Posted on 10/04/2007 5:36:07 PM PDT by blam
Senate bill could untie Kennewick Man bones
Published Thursday, October 4th, 2007
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
A Senate committee has approved a bill that could clear the way for Native Americans to claim the ancient bones of Kennewick Man.
This is the third time the change has been proposed to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It would ensure federally recognized tribes could claim ancient remains even if a direct link to a tribe can't be proven.
Tribes have pushed for a change to the law since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004 sided with scientists who said they should be allowed to study the 9,300-year-old remains because they could not be linked to any tribe.
Now tucked inside a bill that would allow tribal participation in methamphetamine grants -- among other changes -- is a two-word addition to the American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The act governs the control of Native American skeletons, requiring museums and federal agencies to return them to tribes if there is evidence that links the remains to the tribes.
The Senate bill would expand the definition of what remains are considered ancestral. It would add the words "or was" to a definition of Native American to say that when it comes to ancient remains, "Native American" refers to a member of a tribe or culture that "is or was" indigenous to the United States.
The current legislation is too new to have been considered by many of the tribes. But earlier this year the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians passed a resolution at its annual conference asking that the language proposed in the bill be added to the law. The group represents more than 50 tribes.
Without the change, more than 100,000 remains currently held in museums or other collections no longer would be protected by the statue, Walter Echo-Hawk, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, said at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing two years ago.
Tribes believe that any ancient remains in the United States are Native American and should not be studied without tribal approval.
Although an attempt to pass the changed definition failed two years ago, last week the same committee approved the bill unanimously by voice vote. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was among those in favor.
The bill was sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
But this time there was no public airing, said Cleone Hawkinson, a founding member of the Portland-based Friends of America's Past.
The new definition would assume that any remains found would belong to only federally recognized tribes, she said. That includes remains from small bands of people who died out and left no ancestors, and remains of indigenous ancestors to modern-day Latinos, including those who died just a couple of hundred years ago, she said.
"It narrows down and distorts history," she said.
Remains would automatically be turned over to tribes rather than requiring an ancestral link to be demonstrated first, she said.
"More than Kennewick Man is at stake," Friends of America's Past said in a message to members. "Unless this amendment is withdrawn, public access to the factual understanding of the nation's prehistory shifts to the exclusive control of federally recognized American Indians."
When the change to the law was last proposed, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., introduced counter legislation and he's expected to again.
The dispute dates to 1996 when two men stumbled upon a skeleton along the banks of the Columbia River while attending the Columbia Cup hydroplane races in Kennewick. The Army Corps of Engineers laid claim to the skeleton and planned to turn it over to local tribes. The Umatilla, Yakama, Nez Perce and Colville tribes wanted to bury the bones before they could be studied.
But scientists filed suit, insisting the remains, dubbed Kennewick Man, could not be linked to any of the tribes. Tests showed the skeleton was 9,300 years old, and some scientists suggested that rather than resembling Native Americans, the skeleton was more like the prehistoric Jomon of Japan or Polynesians or Caucasians.
w Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@ tricityherald.com
The people we know today as the Native Americans are not the same people who preceeded them to the Americans and they should have no claim to their skeletons. There are many skeletons that don't resemble Native Americans what-so-ever.
They don't want you to know that they weren't here first.
"The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas."
"Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.
"White man did to the 'Native Americans' exactly what the 'Natives' did to the Original Peoples"
The thing is, the facts about who was here before the “Native American” have to be discussed separately from the moral debate about how the American Indian was treated by European settlers. Once these two different topics are separated, and guilt and culpability and other emotions are put aside for the moment, the “Native American” movement has very little to stand on. (Which, of course, is why these topics are NEVER separated.)
That would be it alright.
I think I read somewhere that the definition of aboriginal peoples is those who most effectively and utterly eliminated the people there when they arrived.
Thanks for the update. I was not aware of this.
Remains would automatically be turned over to tribes rather than requiring an ancestral link to be demonstrated first, she said.
I Think she has it backwards, tribes should prove they are linked first
Descendants.
The Socialist left is very comfortable with the current version of American "history."
It’s not enough that the State has driven a stake through the heart of science by funding only the research to support its policies; now it must hide the evidence as well so even privately-funded scientists can’t do the studies.
I once admired McCain. Thank God I have grown up.
So many of the old preconceptions of New Word settlement have changed of the last few years that no one can say anything with absolute certainty about almost anything.
You sound like my son.
In this case I claim the right to claim any bones I find period, even If I can prove a direct link to the bones as my ancestors. I want all the land surrounding my property for a distance of 300 miles square(not square miles) to be declared a calex59 burial ground and as such is sacrosanct and can't be tred upon except by my relatives. That should cover it and it makes as much sense as Inidians claiming bones of a people that are not even remotely related to them except for the fact they are human.
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Now tucked inside a bill that would allow tribal participation in methamphetamine grants -- among other changes -- is a two-word addition to the American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act... The Senate bill would expand the definition of what remains are considered ancestral. It would add the words "or was" to a definition of Native American to say that when it comes to ancient remains, "Native American" refers to a member of a tribe or culture that "is or was" indigenous to the United States.Senator John McCain has been a supporter of this in the past (see the above links).
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