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.
OT, oh brother, The Ivy League Cheating Scandal No One Wants to Talk About
“Roberto Serrano believes half his class used AI to cheat. He says administrators at Brown don’t seem to care.”
https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-ivy-league-cheating-scandal-no-one-wants-to-talk-about
The College Fix report on it, not behind a paywall with some quotes from the Chronicle, Brown University professor bans take-home exams after mass cheating
“A culture of effort and hard work should be inherent to learning. I worry many of our students now have the wrong idea, believing that the answer to any question can be obtained with a couple of clicks of the mouse,” he told the Chronicle.
“I tell them that years from now, their grades won’t matter. What will matter is how much they learned and how much stayed in their brain.”
https://www.thecollegefix.com/brown-university-professor-bans-take-home-exams-after-mass-cheating/
Shame. People should not live by lies. They shouldn’t cheat as students, and they shouldn’t refer to a man as a woman. Both are lies.
LIve Not By Lies
I propose that under NAGPRA, we give them back the moon.
To the Indians (err, native Americans), the moon is a source of spiritual renewal. Thus it’s cultural patrimony — “an object having ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance.” Heck, they had (have?) rituals to heal the moon. I gather because it was injured in a fight with the sun.
So, NASA (and Musk): Hands off the moon.
Next up, the Earth. (Hello — “Mother Earth!”)
Turley Writes:
“The use of the federal law so broadly undermines the study of these tribes.”
* * * * * *
On May 1, 2025, a young mother in a small Idaho town said she found her 18-month-old twins dead in their bed, cold and lying on their bellies.
Three days later, she sat for an interview with Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit co-founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claiming that vaccines caused their deaths. The story was sensational, billed on the group’s website as “breaking news” of toddlers who were born together and died together, “FOLLOWING VACCINATIONS.”
The organization quickly embraced the woman, Andrea Renee Shaw, naming her the lead plaintiff in two legal actions against the nation’s top society for pediatricians claiming that the organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, lied about the safety of childhood vaccines.
Then, last week, after a nearly 14-month investigation by the Payette Police Department, a grand jury indicted Ms. Shaw, 23, on charges of murder, claiming that she suffocated the children in an act that was either premeditated or taken in the course of aggravated battery.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/us/idaho-twins-death-shaw-vaccines-murder.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
…………………………………………….
How’s this for going broad, “I’ll murder my kids and blame it on flu vaccines”.
Shockingly RFK Jr’s organization, the Children’s Health Defense, continues to stand by this woman even ‘after’ the murder indictment. And to think RFK Jr is running the nation’s health system!
WINNING!
I have looked at the links provided by the good professor (statute, federal register notice, definitions, etc.),
I am unable to reconcile those guidances and regulatory expansions with the subject items.
I can only recommend that we no longer roll our eyes back and refer to California as the “land of the fruits and nuts” but now must “expand’ our understanding and refer to California as the ‘land of the fruits and nuts and veggies and endless Supertrain to nowhere, formerly known as the land of expatriated billionaires.”
(Disclaimer: maternal lineage tied to California, but they were pretty cool.)
Lin,
Good one!
OT: Speaking of “the land of….” I see that in the land of the Northern Star (Minnesota and Wisconsin), Hannah Dugan, the judge convicted of effecting the escape from her courtroom of a person whom ICE was waiting for outside, was sentenced this morning to NO JAIL time and NO probation.
Equal treatment right? What a freaking joke.
Lin – Even when I was a kid California was referred to as the “Granola State” – land of fruits, nuts, and flakes.
P.S. In re Dugan – that’s our two-tiered justice system. Infuriating.
Insanity is a contagious disease in the liberal community.