In the United States, the repatriation of Native American remains under NAGPRA has been an extremely slow process: those held at the University of North Dakota, for example, only began to be returned in 2022, more than 30 years after the legislation was passed. The process has often been hampered by institutional lethargy, poor museum archives, and (according to many curators) the difficulty of tracing the descendants of some tragically decimated indigenous peoples, since the law also requires that a “cultural affiliation” with the past is proven.
According to Kempenich, this is a loophole for avoiding compliance with the rules. “Ultimately, museums must consult with affected community members and families. They have to do it tactfully,” she said. But for Kempenich, the return of human remains is only part of the story. She and other activists argue that there should also be reparations for the living to help Native Americans deal with the aftereffects of the abuse that led to their graves being robbed in the first place. “In my community, 12 to 15% of the population is Native American. What are we doing for them to repair generations of wrongdoing?”
To complicate matters, NAGPRA only deals with Native American remains. There is no equivalent law requiring U.S. museums to return the remains of indigenous peoples from other countries, leaving each to decide what to do with its collections from Africa, Oceania, Asia and Latin America. As a result, American museums (which tend to be understaffed and underfunded) have often dragged their feet until forced to act. In 2022, four years after the Australian government exerted diplomatic pressure to convince the Smithsonian Institution to return the last remains of members of the Gunbalanya Aboriginal community obtained without consent in 1948, their bodies were finally returned home.
Education versus entertainment
Recently, this ethical rethinking of the display of indigenous human remains has carried over to the display of all human relics. In 2022, the Mütter Museum became a case study when its new executive director, Kate Quinn, declared that many of its anatomical exhibits were unethical, regardless of whether they were from indigenous people. While some people in Europe and the United States have voluntarily donated their bodies to the museum for medical studies, Quinn said, others certainly have not, including some of the museum’s most popular exhibits .