The American Museum of Natural History in New York intends to board up its former exhibit halls of Native American relics after announcing its closure under a new federal law.
The museum, which attracts 4.5 million visitors a year, will close exhibits dedicated to the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains tribes this weekend to comply with new federal regulations requiring consent from Native tribes to display their items. and cultural artifacts.
The Biden administration introduced the new regulations under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in order to expedite the process of repatriating Native American remains, funerary objects, and other sacred objects.
To cover two of its main exhibits, the museum has placed sheets of paper all over the windows and is boarding up the area, according to the New York Post.
A sign has also been posted near the exhibits that reads: “The artifacts in this case have been removed from view because the Museum does not have consent to display them.”
The museum has now placed sheets of paper over exhibits of Native American relics and a wall will be placed at the entrance to restrict public access.
The museum, which attracts 4.5 million visitors a year, will close this weekend exhibits dedicated to the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains Tribes.
The closures will leave nearly 10,000 square feet of exhibit space off-limits to visitors.
The museum plans to cover a number of other display cases featuring Native American cultural items as it reviews its large catalog to assess what complies with new federal rules, which went into effect earlier this month.
After the announcement, a tribal leader said the closure could have been avoided if the institution had attempted to “reconcile and work with the tribes.”
Sunshine Bear-Thomas, tribal historic preservation officer for the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, told the Post: “These large institutions that are closing so much square footage could have taken preemptive steps to try to reconcile and work with the tribes, and it took a change in NAGPRA regulations to eliminate them.
“It should always be up to the tribe what they want to do as sovereign nations.”
Thomas added that he didn’t know if there were any Winnebago artifacts at the Museum and “wanted to take our items home” wherever they were.
Following the announcement, a tribal leader said the closure could have been avoided if the institution had attempted to “reconcile and work with the tribes.”
Exhibit features were first removed from their assigned environments when new federal rules were announced.
Thomas added that he didn’t know if there were any Winnebago artifacts in the museum and “wanted to take our items home” wherever they were.
The museum plans to cover a number of other display cases featuring Native American cultural items as it reviews its large catalog to assess what complies with new federal rules, which went into effect earlier this month.
Parts of the collection that were once used to teach students about the Iroquois, Mohegans, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other groups will also now be temporarily inaccessible.
The closures will leave nearly 10,000 square feet of exhibit space off-limits to visitors.
The museum has repatriated the remains of approximately 1,000 people to tribal groups over the past thirty years, but still holds the remains of about 2,200 Native Americans and thousands of funerary objects.
“The rooms we are closing are artifacts of an era when museums like ours did not respect the values, perspectives and, indeed, shared humanity of indigenous peoples,” Sean Decatur, the museum’s president, wrote in a letter to museum staff on Friday morning. .
“Actions that may seem sudden to some, to others may seem long overdue,” he explained.
The process began with the passage of NAGPRA in 1990 under President George HW Bush, but progress stalled for decades, drawing strong criticism from tribal representatives.
The government has now given institutions until 2029 to prepare human remains and funerary belongings for repatriation.
Parts of the collection that were once used to teach students about the Iroquois, Mohegans, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other groups will also be temporarily inaccessible.
The government has now given institutions until 2029 to prepare human remains and funerary objects for repatriation.
The Biden administration introduced the new regulations under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in order to expedite the process of repatriating Native American remains, funerary objects, and other sacred objects.
The American Museum of Natural History has come a long way in recent years in trying to confront its relationship with different ethnic groups and how they are represented.
In 2020, the bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt was removed from its pedestal outside the museum’s facade.
The statue showed the former president on horseback and flanked by a Native American and an African.
Activists have long drawn attention to the monument’s symbolism of colonial expansion and racial discrimination since its construction in 1940.
In the wake of racial justice protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the statue was eventually removed.