NAGPRA

1) "Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver, CO (October 31, 2007). This notice pertains to a wooder "Beaver song leader's staff" (S'geidi Shis'aati Woodzakaa)--also known as a Keet Gooshi, or "Killer Whale Fin," because of its shape--on which the figure of a beaver is carved. The staff was bought from the Fred Harvey Compan in 1954 and donated to the museum in 1968. In 1973 a New York dealer sold a beaver headdress (Si'geidi Shakee.at) to a client, who donated it to the museum three years later. The headdress "consists of a carved wood flontlet with a beaver...painted red and green with insets of abalone shell" attached to red cloth "decorated with flicker feathers an ermine skins" and a "strip of white down feather" hanging down the back. According to museum records, the headdress was created circa 1890. The numseum, agreeing that both items met NAGPRA's requirements for identification as "sacred object" and "object of cultural patrimoney," announced its intention to repatriate the pieces to the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes, acting for the Basket Bay Arch House of Deeisheetaan (Beaver) clan of Angoon, Alaska."

2) "Notice of Intent to Repatriate a Cultural Item: Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver, CO (October 31, 2007). In 1973 a Chilkat Tlingit woman from Klukwan, Alaska sold a blue-and-crimson wool button blanket to a Seattle dealer/collector. The folling year, a museum patron purhcased the blanket from the dealer and donated it to the institution. Representatives of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes traced the robe's history back three generations, noting that the piece--called Lee shakee daax'l x'oow (Blanket Above All Others)--is one of thirteen identical garments made for the daughters of a man named Sitka Jack. the numseum decided that the button blanket met NAGPRA's definition of "object of cultural patrimony" and "sacred object" and should be returne dto the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes in its capacity as a representative of the Eagle Nest House of the Kaagwaantaan (Eagle) clan.

3) "Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, WI (October 31, 2007). In 1922 museum currator Alanson Skinner obtained a string of wampum beads and a partial wampum belt from the daughter of Mahican leader John Quinney (b. 1797, D. 1855; Quinnauquant). (After the Mahican's removal from New York, the tribe settled on land in Wisconsin with the Munsee Delaware [Lenape], hence the current identification of these people as "Stockbridge" or, jointly, as "Stockbridge-Munsee.") A decade later, the museum bought a wooden pipe from an owner who stated that it once belonged to John Quinney's brother Austin Quinney (b. 1791, d. 1865). Both men where sachems (chiefs), an important element in the decision to label these pieces "objects of cultural patrimony," which the museum decided to return to the Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Wisconsin.

All of these items have the same citation. American Indian Art, Vol 33(4):106. Autumn 2008.

I have to say I was excited to see that a button blanket was being repatriated, as I just recently learned from our catalog critique assignment what a button blanket was. I was also surprised to see that some chief's pipe can be considered cultural patrimony, though I suppose that's not any different from Elvis' socks being worth money.