely more common. The difference in descent is just that it's the strongest claim, and you're dealing with one individual not an entire tribe. Now that person can be part of a tribe obviously, and a lot I think they can work with the tribe, you know to have the tribe be the mechanism, but at any time if they have that unbroken documented line to that person or object. So that's first crack at it. Well it is 230 on the dot. So we've gotten through a lot of questions there's a there's quite a few questions still left but like I said a lot of them which I'll go through and pass along to Eric for sure but a lot of them are going to be unfortunately contact your local tribe and talk to them just to see kind of what they want to have. I want to say a huge thanks to Eric thank you for covering the subject you did it in a nice way that really spoke to these groups and I loved all the personal examples we're getting lots of thank yous in the chat right now. Thank you again do you have any final thoughts or words you'd like to pass along. No just thank you me glitch for having me and thanks everybody for taking time. Again, we're all sitting in front of screens all day and just it's very humbling to have, you know this larger group and the positive feedback and just don't be afraid to engage in the work. This is really important work it's it's human rights it's civil rights it's humanity. It's it's beyond a federal law. You know this is what you do is people I think. And so it's nothing, nothing like it once you do even one. It really, really changes you it's really a powerful thing so just don't, don't be hesitant don't be afraid, you know, just take your baby steps but take those steps. Well thank you again thank you to IMLS for funding this program and FAIC as always thank you to Learning Times for producing this. We'll be back at the end of March with another webinar we're almost ready to launch it will be on our website soon also keep an eye out for April and May programming. We hope everyone stays safe and this recording will be posted on the art the AIC YouTube channel, probably in a couple days and on our website. So thanks everyone stay safe and we'll talk to you soon.