NAGPRA Assignment,

American Indian Art, Vol. 35(2): 78, Spring 2010


1. "Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural items: Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver, CO (August 29, 2008). In 1965 a pair of collectors obtained "18 silver Seminole pendants" from an American Indian art dealer, and three years later donated them to the museum. According to transaction records, four of the pendants "are from a burial over 100 years old." The museum agreed to return the pendants to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Dania, Big Cypress, Brighton, Hollywood and Tampa Reservations."



American Indian Art, Vol. 34(3): 78, Summer 2009


2. " Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis, MO (February 13, 2008). In 1970 the center received two eagle feathers from a donor who had obtained them seventeen years earlier as a gift from "the Ottawa also known as the Odawa) tribe in Harbor Springs, Michigan. According to the repatriation notice, "The Odawa believe the eagle feathers are sacred objects and without proper relationships and appropriate ceremonial uses of the eagle feathers the spirits and Odawapeople suffer." It was agreed that the feathers should be turned over to the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians of Michigan."

American Indian Art, Vol. 34 (3): 78, Summer 2009

3. "Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: Alaska State Museum, Juneau, AK (February 25, 2008). Late in the nineteenth century an unknown weaver in Sitka, Alaska, using cedar bark, mountain goat hair and commercial wool, wove the Multiplying Wolf Chilkat Tunic. This tunic is at.oow, a community possessed sacred object belonging to the Tlingits' Wolf House, or Kaagwaantann (Eagle moiwety/Wolf clan). Photographs taken during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries show Wolf House leader Jacob Yarquan, its probable custodian, wearing the Multiplying Wolf Tunic. When he died, Yarquan's wife Lily sold it to the Historical Library and Museum Commission, which donated it the the Alaska Historical Library and Museum, the precursor to the Alaska State Museum.

The Kaagwaantaan regarded the Multiplying Wolf Tunic as an object of cultural patrimony. "In this case, the tunic was alienated by the widow of the caretaker, Lily Yarkwan [sic], who belonged to another clan," the notice reports. "According to museum records, Mrs. Yarkwan presented herself as legal owner of the tunic to museum officials, who subsequently purchased it in good faith. There is no evidence that the Wolf House itself was directly involved in the alienation or that the transaction was handled in accordance with Tlingit law." In fact, "the tunic is an object of cultural patrimony and was alienated without the consent of the Wolf House." The museum agreed to transfer the tunic to the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes and Sitka Tribe of Alaska acting on behalf of the Wolf House of the Sitka Kaagwaantaan clan."