Shocking discovery at the University of North Dakota

 

GRAND FORKS, ND—A recent discovery that came out at the University of North Dakota (UND), has more than a few people surprised, angry and shocked. Dating back to March of this year, faculty and staff first came across human remains and cultural objects, while looking for missing sacred items on campus. The items were boxed in the basement of an old anthropology building.

The University reported finding dozens of Native American remains and “several hundred objects taken from Indigenous lands and communities” UND then reached out to several tribal nations and federal officials to catalog and return the items.

The items discovered raised questions among the staff as well, including the professor Laine Lyons, from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and a member of the recently formed Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation ACT (NAGPRA) compliance committee.

“At that moment, my heart sunk into my stomach,” Lyons said in a public forum announcing the discovery. “It begs the questions, How did this happen? Who did this? Why did they do this? All questions we are seeking to know and looking to answer.”

UND is required by law to catalog and report to a federal committee any Native American human remains or sacred objects it possesses. The school never did. UND President Andrew Armacost called the noncompliance “inexplicable” and pledged his administration’s “full support and commitment to the tribal nations impacted by this mistake.”

Armacost said UND believes that some of the ancestors and items taken came directly from sacred burial mounds, dating from the 1940’s to the 1980’s, and mentioned that, “Our primary goal now is to work diligently until all ancestors and sacred objects are returned home, regardless of how long it takes.” Further, Armacost stated, “Upon learning of this discovery, we reached out immediately to representatives from a half-dozen tribal nations. That number has now grown to 13 and will continue to expand.”

Since the discovery, the consultation process has been underway for four months and UND waited to announce the news until initial communications with tribal nations were complete, at the request of those tribes.

“We didn’t want a lot of media until we came up with a solid plan,” said Dianne Desrosiers, the tribal preservation officer for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate-one of the five North Dakota tribes involved in consultation with UND.

Over the past five months, under guidance by the tribes, items were moved to a secure and temperature-controlled location, secured so the necessary spiritual practices could be conducted. The items in question are now in this new location.

UND hired a NAGPRA consultant, Jim Jones, from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, to begin the process of cataloging and researching tribal affiliations for each ancestor and object, and has launched a webpage to help explain the university’s repatriation process to date and provide an on-campus support system for both students and staff impacted by the news.

As an extra step, UND reached out to the National NAGPRA Program Manager, Melanie O’Brien, for technical assistance. She added that penalties for institutions that fall out of NAGPRA compliance are only assessed if and when an allegation is made against an institution for failure to comply. Desrosiers made it clear that, although she was “disturbed” by the UND’s findings, she felt it didn’t reflect on the current administration.

“I think, they were taken aback by what they actually had there,” she said “The tribes had the very same question, how could this happen? And the president as well, he couldn’t answer it. But that was beside the point because the tribes said: ‘How can we remedy this? What are you going to do to ensure that we take care of them?’ And they were open to whatever the tribes want. And we want to do it respectfully.”

One does have to wonder, if a large university had boxes artifacts in the basement of a derelict building on campus and forget it was there, makes it reasonable to speculate that other campuses around the country might have a similar situation

(Contact Joseph Budd at sales2@nativesunnews.today)

 

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