Giving Back the Past : Artifacts: Under federal law, UC Berkeley museum must return human remains and cultural items to Native American groups. But the task is daunting.

BERKELEY —  Imagine picking through 285,000 Native American skeletons, burial relics and other artifacts, creating detailed inventories based on tribal affiliation and mailing the lists to hundreds of tribal groups so they can reclaim the ancestral remains.

This enormous undertaking is under way at UC Berkeley’s Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, which houses the West Coast’s largest collection of Native American remains.

Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, museums must return human remains and cultural items belonging to federally recognized Native American tribal groups. Previously, human remains unearthed on federal lands were considered federal property to be preserved in museums or educational institutions.

Passage of the repatriation act was hailed as a step forward for indigenous Americans, allowing them to take back items they view as culturally or religiously important. But it is posing a logistic and financial challenge to museums and Native American groups alike.

Larry Myers, a Pomo Indian and executive secretary of the Native American Heritage Commission in Sacramento, said few tribes can afford to properly store sacred items or rebury remains.

“I imagine that by default, a lot of the stuff will remain in the hands of these institutions,” he said. “Many tribes don’t have any land base. If they get all these remains, where are they going to rebury them? How are they going to rebury them?”

Steve Shackley, assistant research archeologist at the Hearst, said most of the tribal groups are ill-prepared for the deluge of inventories they will receive.

“Some of the groups will get 200 letters with long lists of materials,” he said. “We’re finding native groups haven’t the money or experience to deal with this.”

A 1990 study by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that $50 million would be needed over five years to help museums complete the inventories and assist indigenous groups in reclaiming them.

But nobody has received any money yet. Congress authorized just $2.3 million for the repatriation effort in 1994, and how the money will be distributed remains unclear.

Fritz Stern, coordinator of the Hearst’s repatriation efforts, said the university has already spent about $150,000 over the past several months on the inventory process and will spend at least $360,000 more over the next few years. Shackley estimated that the ongoing repatriation process will eventually cost the university over $1 million.

Despite the lack of government money, federally funded institutions still face the deadlines set by the repatriation act. Museums were given until Nov. 16 to notify Native American groups of non-human holdings--including baskets, household implements, tools, pipes, jewelry, art and weapons. Stern met this deadline with letters describing about 25,000 items to about 350 federally recognized tribal groups.

By Nov. 16, 1995, the Hearst must provide the groups with inventories describing 250,000 additional archeological items and 10,000 bone sets stored in a vast repository beneath the campus gymnasium.

But even claiming the materials can be costly. Tribal groups, most of which operate on low budgets, could face thousands of dollars in travel expenses simply to view the bones and artifacts. Proper transportation and storage of archeological material also is expensive, and resolving disputes that are sure to arise between tribes and museums could lead to even higher costs.

Equally problematic is the lack of consensus among indigenous groups, even within the same tribe, about what to do with the remains. Some want them moved, others want them left alone. Some favor letting researchers study them, others want reburial.

Andrew Galvan, an Ohlone Indian whose group is applying for federal recognition, believes much information could be gleaned from study of the bones and does not want them to be reinterred before they are examined. “It would be like taking a brand new set of Encyclopaedia Britannicas and burning it without having read it,” he said. “What a shame it would be for Indian people to rebury their history.”

Roughly 80% of the Hearst archeological collection and a majority of the bones were found in California. By studying the bones, researchers can learn about a tribe’s diet, health status and cultural traditions such as cranial deformation, by which a child’s growing skull was deliberately formed into a shape the group deemed desirable. From the artifacts, scientists can learn about social structures and customs and how groups played, fought and found food.

Myers, of the Native American Heritage Commission, favors repatriation but argues that Native American groups should, at the very least, have more control over museum collections. He believes institutions should seek permission from tribal groups before researching the remains.

But determining ownership can be a problem. Documentation for much of the Hearst collection consists of handwritten notes from the turn of the century, and many are poor in detail. Researchers must consider the location of the bones, what was found with them and, if possible, their age.

Carbon dating is especially useful in determining the age of the bones, but the method requires destruction of a small bone sample, which many tribes will not allow. As a result, museum officials expect disputes between tribes and researchers, and among indigenous groups laying claim to the same items.

“If two factions within a tribe make a claim on material, we cannot return anything until they resolve their dispute,” Shackley said. “There are factions in California that have hated each other for hundreds of years. If they refuse to talk to each other, the material stays here.”

To date, only four sets of bones have been repatriated from the Hearst. Two sets were returned to a Hawaiian cultural group, Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai’i Nei, last September, but the university rejected the group’s claims to the other two sets.

The disputed bones were found in areas where Hawaiian remains were known to have been buried, but as there were also European settlers in the area, museum officials wanted further evidence. Carbon dating might have solved the problem, but the group was against testing that causes any destruction.

In February, the case was brought before a national review committee created by the federal act. The committee, consisting of three museum officials and four Native American representatives, ordered museum officials to relinquish the bones.