And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Oklahoma man claims some UNL bones
as ancestors
http://www.journalstar.com/stories/neb/sto4
BY JOE DUGGAN Lincoln Journal Star
Six months after the University of Nebraska-Lincoln promised
to repatriate American Indian burial remains, an Oklahoma
man has claimed some of the remains as his possible ancestors.
John L. Sipes Jr., a member of the Southern Cheyenne Tribe
of Oklahoma, has formally claimed lineal descent to some of
the 640 remains the university has called "culturally
unidentifiable." "I have numerous documentations of
Cheyennes who lived (in Nebraska), hunted there, died there
and were buried there," said Sipes, a 22-year tribal historian.
He said he wants to make sure his ancestors' remains aren't
among the unidentified.
His claim came on the eve of the federal government's
approval of plans to return most remains in UNL's possession.
An official notice of remains representing 1,014 Pawnee,
Arikara and Wichita people should be published today in the
Federal Register, said Sam Ball, an archaeologist with the
National Park Service in Washington, D.C. The service
oversees repatriation on a national level.
If no other tribe makes a competing claim during a 30-day
waiting period, representatives of the three tribes may pick up
the remains for reburial. The park service has already
published two smaller notices of Ponca and Omaha burial
remains and neither claim has been contested.
That leaves remains of 640 individuals the university called
"culturally unaffiliated," because it lacked documentation or
evidence to link the bones directly with a present-day Indian
nation. Most of those remains are prehistoric and considered
the ancestors of several Great Plains tribes, said Pemina
Yellow Bird, a repatriation expert and member of the Mandan,
Hidatsa and Arikara nations.
On Sept. 1, UNL Chancellor James Moeser signed an
agreement with representatives from 16 Indian nations calling
for the return of bones at the University of Nebraska State
Museum. In the following days, a working group of tribes
decided to make a unified claim for the "so-called unidentified
ancestors," said Yellow Bird, a member of the working group.
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska has offered to rebury the
unidentified remains.
The precedent-setting claim gained national attention in the
anthropology community, where some academics oppose it
because they believe tribally-unaffiliated remains should be
kept for research purposes. The claim's publication in the
Federal Register is pending, Yellow Bird said.
Sipes, who is not a member of the tribe's governmental branch,
said he does not necessarily want to repatriate all the
unidentified remains. He said he filed the claim to force the
university to provide more information, so he could determine
whether any remains are those of his ancestors. The claim was
filed with assistance from Grassroots NAGPRA, a
Lincoln-based repatriation group.
"I didn't want to play no kind of head games with them
because I have the documentation and I know my history,"
Sipes said. "There is a high probability some of my relatives
are in those remains." The Cheyenne roamed throughout the
western Plains states, including Nebraska, he said. His
great-grandparents were both born near the South Platte River
in the western part of the state.
Officials familiar with the federal Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act said a lineal claim must be
made for a specific, identifiable skeleton or set of remains.
They questioned whether the Sipes claim fits the lineal-descent
standard.
"You have to be able to attach a name of a known person to a
specific set of remains," said Ball, the park service
archaeologist. "You can't just go to a site, dig up remains and
say, "That's my ancestor. This is where my people lived.'"
Another working group member expressed concern the claim
will slow down repatriation of the unidentified remains. "It
could throw a monkey wrench in that bureaucratic process,"
said James Riding In, a Pawnee Nation member and Arizona
State University history professor.
Meanwhile, Nebraska will look to the National Park Service
for direction on the claim, said Jim Estes, director of the State
Museum and UNL's acting repatriation coordinator.
"We're really committed to repatriation and we'd like for it to
occur as quickly as possible," he said. "But we'd like the
remains to go to the groups that are most appropriate."
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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