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
AI Overview
A coalition of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, operating under CENTCOM, forms a regional superpower that technologically outmatches Iran through superior air power, advanced armor, and a combined force of nearly 1 million personnel including Israeli reserves. This alliance holds overwhelming superiority in the air with over 800 modern combat jets against Iran’s roughly 200 older aircraft, alongside a modernized tank fleet (Merkava IVs, M1A2 Abrams) that outclasses Iranian armor.
Turley has to dig deep to find obscure stories to use to attack blue states and Democrats, all while ignoring the big stuff. Today, Trump called the leaders of Iran “scum” and “cookoo”. He insulted Spain, dug in to continue insulting Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, and attacked NATO. The mis-named “peace agreement” with Iran, which was nothing more than an agreement to agree down the road is off. The Strait is closed again (it was open before Trump started this war he has no idea how to end), Iran fired on ships in the Strait, and gas prices will likely start soaring again. Meanwhile, the death count due to Trump dismantling USAID (via Elon Musk and his chain saw) is estimated to be 780,000, most of whom were children. All of these deaths were preventable. Right after the midterms, millions of Americans will lose Obamacare. Winning?
Gigi – I appreciate the Professor’s selection of topics. The news on Iran or President Trump’s meetings with other world leaders can be gleaned from hundreds of other sources. For anyone following the news, there is no avoiding it.
On the other hand, the Professor’s blog is interesting precisely because it brings stories to light that many people, including myself, would never otherwise come across during the day.
To the extent you perceive the Professor as merely selecting stories to “attack blue states and Democrats,” that is your own interpretation which could be due to your own hyper-sensitivity. In any event, you remain free to engage with the substance of the articles and explain why any such attacks fall flat, in your view.
You also remain free to start your own blog to attack red states and Republicans.
So . . . why not quite the juvenile whining, moaning, and bellyaching, grow up, and engage like an adult?
Oldman: all you have to do is watch MAGA media–where do you think Turley gets the pro-Trump, pro-MAGA topics he is paid to write about? Is it whining, moaning, bellyaching or immature to care about starving children in Africa, who would not have died of starvation or preventable communicable diseases but for Trump lying his way into power and cutting off aid they desperately needed to survive, all while blowing a billion dollars a day on a war based on a lie, applying gold leaf to statues, wasting money on painting the Lincoln reflecting pool, and building a ballroom and arch no one wants? The United States engendered all sorts of good will by sharing in our abundance to help our others less fortunate–before Trump, that is. Now, he insults NATO, Canada, Greenland, Denmark, Italy and other allies–and why? Because of his massive ego.
Yes, WINNING!
Given that you are completely ineffective, why are you here?
Have you ever asked yourself that, or is it that you are following orders from the Politburo?
Masochism perhaps?
WE DON’T DESERVE HIM!
*. I used Google
Anthropology was invented in the 19th and 20th centuries. 1940s is within the time period. My concern is fraud as institutions have been raided and no doubt items such as corncobs put in place. The list of 24 items are 3 cobs, 3 partial cobs, 1 corn husk, corn and chickpea samples, 2 samples unidentified seeds taken by an agriculturalist in NM other such. Unless a botanist verifies their age they may be remnants of last night’s dinner.
It would be nice to imagine California’s University and colleges having art and artifacts, bones, linguistic scholarship, other biological evidence, physical terrain documentation, cultural histories and traditions remain intact somewhere. The Smithsonian is exempt from NAGPRA but not exempt from looters and thieves.
It should be a heyday for yard sales in coming years. A good eye might pick up an original marble bust from antiquity for a few dollars. Imo
*. Censored but stone age and unique.
*. ^^ censored. WHAT FABULOUS insights!
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!
OK, this one was simple too (and yes, I know, don’t feed the trolls) by Anon above whose core assumption was Dr. FU was god and RFK Jr, is Satan:
A common example of a logical fallacy involving connected statements is the slippery slope fallacy, which suggests that a relatively small first step will inevitably lead to a chain of related events culminating in a significant impact, often without sufficient evidence to support such a progression.
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.
@oldmanfromkansas: As always, I really do find your comments amusing and most often (but not always) agreeable, but with reference to “Granola State”, please stop making fun of Governor Jerry Brown. Re: “two-tiered justice system”, you may want to consider the historical infliction of the Dual State system also.
Anonymous – thank you!
Insanity is a contagious disease in the liberal community.