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Repatriation Futures at UCSB and Beyond
In this episode, Greg Johnson, Director of the Walter H. Cap Center at UCSB, discusses the critical topic of repatriation with experts in the field. The conversation focuses on the moral, ethical, and...
Repatriation Futures at UCSB and Beyond
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This podcast is a presentation of University of California Television.
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Like what you hear, consider making a donation at uctv.tv slash donate.
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So we can continue to bring you more great programs.
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I'm Greg Johnson, Director of the Walter H. Cap Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life here at UCSB.
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And it's really my great honor to be hosting our guests here, whom I'll introduce in a moment.
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I want to thank our co-sponsors for this event, the American Indian and Indigenous Collective here at UCSB.
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And I also want to thank our primary sponsor tonight, the Henry Loose Foundation.
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We're grateful for being able to do this work.
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I want to begin with a land acknowledgement.
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I trust you know we are on Chumashland. This has been Chumashland continues to be Chumashland
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and will be Chumashland.
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And if you have any doubts about that, some of our panelists and other guests will be happy to clarify that idea in conversation later.
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What makes a land acknowledgement relevant in my view at least is that it has followed through institutionally.
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What does it mean to say that we're on Chumashland here as an institution?
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It implies relationships and responsibilities.
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We're trying to make good on that here at UCSB through our work on repatriation.
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It's no secret that for 30 years we've been out of compliance with federal law, embarrassingly so, astonishingly so.
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We've turned the corner, I'd like to think, over the last few years guided by the UC policy on repatriation,
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we're working with our Chumash partners to get the ancestors home.
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That works happening, it needs to continue to happen.
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It takes funding, it takes goodwill, it takes ethical responsibility, we're getting there.
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I hope we stay the course.
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I want to offer a few orienting remarks to start the conversation before I defer to our guests and I'll be short here.
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For those of you who don't know what is repatriation, let's address that question.
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In the sense we mean it here today, it's the return of ancestors back to the rightful homes.
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And also their objects.
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This is a moral issue, it's an ethical issue, a legal issue, it's also a religious and spiritual
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issue for most people involved and we want to center that in our conversation.
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Again, why does it matter here?
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How many of you have ever set foot in HSSB, the building?
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Good number of you.
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That's where our repository is.
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Many, many Chumash ancestors are there.
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That's where my department is.
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Every day I walk into that building, I feel a profound responsibility to that fact.
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Like I said, I think we're turning the corner, but the ancestors are here,
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so we need to acknowledge that, do better.
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It's also a global issue, we'll hear more about that in just a bit.
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Indigenous peoples around the globe are working on this because it connects to land rights,
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water rights, all kinds of things.
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It's the foundation for who people are.
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The question we're really grappling with is what's the future horizon of this work?
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The federal law was passed 30 years ago, more than 30 years ago.
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It's still unfolding, lots of good work has happened, but more remains to be done.
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When we formulated the idea for this panel and the workshop, it's attached to
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the election hadn't happened.
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We were imagining what's the aspirational horizon of this kind of work.
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Where do we go next?
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How do we push the edges?
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We're still trying to think in that hopeful way, and we're talking along those lines,
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but we're also realistic and we're asking questions about what does it mean
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to have federal funding gutted for this kind of work?
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What does it mean for the very laws that are foundational to it to be in jeopardy?
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We need to grapple with these issues.
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What relationships are being healed through this kind of work?
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And what kinds of relationships are being damaged when it's not done?
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To address such questions, the CAHPS Center has convened a group of experts for high-level
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workshop discussion on repatriation this week, and this event is one aspect of our work.
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We have assembled an A team to get this done. These folks are experts.
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They've all been doing this work for decades at various levels on the ground in legislatures,
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theoretically, practically. They're the ones getting it done.
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And their brief presentations, each of our experts will give a glimpse of the work they have
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been doing. Each will have about 10 minutes to speak. I'll introduce each intern.
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And then after that, time allowing, I'll ask a few questions of them, and then we'll turn to you
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for your questions. Then promptly at 5.30, we'll shift to our reception, and a conversation will
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continue. I hope. Okay? So that's the nature of what we're doing here.
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Christina Gonzalez is an enrolled member of the Coastal Band of the Chewmash Nation.
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She is a lecturer in American Indian studies at California State University, Fresno,
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and Cultural Registrar for the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yuka Tribe, where she specializes in
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repatriation and caring for cultural treasures. She has her BA in history and MA in museum studies.
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Christina is currently on the California Indian Basket Weavers Association Board of Directors,
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and also sits on the CSU Fresno Campus AgPRA Committee, as a CSU AIS representative,
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and on the UCSB Campus Committee here, where she is our chair, and she has guided us through
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difficult but very productive conversations. We're asking her to start first because of that role,
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and as a Coastal Chewmash person, this is her home land, and then we'll work outward,
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eventually getting all the way to India. So stay tuned. So please, Christina, we look forward to your words.
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Thank you, everyone. So, Akni Chow, welcome. So first and foremost, one of the things that I want to
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say is that repatriation work is very heavy. It is emotional, it is physical, and it is mental.
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Also native people, we also do not have spiritually a ceremony for rebarial. We are not used to having to
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have ceremonies again for things that were already done. So when we have repatriation, this is an
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interruption of that person's journey, and having to stop it and restart it, there is no ceremony
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for that. This work can also be very frustrating. It can be frustrating when dealing with
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agencies, museums, and institutions who lack an understanding of native people,
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lack an understanding of native peoples' connection to the land, to land to the environment.
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And there have been laws that have been passed, as Greg had mentioned. We had National
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Nagpur that it was passed 35 years ago. 35 years ago, and we are still talking about it today because
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of the lack of compliance for this. We have also, within that 35 years, had federal laws and state
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laws, California, again being one of them. And these laws have provided action and reaction.
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It has kind of put the fire under people to have to work with native people, which is always
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hard because people are not used to working with native people. They don't know how to work with
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native people. But this law is supposed to provide, well, to facilitate repatriation, right?
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Facilitate repatriation of things that are ancestors, that are their things, and other things that
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either have been looted, stolen, unjustly kind of traded, or sold. But these laws are, in my
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opinion, are dealing with now, with our campus, Nagpur committees. I'm very admirable of the work
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that UC Santa Barbara is doing, and our committee is doing. And along with Fresno State, the work that
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the University of the University is doing, and reaching out and working with native people. But I
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feel like a lot of our, the future of repatriation and the future of our work lies with students.
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It lies with who's teaching you. It lies with what are you being taught? And how can we, as native
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people, make you an ally of ours to help us, right, to identify not only things that are in the field,
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but also have that humanity, right, for native people, so that when we're sitting at the table,
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you can empathize with us, and you can understand us. So we're not battling the old guard like we are
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now, and how we're kind of, kind of, dealing with it and kind of coming out of that.
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But we're hoping that, you know, through students and through, through awesome faculty that we're
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able to facilitate repatriation, because it's not only the actual act of repatriating, there's also
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the spirit of the law in returning things, right, to do the right thing, and that there's ethics
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and morals behind this. You know, those ancestral remains that somebody dug up in a, in a field school,
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that's, that's, that's somebody's grandmother. You know, those things that somebody left at their,
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at that burial location, you know, those, that's that special plate that you might leave for your
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grandmother or your grandfather of their plate of goodies, their favorite goodies that they liked.
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You know, those things that they're also buried with, maybe it's grandma's brooch, right,
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that belongs to that person, those need to go back, you know, I think everybody would agree that
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nobody would want their ancestors in the same predicament that a lot of our ancestors are in.
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But again, through, through universities, you know, I feel like some of these things are
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definitely changing and I'm very hopeful for the future. And I, and I do realize there's a lot of
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moving parts. We're still dealing with an old guard, we're dealing with people who are, you know,
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kind of woke, right, or who understand the plight that native people are dealing with.
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But it's very hard. It's very hard. It's very hard to, for us to share things that we're not even,
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we're not supposed to be, you're not supposed to know these things, you're not supposed,
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we're not supposed to share that much, you shouldn't be knowing all of these things that we do know.
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And then it's hard because in these repatriations, we have to tell you things so that we can get
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these back, right. So how do we tell you without telling you everything, but convincing you that it
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is the right thing to return these things to us, right? And, and for native people, it's also very
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hard because all of our ancestors and all of their things are spread across the United States
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and in institutions and in museums around the world, right? So how do we, how do we facilitate that,
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that goodwill? How do we facilitate that? And I always come back to students. How do we do that?
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Right. And again, it's always been really hard, again, to do this work, you know, a long time ago,
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I was also in school and I did my internship under the California State Parks Repatriation
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Coordinator at that time. And it was very interesting work. So I sat on the other side before I
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am here today and I helped prepare every patriation for, believe it or not, the tribe that I actually
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worked for today, which is our Chimash Hereditary and traditional neighbors and partners. And even
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in that repatriation, the NACPRA coordinator suffered tremendously because her colleagues
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at state parks did not agree that certain remains were not old enough or that, you know,
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that we are dealing with. But there's a lot, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done,
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but I feel like it is definitely positive and I'm very hopeful for the future and I have a lot of
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hope. So don't take this as a pressure student. There's a lot of pressure. Don't take this as a lot
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because I have hope that, you know, it is through your education and through when you maintain your
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dream job that you want to do that you're going to be thinking back on how do you do the right thing,
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how do you do the ethical thing, you know, how do you empathize not only with your co-workers, right,
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but with the people that you are working with, you know, maybe outside of whatever that you are
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normally doing. But that is how I am. I really feel like, again, that I am very hopeful. There's
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a lot of work that still needs to be done. There's a lot of work that has been done in the past 35
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years. I'm thankful to also be in California and be a native in California because California
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strives to give non-recognized tribes such as the tribe that I am enrolled with a seat at the
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table to help bring all of our ancestors home. And so when I'm talking about all of our ancestors,
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I'm talking about our federally recognized ancestors are not federally recognized because a
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long time ago they were the same. They were all related and so a lot of times we're also pitted
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against each other in several instances and I feel like that's also something that, you know,
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we need to work on. But it's duly noted, right? But I am very hopeful and I'm very excited and
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you guys have a great group of people up here and I'm so honored to be up here and I would like to
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pass the baton on to the next speaker. Thank you so much, Kaki Nali. Thank you, Christina. Let's hear.
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All right, our next speaker is Nakiya Zavala. Nakiya Zavala is tribal historic preservation
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officer and cultural director for her tribe, the Sanin Naz Band of Chumash Indians. She has been
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involved with repatriation for the past 18 years under the leadership of her tribe. Zavala is
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also an original and let me tell you a core member of UCSB's Naggrant Repatriation Committee.
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And I tell you what, when we started this work and we need to move the ball, Nakiya could move
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the ball. And I won't talk about the attitude of the tone in here that I'll just say you got
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that done. My ancestors are happy. Yeah, all right, well, it's an honor to have you here as well.
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And so please, thank you. Great, thank you. Hakoyila, Makduka, Nakiya Zavala, Alapala, Hula Poo, Nisimala.
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Hello, everybody. It's you introduced to you. My name is Nakiya Zavala. I'm a tribal community member
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of the Sanin Naz Band of Chumash Indians located here in the Sanin Naz Valley. And I'm so happy to be
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sitting here with Christina. This is a great thing when you see tribes coming together to support
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repatriation and really moving that ball and getting the work done together. You know, you said
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so much and I almost felt like, what am I going to say? You know, and I can just speak to my experience
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doing this work. And right when we, I'm looking at some of the panel information and questions and
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you know, talking about future horizons for indigenous repatriation work, for me, I have to go to
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the past in order to move forward. And I think we know that would just about anything, right? I think we
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as Native people need to look at what's been done in the past and everything that's happened.
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Because once you start doing that, you really are pulling back different pieces of why things
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happen. Who's connected? Why are they connected? Why was this getting done? Because if you don't find
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it, you'll be a little lost. And not only that, but we also find lost ancestors that were moved around
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this, I call a black market within the university systems and museum systems where they're
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mishandling, trading, utilizing ancestors for testing without permission from tribes.
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You know, so we have to continue to do this work to put the puzzles together and really find the
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truth out. And you know, with the new regulations that just came out, there's a lot of discussion
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around duty of care, how our tribes, I mean, I'm sorry, how are these institutions enforcing these
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new changes to the regulations? How are they respecting them? You know, there's more work to be
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done. So it's not like we got these new regulations and all of the sudden institutions have been
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out of compliance for 35 years. They finally got it. I don't buy that. You know, now the pressures on,
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now things have changed. So the new regulations did push for tribes and to get into these spaces
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and no longer be dictated to on how we're supposed to do this work or tricked into allowing these
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institutions and museums to keep the ancestors. I mean, these are the truth. This is the truth.
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We have to speak truth into it. And when I think about education and academia, you know, Christina,
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you touched upon it a little bit, you know, how can we change the future? These are our future
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partners. They need to be educated on the truth. You know, I call out department chairs
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that environmental archaeology. Now's the time to start changing how we are educating these
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future professionals. How do you consult with tribes before you begin to do these digs?
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You know, surveys that's happening out on Chi-Mashland. So, you know, I feel like we have to go to
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those spaces where these disciplinaries are and we need to talk truth. And you need to begin to have
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these crucial conversations with tribes to educate, educate, you know, as much as we can and also
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understand these laws that they need to learn. And this is part of them getting into the spaces
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of where our ancestors could be as they're doing these digs, any type of archaeological material
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that they're coming across. I mean, I can't tell you how many collections are out there because
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of work that they did while they were getting their degree. And there's a lot of work that needs
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to be done to correct these areas and the continued collection and archiving of the material.
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What else can I say? You know, I want to give respect to those that are in the room,
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Kathleen Marshall. She's our nag per representative, Kathleen, if you could please stand up.
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She's also the vice chair of our elders council. So, she's my, you know,
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not mine, but our tribes represent it for nag pr as well as Boa or Menta. And I'd like to show
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respect to all the other two mesh people in the room as well. Eleanor, thank you for your prayers.
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I think when we talk more about this work and how we can move forward and what the future looks like,
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you know, just earlier I was talking about how important it is for tribes to educate the younger
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generation. This work is going to take a long time to get done, right? When you think that you're
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done with the museum or a university or Cal State, guess what ancestors are coming up. Why? Because
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they were testing them and sending out samples to Denmark and other spaces to get tested for the
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research. I cannot speak to that enough because it's something that has been horrific. When you see
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bags and bags of tiny vials coming back to you and you have to connect them back to the ancestors
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that they were taken from. I also think that it is a call out to how universities and museums have
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been connected in doing this work. And again, this is part of the research we have to do. It's not
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very simple. We have to really go through and look through archives. We have to, you know,
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research as much as we can and try to find where they're at. And the sad part of it is that means that
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when we repatriate them, they're not complete. And that's really hurtful.
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What else can I talk about here? You know, when I first started with understanding more about
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NAGPRIX, I always thought it was about inadvertent discoveries and rebaring right away.
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Immediately, it became more clear that, no, this is about bringing the ancestors home.
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And, you know, I want to recognize Joe Tologan and Elder that just passed away. And I remember
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hearing him talk and actually being quite angry, you know, demanding for the ancestors to come back.
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It's time for them to come home. But then to have, you know, museums use that they don't have enough
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money to go through their inventories. So they couldn't complete them. So therefore, the notices
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couldn't get done. You know, so you, you, I'm watching and I'm seeing how, how the law was being
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used to keep the ancestors. I'm seeing how I thought people were friends of our tribe actually
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use it in a way to take advantage, mislead and really, really, really hurt the trust in which
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tribes had with these individuals. And then, and I also think it's important to mention the call
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out and the responsibility of those that are in charge of institutions and our museums.
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I'm talking boards, I'm talking chancellors, you know, executive directors, presidents of these
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area, these institutions or museums. I think, and I really feel that tribes are in a different
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place. We understand it better. We understand our rights. We understand the law. And,
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and I think the elders before me that did all this work. And I also think for the, thankful for
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the partnerships, you know, because, you know, it's, it means a lot. And you'd be surprised how they
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tried to pin us against each other, all to keep the ancestors up on shelves and not give them their,
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you know, taken back to the rightful resting areas. Thank you, Nikiya. Thank you.
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Okay, next we have Justin Richland. He is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology
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at the University of California Irvine and he's a faculty fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
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Since 2009, he has served as Associate Justice of the Hopi Appellate Court. From 2015 to 2019, he
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served as adjunct curator of North American Anthropology at the Chicago Field Museum. And now serves
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as a member of UCLA's Repatriation Review Committee. His scholarship concerns contemporary
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native nation law, governance, and their engagement with the U.S. His most recent book is
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Cooperation Without Submission, Indigenous Jurisdictions in Native Nation U.S. engagements.
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Please welcome Justin Richland. Thank you, Greg. Well, first of all, I want to say,
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thank you so much, Greg, for giving me the opportunity. I am so deeply humbled to be here
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with surrounded by so many teachers. I have some teachers to my right and some teachers to my left,
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some of whom I've met for the first time in person now. This is humbling, it doesn't even begin
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to say it. So it's wonderful to be here. I want to tell a story about another moment in
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which I learned something, and I'm always learning, but this was one of the first times I learned
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something about repatriation. And this is a moment that involves some of my work with the Hopi
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Cultural Preservation Office. I've been working with the Hopi Tribe for about 30 years now.
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And this was during my time in Chicago, where I was living for a while, and started, it was before I
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became an adjunct curator at the Field Museum, but it started that work. And when I was in Chicago,
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some of my Hopi friends were coming there. And by the way, I have, this is a story that I'm careful
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to get permission to speak here from my Hopi friends. And to the extent that I get it wrong,
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I take responsibility for that. So I had an opportunity, my Hopi friends were coming to Chicago
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to engage in a repatriation consultation with the Field Museum. Now, if you don't know what the
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Field Museum is, it is a natural history museum that has one of the largest collections of native
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North American material culture and ancestral remains persons in the world. Second, really only
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to the Smithsonian in terms of the size. And Hopi is no exception. Hopi, they have one of the
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largest collections of Hopi material culture there as well. And so the Hopi were visiting there.
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This was back in the early 2000s, mid-2000s. And I had an opportunity to come and observe and work
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with my friends as they were working with the collections there and looking at and attempting to
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identify potential opportunities for repatriation of their cultural patrimony. And when we went
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into the field, we went down into the repository, into the collections resource center, which is
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this enormous vault, basically, of row after row after row after row after row. I mean, it is something
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out of like a bizarre world kind of thing of shelves with material from all over the world and
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all over the US and an Indian country. And one thing you should know about the Field Museum is
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if you had gone there when I went there, you wouldn't expect this to be a place where change
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was possible. In short, the Field Museum in 1990, onward until around 2018 or so, was a place
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where that was sort of in a holding pattern. Their response to Nagpura was to just stop doing anything
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with regard to their Native North American hall. And it looked like it. It was in, it was, it looked
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like the 1950s had not moved on from the Native North American hall. And so, and it was a hard
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place to be. Anyway, back to my visit of these of my Hopi friends. They were downstairs and
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we made our way eventually past the rows that had names of different Native nations. And presumably,
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there are materials and their relatives were on these rows when we got to where Hopi would be
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alphabetical. And this is a cold room, dark, the lights would only turn on when you walk there.
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We got to where Hopi was, where the Hopi material was. And the first thing you notice is what you
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can't see. And I noticed that that the shelving that had been opened for the Hopi, where the Hopi
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materials were all covered in white sort of tarps, sheets. And some of it was behind locked,
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locked cases. And I became aware that actually the same team of Hopi cultural preservation officers
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had been there before and had requested that all this material be kept behind
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and not available for casual view, even by members of the curatorial staff and the collection staff
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there, on the idea that they had to get permission before they could even begin to handle or look at
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any of those materials, and that they had to work with the tribe in order to do that. That was
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interesting. And I thought, that's the start of maybe something as a first step. And they did it
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struck me as maybe the beginning of something, but again upstairs it was still the same old, same old.
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And then I saw something else. So that was what I didn't see. And then I saw something that was
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really remarkable to me. And where the placard would have said Hopi on the side of the thing was
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the name had been taken out. And instead there was hanging what the Hopi called a Bajo,
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which is a prayer feather. Now the Hopi, my Hopi friends tell me that you affix a prayer feather
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to the beings of the world that you owe a tremendous responsibility for their care and well-being.
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And you affix it to persons, places, all of these animated parts of your world,
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parts of a Hopi world, where there is an ongoing expectation. And you breathe your life
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and your hopes into that feather and then you place it. And I thought about that.
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What did it mean in this cold, dark place that there was a prayer feather there?
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And then I wondered, did the Field Museum accession, that is catalog that feather?
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And I asked and turned. I said, has this been accessioned here?
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And the collections managers said no it hadn't. And then I really thought about, well isn't this
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something? Quiet, but profound. And the way in which a Hopi obligation was placed
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a new in a place that had been for so long for closing Hopi opportunities and values to be
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presented. It was not Hopi as a kept culture. It was Hopi as an organizing principle,
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an organizing logic of how to care for the beings there. And it made me realize that
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with regard to repatriation's future, whatever else it might be, and let me assure you, it is not easy.
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It is tough. Even and to the little that I have seen and observed, it is profoundly
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challenging for all involved. But what futures exist for this have to do with the opportunities for
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new forms of relationship, new forms of mutual care and responsibly that don't, by the way, need
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to be reconciled. You don't need to have to make sense of how the relations and the obligations
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that Hopi owe to the friends that are there relate to the obligations that the museum has
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violated. What you need to do is create the space for honoring the possibility that there is
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a way forward. And so when I think about repatriation's futures and I think about the ways in
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which I can talk, and by the way, I'm not a native guy, I'm a Jewish kid from L.A., West L.A.
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So when I understand my role here amongst all my teachers and folks, I think of how can I sort of
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convey the import of this work to the heads of these institutions? How can I convey how critical it
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is? I think of that feather and I think of the prayers that we all can maybe create space for.
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Even in the darkest, coldest places of our history. Thank you.
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Thank you, Justin.
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Thank you. Next, Walter Ekohawk Pani is past president of the Pani Nation from 2020 to 2023,
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an attorney, tribal judge, legal scholar, and author. He represented tribal clients during the
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making of Nagpra 1990. He represented tribal clients during state and state repatriation laws
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in Kansas and Nebraska, and he represented the Pani Nation in implementing those laws.
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Today he is chair of the board of directors for the Association of Tribal Archives,
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Libraries, and Museums, an appellate judge for the Marongo Band of Mission Indians, California,
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and a member American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2023 for his public policy work.
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And I should also add a long time attorney at the Native American Rights Fund,
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and when I was three years at University of Colorado, a student-grade admiration of all the things
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he and his colleagues were able to get done concerning Native American religious freedoms,
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land rights, and so forth, that work continues. It's even gone international, powerful ways.
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So it's just a tremendous honor to have president Ekohawk with us.
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Please welcome him.
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Gee, I can't wait to meet him.
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Thank you, Greg, and good evening to everyone.
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I'm very glad to be here at the University to be a part of this workshop as under
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Professor Johnson's leadership in partnership with the tribal people here are examining the
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state of affairs as far as Nagprah, or the Native American Graves in Protection Repatriation Act,
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is concerned. You know, it's very ironic that there's probably more dead Indians here on campus
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than there's live Indians, and despite the fact that this national repatriation law was passed
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in 1990, 35 years ago. So there's a lot of repatriation work that really, really needs to be
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done here. So I'm glad to be a part of the workshop today and tomorrow. And I'm very optimistic about
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what the future holds as the university turns its attention to moving on in terms of implementing
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this national law. As mentioned, way back when I was a young man, I had the opportunity to
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represent tribal clients during the making of the Nagprah statute as well as a couple of state laws
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as well. And then to go on to implement them for my own tribe, the Pawnee tribe, which is
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indigenous to the central plains of North America. And I'm just very glad to see that this
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Nagprah law that lays down a national policy and national mandates to address this historical
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injustice committed against the native tribes in the United States by the 1990s, every Indian tribe in the country
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and Native American community had been affected by grave robbing and the carrying away of their
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dead, their funeral objects, also sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony,
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carted off to museums around the country. And so this was a human rights law, this Nagprah
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law, a senator in a way on the floor of the Senate during the passage of Nagprah said this is a human
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rights statute. And so now we sit here 35 years later and many colleges and federal agencies and
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museums have fully complied with the mandates, repatriation mandates of this law. Other universities
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have not yet done so and there's been a lot of foot dragging over the decades and so
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there's a new set of Nagprah federal regulations that were promulgated last year.
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I think designed to streamline the implementation of Nagprah and really strengthening,
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trying to get at the foot traggers I guess you could say to grant the tribes a seat at the table
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and during the repatriation process to require their free prior and informed consent now before
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universities study these remains, put them on display and otherwise tamper with them,
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they need tribal consent now to do that under these federal regulations.
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So I know that in large measure this Nagprah statute addressed a national deeply ingrained human
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rights problem of a denial of equal protection of the laws that protect our cemeteries, our human
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remains, the rights of the next of kin were disregarded and this was as I mentioned earlier a national
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problem and whenever you have a deeply ingrained problem of that nature it stands to reason that
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it's going to take a long time to implement statutes that try to rectify these human right
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problems. You look at the civil rights laws of the 1960s are still being implemented today
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so it stands to reason that the Nagprah law is still being implemented today 35 years later.
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All of the tribes that I'm aware of have Nagprah offices as part of their tribal governments
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that work day in and day out to continue implementing this federal statute.
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And we have also gone beyond the Nagprah legislation internationally, the UN declaration
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on the rights of indigenous peoples has listed repatriation of human remains and funerary objects
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as one of the human rights of indigenous peoples and it calls upon each nation to create
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effective mechanisms created in consultation with native people to repatriate these dead
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back to their communities of origin. So the work that's being done is actually human rights work
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in the eyes of the United Nations under international norms. A human right is the kind of a right
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that no nation can take away. It comes to us from a higher source and it's one of the strongest
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rights known to the human race is human human rights and so this matter is a human rights matter.
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Other institutions have also entered into a new era as well with regard to the ethical return
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of human remains that goes above and beyond the requirements of Nagprah to return even though a
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museum or a college may have legal title to these dead people there is a national
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international movement among museums now led by the Smithsonian Institution here in the US
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of returning remains and funerary objects purely for ethical reasons alone and so that's
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opened a whole new era of entering into the ethical era as far as repatriation.
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And so with these developments in the law the human rights law the ethical return movement of
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museums around the world I think that this opens a new vista here in Santa Barbara for the university
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in partnership with the local indigenous peoples tribal nations here in California
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to take some big steps to not only come into full compliance with the legal mandates of our national law
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here but also to enter into the human rights era to see repatriation as a human right and also as
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an ethical matter to do simply because it's the right thing to do. Thank you President Eccahod.
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Okay so one of the things about working with people and becoming friends with them over the
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better part of a quarter century is that sometimes they don't follow instructions I asked our guests
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for to write their own introductions and here is Edward Haleiou's will begin with his words.
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He is a repatriation practitioner and advocate. He is an example of a stupid person who worked hard
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to accomplish much to the surprise of his parents and the shock of his family and friends.
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He also happens to be the chair of the federal Nagbra Review Committee and to my mind the single
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most successful repatriation activist and advocate in the US context and arguably among leaders
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in the global context. He gets the work done not only for his home community in Hawaii but on behalf
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of others and in collaboration with others and I stand in great admiration of the work you've
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done for so many years and what you've taught me it's a great honor to have you here so Mahalo.
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I would like to meet him too.
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I don't care what anyone tells you I was well just favorite lock clerk at the Native American rights
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farm. That's my story I'm sticking to it.
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Quote, when no longer when you no longer hear the word repatriation you will know that there's peace
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in the world. These are the words of Neil Carter and Aborigini Elder from the Kimberly's.
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What is the future of repatriation you ask? My answer is achieved peace.
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We OEV Native Hawaiians have done much in the area of repatriation on local national and international
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levels completing 162 confirmed cases starting in 1990 until now. We have done so through our
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organization Hui Maalama Inakupuna Ohavaine which we dissolved in 2015 and now through its
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successor organization Hui Iwi Cuomo of which I am the executive director.
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I acknowledge the Kaumaha, the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical anguish of learning each
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time over a period of 35 years of the theft and desecration of our ancestors. Their finery
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possessions, sacred objects and cultural patrimony given this high level of anguish is surprising
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that we Hawaiians still survive. In April 2025 we will engage in travel for restitution purposes
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and to lay the foundation for two future repatriations. These efforts will be epic.
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I will lead the team to Europe to visit Berlin Germany to finalize the return of two Hawaiian
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goddesses by negotiating the final details of an ethical return shared stewardship agreement
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with the German Museum Association. If time permits we'll visit Paris France to consult with
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I don't speak French. The Museum National, the History, Natural to finalize the return of
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30 of our ancestors under the fairly recently enacted French legislation championed by Prime Minister
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Macron. We will then fly to Belfast, Northern Ireland to repatriate their remains of two ancestors
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from the Ulster Museum before preparing to return to the United States. Our team will then
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fly to Boston, Massachusetts to conduct a repatriation ceremony from the Harvard P body museum
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of a Nakuo Hulu or Feather God image belonging to the warrior chief Keiko Kalani who was killed
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at the Battle of Kourmau. In 1819 a second team of 15 Native Hawaiians will meet us in Cambridge
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including two of my children who will bear witness to this historic return. We will then fly the
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Washington DC to take possession of a full-length Feather cloak belonging to this same chief
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Keiko Kalani from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Then we will return home
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triumphantly with our ancestors bones and both a God and Feather cloak of Chief Keiko Kalani.
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The last repatriation we did in November 2024 was from the University of Tokyo in Japan.
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It was a grueling experience given the intellectual savagery of the museum staff.
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Repersivir it because we believe it is never a matter of whether our ancestors come home.
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The only question is when. This represented the first repatriation from Japan and helped us to
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promote shared humanity in that region of the world. It allowed us to continue to restore our
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ancestral foundation and contemplation of the restoration of our Hawaiian kingdom. I will let you
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in a little secret. Hawaii is not in the United States. The United States is in Hawaii.
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We must undertake our repatriation work without fear or hesitation. Our Queen Lidia Kamakaeha
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Liliwokalani, the last ruling monarch of the Hawaiian kingdom whose lawful government was
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unlawfully overthrown by agents of the United States in 1893 stated quote,
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I could not turn back the time for the political change but there is still time to save our
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heritage. You must remember it never ceased to act because you fear you may fail. The way to lose
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any earthly kingdom is to be inflexible, intolerant and prejudicial. Another way is to be too flexible,
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tolerant of too many wrongs and without judgment at all. It is a razor's edge. It is the width of a
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blade of pili grass. In addition, a fictional character once said that,
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fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
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I find knowledge from where it comes from even in the Star Wars saga. I share with you the
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mortal words of Gladys Kamakaeha Kuala Kalani, I know a brand who says quote, in education not
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anger resides our future. In education not ignorance resides our hope. In education not fear resides
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justice. The future is now, teach the next generation, don't complain that your problems aren't
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being solved. For us, repatriation is a responsibility as much as it is a right.
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Behave responsibly and doodly from which privilege flows. Stop the stupidity of social media
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likes. You're only performing responsibly for the ancestors, not the masses. I teach seven
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alaqa'i or advanced repatriation practitioners, all whom are of Hawaiian ancestry, fluent Hawaiian
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language speakers, IT bad asses, and all youthful. I teach them ceremonial protocol behavior and
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advocacy practices. I teach them to harness their hunting skills, to locate the targets and then
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advocate for their return. I have a warning from museums and individuals who house our ancestors.
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We will find you and then when we do, winter is coming. Of course, yes. Of course what I cannot
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teach alaqa'i is courage and commitment, those I guess from their ancestors. I teach them how
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to communicate with their kupuna, to ask them for all the tools necessary to be responsible to them
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and thereby to better understand who we are as Hawaiians. I humaika ike, I humaika i kaika,
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I humaika i ka mai, I humaika maupo popo pono, I humaika ike pa pa alua, I humaika mana.
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Grant us knowledge, strength, intelligence, righteous understanding, spiritual communication,
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the ability to talk directly with our ancestors and most of all grant us spiritual power.
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It is critical that we homize normalized, normalized, our traditional spiritual practices as an
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affirmative response to religious savagery of Christians who have forsaken the humble teachings
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of Christ in favor of their replacement God known popularly as money. I close with the
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mortar words of Lord William Eurot Gladstone, a 19th century statement, statesman who said,
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quote, show me the manner in which a nation our community cares for its dead and I will measure
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with mathematical exactness, the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land
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and their loyalty to high ideals. Ola Naivy, the bones to live.
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Mahalo, hallelujah, loha.
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Okay, next we have Dali Kaikon, and she is from the loha naga tribe in Nagaland, India.
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She is professor of anthropology and director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the
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University of California Santa Cruz, a position she has recently taken. So welcome back home,
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Dali, or back to your now home after some years away.
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She serves as a member of Restore and Decolonize, a community-based research initiative of the
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forum for Naga reconciliation. They work to repatriate Naga ancestral human remains to the
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foundation of the Naga community. I have 10 minutes, so thank you so much for giving me this time.
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And I think I'm amongst really honored elders, colleagues, and I want to take this opportunity
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to honor Edward. I think there are a few people in the world who can claim him to be a teacher
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because of the time and commitment that he has given to other Indigenous peoples outside of
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this continent and the Naga people are one of them. To give you all a context of why I'm standing here
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among our Indigenous colleagues and elders from the North American continent, I am a Naga and I come
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from the Eastern Himalayas. And I believe that the repatriation process is a journey. And as you hear
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about centuries of hard work that's gone in here on this land and the repatriation journey,
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I come here with an education, I think with an exposure that I want to give you all about
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prayer, the repatriation process, and what kind of doors it has opened to other Indigenous peoples
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around the world. The Naga people are around two million of us and we are a transnational
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community. We live in north eastern region of India, which is part of the Eastern Himalayas and
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also in the north western part of Burma, Myanmar. And the repatriation journey for us began around
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2020 when the Petriverse Museum started a process of ethical review and evaluation. And I would say
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that such processes do not come out of nowhere. It comes out of centuries and decades of work that
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your elders and elders and teachers like Edward has put in. And so I honor you all here in this room
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to give you a context of where we come from. This is a map that I want to show you all.
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And since 2020, look at the Naga repatriation process as a sampling. And sometimes I fear
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the process that we have opened for the future generation. And I want to stick to this term,
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the future of repatriation. It is a door once you open as Indigenous peoples, as allies,
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you cannot close it anymore because that's when issues of sovereignty, self-determination, the land,
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and also for Indigenous communities. This association, intergenerational trauma,
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ongoing issues of colonization comes in. Repatriation is really hard for Indigenous communities like
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Naga people because this is where we are also learning the differences and the conflicts that we
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have within community that is yet to be resolved. We were very fortunate to have an encounter
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with the return reconciled and renewed team of which I think, the team that is online and Edward
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are members and very early on, their solidarity and their generosity overwhelmed us.
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It was during the time of COVID and they had time, generosity and love for Naga people.
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They zoomed in and they gave us numerous workshops on how to deal with it. And one of the primary things
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that Edward told us that we put it in our hearts was be mindful of the spiritual realm. Darkness
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will come, you all will start to fight, you all will have a rage that surfaces watch for that,
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do not let the enemy win. The Naga people were converted to Christianity by American Baptist
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missions in the mid 19th century. So the process of repatriation is also an ongoing conversation
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and debate between the church, 97th person of Naga's who live in India are American Baptists.
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So this land actually is connected to the story that I'm telling you all about for the churches
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what kind of role they begin to play. A lot of my friends studied theology in India and they have
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come all the way across the oceans over the decades to be trained here on your soil in North America.
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They study theology and they go back to the Naga homeland, they go back around the world. So there
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is a deep connection in terms of the pedagogy and how is it that we teach what we teach.
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One of the things that I want to quickly show you all, I have five, I'm giving five minutes
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aside for a video that I want to show you. It is not a perfect video but I thought that it's important
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that you that you see how the process started. Before the video I want to show you the recover,
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restore and decolonize and this was inspired by the return reconciled and renew elders who told us
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early on make sure that you archive it, make sure you carry the young ones with you,
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make sure you go back to community, make sure that this is not a top-down approach.
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Edward clearly told us do not let the museums and people external to the process bully you all.
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Have a voice. The process of repatriation is soon new for the Naga people that I standing here in
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front of you give the first repatriation speech among the Naga people in the Naga homeland.
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More than the elders, let me tell you this, my beloved friends, colleagues and indigenous
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colleagues and friends, it was the young people who were set on fire. They had no idea that there
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was a process like that around the world. This has started in the last five years, a conversation
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about art, about poetry after the first speech that I gave in the Naga homeland, which is actually
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part of this website. You can go and connect with it later and I show this to you not to show for
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the Naga people are doing but as part of education we are only five years old and Edward I hold
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what you told us very dearly that wait for it is going to take decades for the journey.
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One of the processes that we began to do was put everything that we do online so that the young
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people from across the Naga homeland can have a sense. This is us and we take inspiration from
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RRR and then they come and they click this and in the process of the action that they do they know
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what this is. We came up with our logo to make sure that there is a process, indigenous process of
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of communication and dialogue. We put everything here and the Naga people because we are a transnational
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people live both in Myanmar and in India so you can imagine the number of languages we speak as a
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Naga nation around 44. So we began the process of translating the repatriation manifesto of the
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Naga people into different languages. This is still an ongoing process and we are still doing it.
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Every couple of months we go to the villages, to the schools, to the communities including church
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members, the village councils and we talk to them about what is happening. All the pictures are
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there, the events are there and one of the things that we do is also education for school students.
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So my colleague Dr. Orkato Nglongkamer who is a professor at the University of Edinburgh and
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a fellow Naga came up with a comic book and they have started using these comic books in schools
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so that they have a process. We are all figures in this comic book to actually talk to them about
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what is repatriation. I think in the North American context it's a very old established process
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and we look up to you all in the Naga context. It is a very new process that we have to go and
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tell and define the meaning of repatriation and for us we thought about it and the repatriation
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process has to be a Naga process as to be our process in a way. So as you look at the website
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you can have a sense of what we have been doing. One of the things that I quickly wanted to devote my
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time here as the final slide is to show this to you and also talk a little maybe one minute
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about the Australian journey. In 2023 we went to Australia at the delegation of 16 of us. We got a
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grant from the University of Melbourne working on repatriation from our indigenous colleagues and
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we went there and we spoke and we shared and we had dialogues and round tables with our indigenous
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colleagues and we learned a lot from them and I hope that in the future through our elders and
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our colleagues who are native indigenous to the land we have an opportunity to come and learn
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about your land and learn about your repatriation process. I'm holding Indian Passport and it's
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very difficult to get a US visa. We wait sometimes for one or two years and it's still impossible
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to get it. One of my wish is that we have an online a digital platform where there is an indigenous
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network of education conversations going on. To end this what I'm going to do is just play a short
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video for you also that you can have a sense of how the process started and what the remains look
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like. The Pitrivers Museum has about 6400 Naga artifacts including human remains and it holds
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the largest collection Naga collection in the world and we are the first indigenous communities
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our community in South Asia to begin work on repatriation. We are compared to the giants who
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sit at this table compared to our teacher Edward we are a sapling but we can definitely become
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an oak tree one day.
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The Pitrivers Museum was founded in 1884 when General Pitrivers donated his collections of about
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27,000 objects to the University of Oxford. Now the collections have grown to 600,700,000 objects.
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So since 2006 the University of Oxford has processes in place around the return of human remains
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because some of the collections that were gathered were taken either without the consent of
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communities or they were human remains ancestral remains that should never have been put on display.
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So in July 2020 we took the human remains off display from many different parts of the world.
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When we removed the objects from display we took off about 120 human remains in total and that
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was in response to an ethical review of the collections and the displays both in terms of the objects
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that were on display and also terms and references on labels that were problematic. We got a small
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team of people together from the Glam packing team so we documented them properly for the originating
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community and then they were all packed in acid-free boxes using acid-free tissue and the boxes
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are currently stored at an offsite storage location.
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Naga human remains have come into the museum since the museum was founded in 1884.
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Most of the Naga human remains however were collected by two colonial administrators,
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Hutton and Mills and they collected enormous collections for the museum but there are 21 different
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sources so 21 different people gave Naga human remains to the museum.
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So this is the Naga display and I think this case gives you a really good overview of the types
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of objects within the Naga collections here at the Pit Rivers. We've removed human remains from
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the displays but there will still be on display objects that have elements of human remains such as
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bone or hair so I think this object may contain some human hair and that is more work that we need
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to do and more investigation. We as a museum now are starting to work with communities to
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wares the redress to wares the return of some of these objects. I would like to apologize to the
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Naga community for not having reached out earlier. We have these ancestral remains. We know that
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Naga communities will be the ones who know best how to take care of these Naga remains. Who
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might want them back? So that is why now we are reaching out to see what kind of forms of redress
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we might find together. I am deeply invested in this project of bringing back Naga ancestral
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remains to the Naga homeland and as part of the process I have been working in order to understand
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not only the collection but also how might we engage with different Naga communities.
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What we are trying to do is address a very central issue here and that is the
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unfinished business of colonization that a lot of indigenous communities across the world
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are having to deal with. We are looking at for the moment the repatriation, the reparation and the
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process of healing in addressing and in bringing back our ancestral human remains.
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This kind of current work is really part of a shift in more of the museums around the world.
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That's happening where museums are very conscious that some of these objects were taken as part
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of a colonial legacy. They were part of a very violent past and to do that work of redress
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of societal healing is really what museums are spending a lot more time on and thinking about
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how can we do this.
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