The Return of Wampum Belts: Ethical Issues and the Repatriation of Native American Archival Materials.

In May 1988 a ceremony was held to celebrate the return of eleven wampum belts to the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy in Grand River, Canada. Another commemoration took place in October 1989 when twelve wampum belts were returned to the Onondaga Nation in New York. They are the results of a long process of Native American activism that emerged in the 1960s and culminated in the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. The repatriation movement has not been without conflict. Questions about ownership, chain of custody, theft, responsibility, access and economy have been raised and remain unresolved. These same types of questions apply to the repatriation of Native American materials in archives. The archival community must address problems such as the following: Who owns and cares for the archival materials concerning Native Americans that are now scattered across institutions in this country? Under what circumstances were they collected? Who now determines access policies to these sensitive materials? The Protocols for Native American Archival Materials from 2007 presents guidelines regarding some of these issues. Using the return of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy and the Onondaga Nation wampum belts as case studies, this paper will examine some of the ethical issues involved in the repatriation of archival materials and how these issues are treated in the Protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]