Internal strife makes repatriation difficult

By John Putman
Summer Forty Niner

The American Indian burial remains and cultural artifacts that are stored in the Cal State Long Beach archaeology lab have resided there for decades, so perhaps its not so surprising that they remain there 10 years later.

In 1990, Congress enacted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, legislation requiring all institutions receiving federal funding to initiate a process to return remains and artifacts in their possession to indigenous tribes.

CSULB continues to be out of compliance with the legislation.

It missed two critical deadlines when it was supposed to have submitted a completed inventory and summary of its collections to the National Park Service and has yet to repatriate any of its remains and artifacts to local tribes.

CSULB is not alone.

The sluggish manner in which many state institutions have proceeded with the repatriation process has frustrated Americans Indians and raised the eyebrows of state legislators. The Select Committee on Native American Repatriation, chaired by State Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg,  has begun to conduct hearings in the hopes of speeding up compliance with NAGPRA by state institutions.

CSULB was supposed to have completed its summary by November 1993 and its inventory two years later. The inventory submitted by the university in October 1995 lacked specific information on its collections, did not establish cultural affiliation with the collections and did include evidence that it participated in consultation with local tribes who may wish to claim affiliation, according to a letter written by Francis McManamon, a consulting archaeologist with the National Park Service, to Keith Polakoff, the CSULB administrator charged with ensuring compliance with nagpra.

An appeal by Polakoff for an extension of the deadline in October 1995 was denied by the NPS  because it lacked the information necessary for the NPS to make an evaluation, wrote McManamon.

At CSULB, the difficulties with compliance have been intensified by the often uneasy relations between the administration and local Americans Indians and the fact that the tribes culturally associated with the remains and artifacts in the university's possession are non-federally recognized.

"The biggest problem the university has faced in connection with its nagpra inventory has been the difficulty in completing the consultation with Native American groups,'' Polakoff said. "The difficulty there is you're dealing with groups who have some longstanding difficulties with each other they have to work out.''

"That's an excuse,'' said Lillian Robles, a Juane­o elder and most likely descendent. "If they were doing what they were supposed to do, what the law required, we would've had those remains already and would've had a reburial. They cannot blame us for them not doing their jobs.''

"I don't think its the fault of the Indian community,'' said Larry Myers, executive secretary of the California Native American Heritage Commission. "I think the state institutions themselves create roadblocks that are slowing things down. I don't think many of the institutions are looking at the terms of the law.

"There are very few tribes that are happy.''

Anthony Rivera, chairman of the Juane­o/Acjachemen Tribal Archaeological Committee, believes CSULB needs to take steps to complete its inventory and establish cultural affiliation for its collections.

"Consultation is just one small part of the inventory,'' Rivera said. "The tribes are all in agreement that the bones need to be repatriated.''

Polakoff says CSULB has been reluctant to definitively determine which tribes the collections will be repatriated to.

"We don't want to make that decision for the Native Americans,'' Polakoff said. "We want them to make it and then we will do what they tell us to do.''

Dan Larson, a CSULB professor of anthropology who is responsible for completing the university's inventory, believes that CSULB's consultation process with local Indian tribes is progressive.

"Our goal is to ensure that the process goes forward in a sensitive and appropriate manner,'' Larson said. "These materials belong to the Native American community and it's their desire and what they want to do that counts.''

CSULB has also been hampered in its ability to complete its inventory of Native American burial remains and artifacts by a lack of complete records documenting the collections.

Polakoff attributed the incomplete documentation to poor curation by previous CSULB faculty in the anthropology department.

"The university did the part of the inventory it could do itself on time and very ably but there are parts we can't do on our own,'' Polakoff said. "We couldn't find some things where records were missing. We may have mislabeled some things where you basically had to guess where they came from and what they were.''

"It's always difficult to go back and construct other people's research,'' said Larson. "We weren't able to complete the inventory as accurately as we wanted to in the sense that a lack of documentation presents difficult problems.''

The university's attempts to reconstruct an inventory from partial records has been exacerbated by its refusal to consult with CSULB Professor Emeritus of Anthropology Keith Dixon despite his extensive knowledge of the collections.

"Neither Dr. Polakoff nor Dr. Larson would consult with me about any collections, despite my having worked with most of the department's collections for over thirty years,'' Dixon wrote in a September 1999 report to the CSULB Committee on Burial Remains and Cultural Patrimony.

Rivera and Diana Wilson, NAGPRA liaison at UCLA, who are involved in the repatriation process at both CSULB and UCLA, have seen how differing attitudes at the institutions have made a difference. UCLA completed its inventory in March 1996 and has already repatriated one of its collections to a Native Hawaiian organization, Wilson said.

"At the administrative level within the UC system they take it very seriously,'' Wilson said. "The oversight of the president at UCLA is very important, which I don't see at Cal State Long Beach.''

"We seem to have a little bit more support at UCLA,'' Rivera said. "The archaeologists there are incredibly accommodating. It seems like they take the extra effort to actually accomplish things.

"We seem to run into a lot of prolonged barriers at Cal State Long Beach. The committee has a history of battling with the administration. It seems to be creeping into every project.''