Transcripts For CSPAN3 Native American Perspectives On Repatriation 20150119

Life on cspan cspan2 cspan radio, and www. Cspan. Org. 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the National Museum of the American Indian act. The law established the museum on the national law as part of the Smithsonian Institution and encouraged the smithsonian to return any american remains and objects to federally recognized indian tribes. Next, from a daylong symposium marking the anniversary, a panel views the repatriation process from the native perspective. This is a little over an hour. Its 2 02 according to my phone, so i think what well do is well slowly make our way back in and recommence with the symposium. Those of who you may be joining us a little bit later, we had a wonderful pair of sessions first thing in the morning. We talked a little bit about the histories, both legislative and activists that brought us to the nmai act and we talked a little bit about the nuts and bolts operations of that act within the smithsonian. I hope everyone had a wonderful lunch. I know i did. Always the chiliflavored chocolate kind of thing. This afternoon, well be taking up two other aspects. The first, we want to think lebt think a little bit lebt a little bit about whats happening on the grounds in tribal communities and more International Experiences around repatriation. Our third panel will be chaired today by Roberta Bobby connor, a member of the confederated tribes, director of the cultural institute. Since its opening in 1980. Bobby is a former trustee of the Smithsonian Museum of American Indian and chairman of the board and its been my great pleasure to have a few years working with her. She is an amazing and thoughtful advocate, critic, intellectual around the practice of museums and museumology particularly in native country. The conversations ive had with bobby over the years have been so enlightening, ive learned an incredible amount from her about how things operate on the ground, in her own very fine institution, but also her kind of picture of the National Scene and about the mission of museums in Indian Country. So bobby, its wonderful to have you here. Its my pleasure to see you and spend time with you and i will turn things over to your panel. Good day. Here, most people know me by bobby. And before i introduce the copanelists, id like to engage the room participation, and for those on the cspan audience how many of you are representing a tribe or a Historic Preservation office in Indian Country . Could you please raise your hand . And how many of you are representing agencies or museums who do businesses with tribes over repatriation in particular . Wow, ok. Well, Indian Country, were used to being outnumbered, right . [laughing]. So if the panelists were to retitle this panel, i think it would be the Untold Stories of repatriation and i hope that thats where we will get to when we get to the questions, as well as the presentations of this panel. But id like to just for claritys sake to start off with my experience with the confederated tribes of humantilla, which is my home tribe to, indicate we have a division of labor in our tribe and how we handle our work. The Cultural Resource Protection Program is the tribal Historic Preservation office and officer in that department of natural resources. And they deal with all things having to do with repatriation not only of human remains but associated objects and all other relationships under that as well as the nmai act. They deal with ground disturbance and monitoring. The Museum Cultural institute has a specific job of interpretation and curation. And our tribe elders thought it best that those who were dealing with the public on a daytoday basis, gathering stories to be told to the public and engaging the public on a as a routine part of our business, should not be the people doing the repatriation work with human remains in particular. So our museum has been a repository in our sacred storage vault for a select number of special holdings that were temporary and we have permanent or semipermanent storage for some archeological material, but we have made it a practice because we are a public facility, to separate that in our tribe. And to make the work of those dealing with the public exclusively that. So the museum deals with curation, and its about repatriation of knowledge, and thats been through symposia and our own tribal history back and the less history book and soon our native place names to be published. My work with repatriation has been largely six years on the board of trustees for the National Museum, and i want to just emphasize for those of you who were here this morning, i think you heard a very thoughtful presentation by both those peoples representing the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian, but i think that those of you who are working on repatriation have had very different experiences, good and bad with both institutions. You know how it is when sort of not the rubber meets the road but when the moccasins hit the trail, how hard it can be in practice to do this work, and you are the people who have the very difficult job of not only all of the logistics and the politics of handling repatriation, you have the responsibility of taking care of your own personal, physical, spiritual and emotional well , being while you do this work on behalf of our people in Indian Country. So i want to applaud you for the work do you and i want to face say to you that these are people who know what the trail is like and theyre going to talk to you now about that experience. So i am delighted to woman as them to welcome as the panelists for this presentation on the broader context context someone who has 25 years of practical experience in this field. He was putting his office together before the nmai act, or nedpra were enacted, and has been doing this work for 25 years and were optimistic possibly another 10. To his left, and i dont say that because of Health Reasons or anything in particular, but because its hard work, and to his left is don simonas who is representing the bureau of Land Management and has about 20 years of experience working in repatriation as well and they have some very specific experiences they want to share with you today. With no further ado, id like to introduce you to lee. Thank you. [applause] first of all, thanks to the museum, in particular, the staff that im sure that did the planning and handled logistics for all of us here, kudos to them, and im sure youre glad that today is the day, and maybe youll sleep tonight. [laughter] my name is lee. As introduced, ive been the director of the hop i tribe Preservation Office for 25 years and this coming march will be 26 years. So its been a pretty interesting journey for me personally being the first and only director for the tribes preservation efforts. What id like to do briefly here is to share my personal experience within the theme thats being presented today, which is repatriation. And we had lunch together, and i talked to both of my colleagues here about some of my personal perspectives in retrospect, and id like to share those with you, and sometimes call it really the Untold Stories or story about repatriation. About 1990, i was notified initially by a Small College in Southern California of them hold ing two infants from a hopi ancestral site, about 70 something miles south of the Hopi Reservation. And you know, of course, i had very little experience then and for the first time, i was really faced with a cultural dilemma as to how to deal with a burial much less infants, because culturally, we deal with infants differently than we do deal with adult. And i had absolutely no idea how to handle it. So being that i was the assistant director for the Tribal Health department for 10 years prior, i had also established a cadre of older people, so i sought advice from them, and i think in Indian Country, that was the same dilemma of facing even my older generation advisors. Because we didnt have a reburial ceremony. We just collectively didnt know how to deal with it. But they finally said, well, its the most ethical thing we can do to place these two infants back into their final resting homes. So they at that time established or at least i was witness to just an abbreviated ceremony for the two infants, and we buried them. Since then, our effort from the hopi tribe has been particularly focused on human remains. Were slowly transitioning into the sacred objects and culture cultural patrimony objects both with the statutes, under the guides of the smithsonian or this museum. We just recently completed repatriation and reburial over at the national forest. And facing me ultimately at the time, institutions began to share their inventories with us. It was overwhelming as we looked at the collections out there that would eventually be potentially be affiliated with the hopi tribe. The paper on it was just that, it was daunting. As we engaged in discussions and eventually began to actually do collections and repatriation of burial of human remains, that became another cultural challenge to all of us, and to me personally, and for the first time you know, of course, we were now going to handle remains, and i remember the first big collection we were going to deal with, and that was up in like 2005 with the mesa verde. And up at mesa verde, we were going to rebury about 1500 individuals. The logistical end of it was a task that me and my staff worked out in terms of deciding on a common cemetery and the sequencing of and the distribution of the remains based on the cultural practices. I remember going into the trench and the boxes being delivered to us and opening up me and some others opening up the boxes, and now time to actually handle them. And i vividly remember that, all of us, and it was a couple of trucks full of the remains. And you know, initially, and even then back in 2005, as i went in through that burial and other burials before, reburials, i went in there learning about the history of collections, and then actually seeing the remains come out, and having now placing them in their designated areas and i went in there with perhaps , probably as many tribal people do, with mixed emotions, and particularly one that i always think about even today is really anger, and particularly, when you looked at the types of remains that you are handling. You have the typical adults female, male, perhaps what was more distressing for me was infants, and because like i said, we treat infants differently out on hopi, and they are considered to be in their purest form of human life untainted, both physically and emotionally, so we see the infants as clouds, cloud people. So when i began to handle those kinds of collections, that i dwelt on that, and, of course learning the history of collections, its anger. Also, mother and infant were really hard to deal with. And probably the most visibly affecting were mummies. And as we engaged in particular with the mesa verde reburial there was about a dozen of the mummies. I didnt really have that organized as to how to deal with that, with the hopi group that went up there. But when i mentioned it to them, no one wanted to handle the mummies. So i handled the mummies. I think visually, they were the most affecting. And even though we end up with our cleansing ceremony, our smudging, Everything Else that we do today with dead, i think those kind of imagery on a personal level, just simply lingers. Over time, you kind of dont dwell on it and dont think about it. But even now today when you bring it up, its there again. So while repatriation is good in many ways, in the case of human remains, the respectful reinterment back to earth, but also this kind of trauma that many tribes just simply dont talk about, and its really unknown as to what really repatriation means or how it affects tribes. Same thing with the sacred objects of repatriation. In 1995, we visited the museum at harvard. For the first time, the staff had us put on these protective clothing, full gear, our shoes were covered, gloves, everything. And that was the first time we have ever were required to do that. So after that day, we sat around at our hotel room just wondering why they did have us do what they did with the clothing. So next day, we went in and we asked about it, and for the first time, they shared with us of the potential contamination of some of the hopi objects with pesticides. So i didnt really understand that immediate information, but over time, we know that many institutions, in particular, museums, use pesticides to treat biodegradable items from insects. And as we went into the study of the application of pesticides, we also knew that my institution was pretty random. Few museums had any records on the application of pesticides, item by item. No one kept records of it. But it was important enough that the next day, i asked to see the museum director, and i asked her about this potential problem. I wanted to just sit down and talk about it, and it seems that immediately there was not any kind of real reaction in terms of urgency and so forth from the Club Director from the director. So i asked to see the museum attorney. So reluctantly, he met with me and i said to him, you know, your museum has to cooperate with the hopi tribe. You know, i think were facing a major, major problem here. And we need to know if were going to repatriate, we need to know, and again, it seems that he wasnt receiving me the way i expected. So i finally said, you know, its a matter of legal liability. If you know, but more importantly, if you knowingly prevent any information from learning more about this problem, its a matter of legal liability on your part is what i told him. So that triggered off, of course, discussion and later they did invest in Laboratory Testing of some of our items and for the first time, i was beginning to understand the depth and breadth of this particular problem. You know, arsenic, the base chemical, one item was really high. You know, the intent of repatriation is to have the cultures receive these Cultural Properties for reuse. And so with that first project we knew that this was going to be a very significant agenda for the hopi tribe. So in 1997, weve applied for a nagpra grant and under took a Testing Program of about 60 items that were already returned to the hopi tribe. And the results were in line with the service. One item we got from the field museum in chicago tested 500 times the acceptable apa the mesh e. P. A. Level. It was so deadly. But you know, the sad part of it was we had brought it home and given it to the clan people that were responsible for it, they had it in their home. They were handling the item that we didnt know. And that item still is in isolation, you know, the laboratory and one of them that worked with us is here. Dr. John mcclenan, i dont know where he is at, but he and his team with the Arizona State museum helped us with the arizona poison control center, and they told us, you know, it if it was our property we , would incinerate it. So i hope you never ask to get this one back. Its so deadly. By 1998, the chairman of the hopi tribe issued a moratorium on repatriation. He said we are not returning any more items unless theyre tested and free of pesticides, and that has been our protocol since then. So i remember going into the villages with the first collection 65, and letting the villagers and priest, the village chief, and people know that were getting our coconino friends back from certain museums. There was a lot of joy. There was a lot of exuberance, and when we did return them, it was a big day for the villages. And then by 1996, i was going back telling them, i got to retrieve them. Ive got to take them back. And, of course, i had to tell them that potential problem of pesticides. And you could see just the i dont know, they just didnt understand the problem. And so now the tribe is Still Holding a lot that tested positive for particularly heavy metals and in particular arsenic. All of them are down in the repository, the National Parks repository in tuscon, probably never to be returned or used by the hopi people. So thats an untold story. In september, we worked with staff here at the museum and filed a claim in 1998, but they also underwent some delays for certain reasons, but one of them was to make sure they were tested. September 27th, was a huge day for some of the staff present here, jackie swift and terry snoble lauren, and others. 95 of our friends were being returned home from the museum. It was a big day for the hopi people. I think six villages had items being returned, and i remember we had some of the coconino friends out in our Conference Room there, and asked the tribal employees to come over and pay homage to them with prayer and so forth. A lot of emotion. But within the collection, we also knew there were 23 items from the museum that were tested positive for arsenic and heavy metals. Those will never again be distributed. They are still boxed up. They are going to be housed at the museum of Northern Arizona thanks to my friend whos been very helpful. We dont have any repository or any Holding Facilities on hopi. While it was good in a number of ways, of course, the whole issue of pesticides, and hopi is at the forefront with this issue, and i keep asking the park service if they could at least consider a temporary moratorium on biodegradable items and work work with the museums and tribes so that all the tribes have an opportunity to get resources for their own Testing Programs. Even as a speed today, many items are being returned untested to tribes all over the United States. I worry about it i worry about it. We are still aggressive in our work, making sure that everything we are repatriating is tested. And we have a cooperative relationship with various institutions to achieve that. So, really, repatriation, we are going into sacred objects in terms of repatriation. Over time, human remains, with repatriation, the hopi tribe will have reburied 7000 human remains over 25 years. We will have reburied 15,000 objects. And the hopi tribe is the agent for all the pueblos when it comes to working out the paperwork, the repatriation agreements, all the logistics. Using that, the pueblos have asked the hopi tribe to represent them. We have not had any human remains regarding laguna pueblo. We represent them for human remains. As i look back, 7000 is a huge number. Probably the single largest repatriation of human remains. So, our ancestral people are now in the ground. And we have worked out protocols with multi use agencies so that we can rebury on those jurisdictions as well. It has been a pretty interesting task as far as repatriation from both sides. Both from the institutional side and from the tribal side. It is an experience that, of course, my staff is learning that some Young Professionals that work with us have put five of our younger students into the anthropology, archaeology programs. Three have obtained their masters. One will complete his masters this semester. My staff is growing technically and culturally. So when i ride into the sunset in another 25 years, we will have a cadre of Young Professionals that will take on this very important task. I just thought something personal would do some justice to this theme of repatriation today. I thank you. Thank you, leigh. [applause] before we move to don, i want to ask a couple questions. One of them is about the notion that questions have come to you from other museums about why you make a point to take reburials to certain locations instead of just burying them on a reservation. There has been an operating assumption on the part of others that the place was not a really important issue in the reburial process. Can you talk about that . As we learned about particular remains, you know the ancestral people had homes. They were respectfully reinterred in those villages thousands of years ago, maybe more. It is very important that these remains go back to where they were originally taken out from which is not really doable these days. For a number of reasons. But at least in close proximity. When we are dealing with blm that prohibited the creation of new cemeteries on their land they were asking us, could we take the remains back to the Hopi Reservation . We said, no, we cannot do that. Every year, in november this year, the men prepare certain types of prayer offerings. We do an allnight prayer vigil to petition spiritual people to visit their respective remains. One, it is very important that it be in proximity, these remains be reburied. So the spiritual people can find and connect with their remains again through the earth. That was important with the hopi people. We cannot bring these remains that to the Hopi Reservation. We have been able to work out with pretty much everyone these kind of cultural desires, and pretty much all the agents helped us deal with location. Thank you. One of the things i learned from you at lunch was that, when the inventories began to arrive after the passage of nmai and nagpra, there were about 300 institutions that had material from your ancestors and your people. You have worked so far with about 30 of that 300 to do the work you have numerically listed for us earlier. One of the things, one of the large categories of work that remains and this remains for many indian nations is to deal with the skulls that have been separated from the remains of the whole body. And you talked a little bit about the challenge that presents. Yeah. We did get of course, our inventory from the smithsonian too. And what was interesting about the collection was that these were hopi skulls. A fellow by the name of fugues was hired by the smithsonian to do just that, collect nothing but hopi skulls. As i researched it more, i learned that the skulls were going to be part of a natural interest in indigenous cranium studies. A very disturbing history that both the smithsonian and Walter Reed Hospital in the u. S. Army engaged in, the study and collection of native people through these craniums. The army was commissioned to decapitate native peoples, particularly in the plains wars, for that specific reason. I have a huge file on that, with the tribes that suffered as a result of this policy. Well, for hopi, we are never at war with the United States government. But they still needed specimens from the hopi tribe. That is what happened. They came in specifically for that and went into our ruins. The villages were protesting the disturbance. And mr. Fugues had an agent get a guard from the navajo to guard excavations. That is how they collected skulls. They are still here. The dilemma is that. Because we talked about it in the villages. So now we know where these skulls came from. The challenge is that you have the remains still in the ground. And the skulls somewhere else. The culture is asking, how do we deal with just the skull coming back . Because our desire is to reunite them with the remains. But we cannot go in and reexcavate. So how do we deal with just the skull . So we have not asked for repatriation. It is still a standing question. Theyre looking at me to make that decision, but you know, it is difficult. So that is part of my personal research. And i do not know if we will ever return those skulls back. Thank you. Thank you very much. We would now like to turn our attention to don simonis representing utah and the bureau of Land Management, and his 20 years of work in repatriation. My name is don simonis. I work in utah for the bureau of Land Management. We still have looting going on unfortunately. It is something we are trying to deal with between education and law enforcement. But it is terrible. So why am i here today . I was surprised to get a call about six months ago, eight months ago, inviting me back here for this symposium. I was very pleased to be invited. And the reason i am here mainly, is to tell you pretty much about a reburial that we did through the bureau of Land Management with the National Museum of American Indians and three other museums on public land. And we think that it went well. It was a success. And i hope we can do a whole lot more of it. By the way, i am really pleased to see so many Museum People here today. You people are the ones who are going to be working with the tribes and with people like me who will allow reburial in places. Just give you a brief history of our situation. What went on about 2. 5 years ago, in may of 2012, i got an email saying that the National Museum of American Indians had contacted the bureau of Land Management Washington Office and was interested in finding a location for the reburial of several items that had been excavated from southeastern utah in the 1890s. A certain family was heavily involved. They had been working on this for the museums and tribes for about 15 years. Having meetings. In may of 2012, went back to albuquerque, and we had our first meeting. I want to recognize just some people that i call key people in the different groups i dealt with on this. In particular, for the bureau of Land Management, alice hart was the main person i worked with in the Washington Office. She did a fantastic job and coordinating with me. Neil, our new director, seems very supportive of nagpra items and Cultural Resources in general. Im really pleased to see neil there. Byron is our main archaeologist. And emily pallas has done an excellent job working with nagpra over the last several years. So the thing that we need to do is the right thing. In my mind, the right thing is to put these remains back in the ground where they came from, as closely as we can. As leigh said, sometimes we cannot put them exactly there, but close to the area. I do not see a problem with that. I have not seen a problem with that for the past 20 or 30 years. We were trying to rebury an individual that came out of the ground by the local deputy sheriffs. And i finally was successful in doing it. But it was worse than pulling teeth. It was a struggle at that time. I am happy to see there has been a change in policy. That is one thing that is great about our american government, that we can change our policies. Many times, they do get changed for the better. So do the right thing. It is not that hard. Cooperate with one another. And get the job done. From the time of that first meeting, we had our individuals properly reburied in the ground within 15 months. One thing that i would advise you to do if you are working with the government or with organizations is to get buyin right from the beginning with your managers and supervisors. Make sure they understand what youre doing. I went to our state director and he was very supportive right from the beginning. As i will talk about a little bit later, even provided funding for some of the things that we did. Early meetings. This is so important, to meet early and often. And that everybody is on the same page with what is going on. And we need agreement between the tribes, museums, and the agencies. I was a little wary about approaching tribes about doing studies of artifacts. But in my mind, it needs to be done. So i asked them, and they said yes. They said as long as the associated artifacts are not destroyed or damaged in any way, no destructive analysis, and it does not hold up the reburial process, fine. Go ahead and do it. And we did. And the results were absolutely amazing. We now have new information on objects that we believe are about 2000 years old. Things that have never been found before. At least known before. Many of these items have been sitting in crates and boxes, gathering dust, for over 100 years. And now we are getting some real good information. For example, in one case, one place we study there was a feathered blanket made with nine different species of birds. About 300 pelts to make one blanket. A Mountain Lion paw sandal made with two paws. Another paw was skinned out. They were sewn together. They made a sandal. Along with that same area was a Mountain Lion pelt that had been used so long by prehistoric peoples that they actually so that the tail back on a few times. These are things that we did not know about, the tribes did not know about, and it is important information. We have one individual devoting her life to that, dr. Lori webster. Most museums are aware of her work with perishables. I hope she continues this on or many years. Follow up with any tasks with due dates and written documentation. Hold these peoples feet to the fire. Give them a date when things are due. Make sure everyone is responsible. We had this meeting in 2012. There were several tribes there. Navajo, apaches, whole bunch of pueblos. The work involved remains from southeastern utah. I would like to recognize my wife, who is my right hand in so many ways. And without her, this whole regard would not have been such a success. She is here with me, as she usually is, and we constantly go over things and bounce things off each other. Many times, women are in the background and do not get the real recognition they deserve. I think it is very important to designate lead people. Somebody has to be the boss. And that is for the museums, for the government, for the tribes. Somebody has to be the spokesperson that is really going to say how things get done, when they get done. So if you can get agreement on that right away at the beginning, it is a great approach to take. In our particular case, with our ancestral pueblo and remains, we got everyone to agree that one pueblo would take over the lead. In particular, ernie vallo, a real pleasure to work with. I had a great group of people from the museum. We had the repatriation people. Terry snowball. Amazing people. I am really impressed with the smithsonian and the work they have done. Important to have a plan. You have to be real specific in the plan. Get a real good agreement between the lead people about what is going to be done. This can be a formal document, like memorandum of understanding. Or it can just be a written document that goes around to everybody. But Everybody Needs to be on the same page and know exactly what they are doing, when they are doing it, how they are doing it, what time they are supposed to be there for things. And i hate to say it, but for the most part, it worked like clockwork. Everybody did their job. I was very impressed. We had a few snafus, as you will with any big operation. Especially with four museums coming in from different parts of the country. But it all worked out fantastically. All right. I was asked to not only talk about how wonderful things went, but things we could have done better. One thing, and this was mainly my fault, is i was in kind of a catch22 situation where i did not want to go to the Washington Office with all the details until i had them. And i had them six weeks before we were going to do this. And they said, you want to do this when . And again, i was just amazed at all our blm people cooperating. We got the permissions and all that. Is dotted and ts crossed. I know some of the Museum People were doing things at the last minute, but we got it done. One thing we could have done better and i am talking about blm is that we did not follow up with our supervisors and officials like i think we should have. Looking back at it. I was so paranoid about the press getting a hold of this for one thing, which we did keep it quiet and it did not end up in major newspapers in phoenix like some of the other reburials ahve. One of the other things i was paranoid about was somebody finding out the location, going back out there and digging the items up again. So i think we were very successful with a part of it. But our district manager said, we have to get some press out on this. Some information. And i said, no, we need to keep this quiet. But the good news is it is not too late. I will make sure everybody hears about this. I think it is something that people need to hear about. That it is a great thing. I talked with jackie swift from the museum about some of these things that we could have done better. One thing that came up is that at our reburial, there were people that did not behave themselves like they should. And i have to admit i was one of them. I should know better, but it is hard to turn off the science. Especially when i have studied these remains for decades. And i have written numerous books on the remains. To have them right there so jackie came up with this phrase turn off the science. I think it is excellent for reburials. Reburials should be a solemn funeral, not an anthropological study. If you are from a museum or a Government Official out there, try not to talk or do any kind of inappropriate viewing. Try not to hang around and peep over the edges to see what these people are doing, after the reburial takes place. I think this should be handled in a premeeting, where you clue people in to this. This is what is going to be happening out there. Lets just be respectful. Another thing we had was who attends reburials. We had a lot of people that wanted to go to this reburial. And we had to shut it off because word was getting out. We had to keep it quiet. Some people showed up because they went to either ernie or to a museum person and tagged along. But again, who is going to be there should be decided well in advance of the reburial taking place so that no one is embarrassed or irate about certain people showing up. Again, confidentiality is really important in doing this whole reburial issue. I still worry about this. We took every precaution i think we could as far as security. Where it is buried. Taking measures that it will not walk away. But there is always that chance or possibility. I was very happy to see that the state historic Reservation Office was very much in tune with the idea of keeping things quiet. As a matter of fact, this project and location is a maintenance area. On the other hand, i know some government offices have done things where they have not recorded it. Not put down where it is. And that is bad because those people are not going to be there maybe 20, 30 years from now. There needs to be a record where things are. As leigh mentioned at lunchtime, there needs to be an agreement with the government for protecting these things in perpetuity. No malls, oil paths, anything else. Future reburial on public lands. We are just getting started. I do not think anybody has any idea what we have out there. I have little podunk museums from timbuktu calling me about we have human remains from southeastern utah. It spread through the museum community. We want to get rid of them. We do not want them anymore. There are untold thousands of individuals out there who have been dug up, drug off, and sitting somewhere over the last 125 years. Finally, we need to all work together, respect each other. I am excited about this. One of the reasons i am not retiring again is that i am enjoying what i am doing now. I think it is worthwhile. It is one of my duties. But i think it is an extremely important one. One of the best days of my career, when i worked with a little old hualapai lady that came up to me out in the Peach Springs area, and she said thank you for getting our ancestor back. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] i would like to ask you where does the funding come from when you conduct a reburial on public land . What are the permissions necessary . As far as permissions go, this is good news. This is another change that the blm is doing. Until the present time, and this will be a new policy starting in 2015, we had, any state in the United States that has a bureau of Land Management, had to get permission, run everything through about six different people to get approvals. Starting next year, they are going to allow states to do that. The state director will be able to do that. The funding for this, i felt the least we could do is dig the hole. Digging that hole cost 2000. Some of the things we needed special sand to put over the remains, was another few hundred dollars. But with time and wages, i do not think we spent more than 3000 or 4000 dollars, which is nothing. I was able to do that by going to management and convincing them that this was a worthwhile thing, it was a communication with the tribes. The tribes wanted do this. I would urge the tribes to follow up and go to top Government Officials and say this is what we want to do. We did it and think it is a good thing. Otherwise, it could go back to the old days. And the solicitors might say, we cannot do that. This is not a permanent thing. There is a good chance that things can always go back to previous times. Thank you. Leigh, when you have conducted reburials, can you approximate what percentage of that funding came from hopi and the pueblo . We were fortunate to be able to have most of the remains, in terms of reburial costs, paid for by federal agents. The farm bill that recently passed has a specific allocation for nagpra. So the Forest Service is where the money came. With several forests with that amount of remains. The hopi tribe invests its resources. Me and my staff are on call. I have one of our culture advisors on standby. So the hopi tribe gives them some stipends. Because sometimes they have to stay overnight, that kind of thing. Hopi tribe also contributes to the cost as best we can. I am always there in the tribe. One of my staff is always available to help as well. So it is a shared cost, but predominantly, federal agencies paid or it. With museums . With museums, when we coordinate reburials, typically either the tribe or museum goes to nagpra. Goes to the repatriation grant. With benefits from that to conduct the repairs. Thank you. For both of you, i would like to ask in the last 2. 5 decades pursuant to i guess following what has happened since the nmai act and nagpra were enacted, what were the surprises along the way . What surprised you most . For the hopi tribe, i think we have represented the hopi tribe really honorably. I think we display professionalism towards institutions and staff. I think the most surprising thing that happened was the reconciliation. I think when nagpra and the other act was being debated, you had a lot of resistance against the tribes. By the museums and society of american archaeologists. The passed a resolution opposing it. Over time, i think we have made inroads positively. So i think today, all of the institutions i deal with display a lot of professionalism and respect for the hopi people. So i think we have laid a good foundation. Don . I do not know if i am surprised or not, more frustrated, i guess. A doctor this morning talk about, you want to make sure you have the right tried going back things. Tribe that is going back to things. But in light of all the evidence, it is always amazing to me that socalled scientists are so reluctant to change their views on things. And even acknowledge that prehistoric peoples that are 1000 years old are related to People Living today in the area. I had a job a few years ago where i traveled over six different states. Everywhere i went, it was the same story. These prehistoric people are not related to the People Living here today. And it got ridiculous. Again, that is one thing that is changing. I see that nationwide. Where science is realizing that prehistoric peoples are related to presentday peoples. But we have a real problem with that, especially when we get back to cultural items and associated objects and burials that are a couple thousand years old. Then it gets real difficult to deal with that. Thank you. I think we are just about close to time, so im going to ask one more question for the both of you. And that is this in terms of impact, of the 2. 5 decades of work, what do you see as the greatest impact, either in your agency or in your tribe, from the work you have done . What has been the consequence . I think the benefit gained is really educating ourselves. And the reconciliation that i mentioned. But what is really good for the hopi tribe was that we learned about the process. We learned about the law. Also to deal with difficult political issues. Particularly in nagpra. What it has done for the hopi tribe in particular, my advisory team, is that it has really opened their eyes as well. Some of you know in this room that work with us, the hopi tribe has asked for specific types of studies. As we prepare for reburial. That was of importance to the hopi tribe and my office. We have endorsed dental morphology. The Washington Team said, i wish we could have been doing dental \we could have been doing dental casts on these remains for future use by hopi people. In a way, i think it is a bit progressive of the hopi tribe to do that. You are looking at dna now. And we have discussed dna testing from contemporary populations of hopi for another interest in terms of our history. We did and albinism study a few years back. They did a dna study on hopi albinos. They went to casagrande and northern mexico. Peru, eastern islands, and indonesia. That contradicts the bering strait. Our ancestors are from what we call the fourth world, the south. A dna Study Confirms that. So we are interested in dna. I want to know if i am an irishman. [laughter] well, i think the greatest thing that has come about because of these laws and acts is that we are talking to one another. All these little regulations and laws that come out force the government to clean up their act and look at things and see what they have been doing and what they should be doing. And i think, you know, it is a good thing, whether we like it or not. Some Government People do not like talking to the tribes consulting with them on all kinds of things. But i think it is a great thing. Wonderful. Ladies and gentlemen, i would like to thank you for your attention and your considerate attentiveness paid to these two gentlemen. I think it is an important conversation we began, when i listen to the work that remains to be done. 30 out of 300 inventories, for example, in leighs case. There is much work to do, many more roads to travel to get where we need to be for all of our ancestors to rest in peace. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org]