The University of California (Berkeley) has ordered the return of new displays to native American tribes under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). That is hardly news except that the items were not human remains or relics, but corn, corn cobs, peas, beans, and other seeds. The university has decided that even such scientific samples are prohibited items of “cultural patronage.”
The Act requires the return of human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. “Cultural patrimony” is defined as “an object having ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance central to the Native American group or culture itself.”
However, according to a federal notice, these were old corn, corn cobs and seeds, beans, and other items used for research and display by the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. They will now be returned to the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, a Native American tribe.
Old corn cobs linked to a Native American tribe are being removed from an anthropology museum at UC Berkeley in accordance with a federal “repatriation” law.
According to a June 4 federal notice, 24 items, including corn, corn cobs, peas, beans, and other seeds, are being removed. They were part of the collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. They will be returned to the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, a Native American tribe, to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
The notice from the school states that “Between 1940 to 1941, George F. Carter collected 24 lots of seeds via `field research with Native American agriculturalists’ across the Southwestern United States, including Pueblo of Isleta in New Mexico.”
I understand how one can read the federal law broadly, but this seems wildly out of sync with the purpose of the law. These are plants and seeds used for field research to better understand the food chain of the early periods of life in the Americas. The use of the federal law so broadly undermines the study of these tribes.
Obviously, corn and other crop staples were key to the culture of these tribes, but so was water, wood, and other sustaining resources. I do not understand why the tribes themselves do not want to encourage such research on their heritage and history.
The university could clearly decide that it no longer needs the items or that the items hold more value to the tribes. However, to say that they are compelled under federal law is a dubious reading of the federal statute.
The College Fix quotes Elizabeth Weiss, professor emeritus of anthropology at San José State University, as objecting to the interpretation: “Objects of cultural patrimony are defined as objects that cannot be owned by a single person, and, thus, cannot be sold or given from one person to another. It is hard for me to understand how plants and seeds could fall into this category.”
This is something that the Department of the Interior, Justice Department, and Bureau of Indian Affairs should clarify in the interest of continued research and historical work in this area.
This is nothing to be concerned about. It only seems puzzling, if not absurd, to the rational mind. Those deciding these matters are nowhere near rationality.
Well, one good thing will come of this. The fruits and nuts will be returned to the graves of Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors along with Elizabeth’s DNA sample. So everybody feels good in their little guilty heart.
So, rather than have a display that educates and gives insight into what life was like for the Pueblo of Isleta tribe . . . they took it down and gave it back? And that they were compelled to obey some federal law as justification?
I can imagine council members of the Pueblo of Isleta tribe, receiving the box of . . . old corn cobs, seeds etc. look at each other and saying,
“The white man has been in the sun too long. His brains have become mush.”
Hmmm!!
As you correctly observe, there is in fact a federal law involved in this matter.
However you seem the think that the law in question is simply an “excuse” for some other motivation on the part of UC Berkeley, and that UC would be justified in simply ignoring this federal law.
This is typical of the lawless thinking of the MAGA cult who, like their orange leader, believe that they are above the law and free to do whatever they please with absolute impunity.
The way I read this matter is that UC is simply complying with the law, and you seem to find this outrageous.
Well, as the good professor points out, you read into the matter wrong as trying to apply a federal law that was intended to cover things like graves and remains. Nothing new there.
Lawless?
And I do not find this “outrageous.”
Merely absurd as others have pointed out.
Fake Farmer
NAGPRA does NOT simply include “graves and remains”. Those categories of artifacts are specifically defined, but there is also a catch-all category of any artifacts that a Native American tribe deems to be of cultural significance, That definition of cultural significance is to be determined by the tribe.
The law also creates a framework for the tribes to formally petition for the return of any artifacts they deem to have cultural significance. Such a formal petition was in fact presented to UC Berkeley, specifically for return of the seeds and artifacts in question. In response, UC formed a committee to consider the claim, and eventually decided that they were compelled to follow NAGPRA as written.
UC Berkeley is simply following the law, but Turley and the MAGA morons here seem to think that it is outrageous that they choose to follow the law. This is typical of the lawless thinking of the MAGA cult in general and the Trump administration in particular, whereby adherence to the law is considered optional if it somehow does not align with the dogma and prejudices of the MAGA cult.
You overlook another federal law, which provides that when commenters use gratuitious insults like “MAGA cult” that have nothing to do with the topic, they are less likely to be read or taken seriously.
Don’t the seeds really belong to the plants? We should not help the Indians steal from the plants. They have rights too.
JUST OUT. The Democrats have endorsed Tyler Robinson, the guy who killed Charlie Kirk to run against Susan Collins in Maine. Bernie Sanders is the first to endorse Mr. Robinson followed by Elizabeth Warren who says that Robinson is her kind of man! Both are saying that he has recovered from the follies of his past and that Platner was just a victim of dire circumstance. No apology required.
TiT,
HA! Thank you for the laugh!
OT, but related to TiT hysterical comment, Graham Platner and the Limits of ‘Believe Women’
“The Maine progressive’s downfall has revealed a dangerous media double standard.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/graham-platner-believe-women-double-standard?utm_campaign=260347&utm_source=cross-post&r=b4a3o&utm_medium=email
As of this comment timehack, this article was not behind a paywall.
Why don’t these Academics expiate their ancestral imperialist genocidal sins by locking themselves into a quarantined room and inject themselves with smallpox virus which killed so many natives. As an added bonus they would permanently remove their carbon footprint and no longer poison the minds of their impressionable students !
The small pox virus did not discriminate. It killed many more white people than native Americans. Oh can’t you see we are the victim.
Alank,
That idea has a degree of merit.
As long as they do it to themselves in the name of the planet!
Virtue signaling knows no bounds. They might want to return the Berkeley campus to whatever tribe happened to camp on their grounds. Can’t have them occupying stolen land can we.
I’ll be honest, I don’t even speak whatever language this is supposed to be. We went from “stop grave robbing” to “return the corn cobs” and I can’t find any rational bridge in between. If this is what passes for moral virtue in academia now, what exactly is the point, or the value, beyond showing how exquisitely sensitive you are to anything that might someday offend somebody?
And I’m certain there’s going to be some mind‑numbingly idiotic response from one of the trolls and I don’t give a $hit.
OLLY is Estovir pretending to be OLLY even if it is obvious it is Estovir. If Estovir wanted to convince us he was OLLY, he would not be successful because we all know that Estovir is the author of every post on here. If you play backwards Estovir’s comments on a 45 RPM record player, a cryptic message can be heard if you listen carefully. The message is diabolical:
🎶 I live rent free in the head of Peter Hill / Dennis McIntyre / Natacha / Gigi / Svelaz / George / X / Sally / Wally / Esquire / Concerned Citizen et al and it makes the world a sunnier place 🎶
Estovir,
HA! Good one!
It is not lost on some of us how much some of GSX (H/T S. Meyer), comments sound a lot like the various annonys, Esquire, Gigi/Natasha, etc.
He was alot funnier in 2019 when he went by Peter Hill, P. Hill, Hill, green Anon, and others. This was before my arrival to the blog forum
https://jonathanturley.org/2019/03/23/happy-special-counsel-day/comment-page-1/#comment-1835392
In the above link you will note that “George” is the same Anonymous today who posts the same content day after day about Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx and selectively quotes the US Constitution. IOW, we have a few not jobs on here
Connect the dots….
I take a stab, olly. It’s a food offering to what are known as hungry ghosts wandering in the netherworld. This is a common practice as discovered via anthropology and exists worldwide. The offering is of the spirit intended to give rest to the deceased.
It’s what it appears to be. If you’re a hungry ghost appeasement required or bad luck may happen.
I can’t shake a memory of Viet Nam. What if they gave a repatriation and nobody came?
A modern perspective can be over-the-top in its treatment of past wrongs. A historical perspective may yield a different interpretation. When I was a kid, the image I had of American Indians was that they were savages killing settlers, taking scalps, and raiding covered wagons. As the years rolled by, that view softened and softened again. Now they are viewed as sensitive indigenous people who lived peacefully in freedom and communed daily with the Great Spirit but were exploited and cheated by the savage white man – the earliest form of white supremacy, you’ll note. UCB’s latest decision to return corn cobs and seeds is little more than a ridiculous attempt at atonement. It makes them feel good.
Corn is a grass and the cob is an example of genetic alteration by Mendel? Gregor Mendel as a hybrid grass? I’m sure I have the details wrong.
There’s an allegory of two fish and 5 loaves? There’s abundance and no hungry ghosts. Christians are not hungry. The US itself functioned upon abundance in this life and its spirit remains.
The native Americans had burial grounds. The things a person had in life were buried with the person. The items were chipped and broken before burial because they mimic the broken body of the deceased.
Granite bowls of native women are common but they have a chip on the lip. These are authentic bowls. I know of a woman who had one. She dripped water into it to give the animals a drink. Ultimately it was stolen.
Fraud bowls are common made of concrete sand castes.
I’ll check Mendels hybrids. Anyway, no harm.
End federal aid to colleges
Outlaw public unions
😆 😂 🤣
Monsanto files suit tomorrow claiming rights to the seeds.
I can’t wait till the get to the Neanderthals…
Monsanto 48- corn hybrid
This is basically another form of the bonfire of the vanities. Afraid to even be accused of cultural appropriation or anything like it, they give up anything that could possibly used to denounce them to the mob. The fact that schools like Berkely are far more interested in virtue signaling than the actual virtue of scientific research is an important component. I don’t know how studying corn could possibly undermine the narrative on the natives of the southwest, but better not to take a chance.
More like a bonfire of the inanities.
The corn seeds were probably kept in a leather burial pouch. The cobs? Unkn
Well Berkely probably owes some interest on those reparations right? Perhaps they can give back some old blankets (sans the smallpox) a few ponies and some empty fire water bottles? Bah haha what a bunch of morons the egghead academics really are. Can fix highly intellectual STUPIDITY!!!
Waiting for people with neanderthal DNA to ask for reparations based on their genocide at the hands of Homo Sapiens.
Basically, Berkeley is returning food waste to an indigenous tribe.
Basically?
“I do not understand why the tribes themselves do not want to encourage such research on their heritage and history.” It is UC Berkeley. What’s to understand.
Those so called Indians don’t care about history. They have none, but wait for their ask…. sell it to the highest bidder.
All it takes is one lawyer with a bad interpretation of the law.
One? Its CA.
Sure. Because no other cultures ever cultivated those crops.
The modern left has gone way, way past cuckoo. Every time I think there cannot be a more juvenile action on their part, they find a way. These are not adults, and I pity anyone that has had the misfortune to matriculate there, and for the money spent. It is waaaay beyond absurd.
Wrap your heads around the fact that children of a similar mindset could very well be on the floor of Congress this year. How do you think that’s going to go?
instaed of writing off UC’s actions as childish, you should try and understand the reason. But you’re an idiot so its a waste of your time.
You must like the word “idiot” since many of your posts include such language. Maybe “you should try and understand the reason” as you put it.