DIRECTOR’S LETTER
MAKING REPATRIATION A MORAL IMPERATIVE
H
opi masks are beautiful and have inspired some of the greatest creations of 20th
century modern art – but they are not objects of
art. They are holy instruments, sanctified by Hopi religious, miraculously embodying their ancestors who, in ceremonies conducted by Hopi priests, bring blessings upon the Hopi. These religious beliefs are as strongly adhered to and practiced by the Hopi as the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ during the Catholic Mass or the intercession of the Saints through prayer by the Catholic faithful. We recently witnessed the sale of Hopi re-
ligious items at a private art auction in Paris. Letters from the leaders of the Hopi Tribe, a sovereign nation, diplomacy from the U.S. Department of State, and legal arguments by international lawyers, could not convince a French court that the Hopi ascribe sacred value to the masks “assimilated to human bodies or elements of bodies of humans who exist or existed” – the sale of which would be banned in France. Laws are not created to convince people to
do the right thing – they are created to compel them. We will never be able to rely solely on laws in our quest to have returned all the sacred objects and cultural patrimony that through historical disenfranchisement of American Indian nations have been expropriated and scattered around the globe. Even when law can be applied, courts can and often do interpret evidence incorrectly, as happened in Paris. At the National Museum of the American
Indian we believe the return of sacred items is a fundamental human right. And though the legislation founding and guiding our Museum correctly requires the Smithsonian to return Native American human remains, funerary and sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony, we do not need convincing – we know it is the morally right thing to do. Since the Smithsonian acquired the George
Gustav Heye collection in 1989, we have re- patriated more than 31,000 funerary objects, religious instruments and cultural patrimony
to their rightful Native communities. We ac- complish this by working directly with Native nations. Through continuous dialogue we receive the tribes’ traditional knowledge and incorporate their religious protocols to care for and return these sacred items. U.S. museums and individuals have re-
turned cultural artifacts to Native nations outside the legal structures of NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Re- patriation Act). We need to convince more to do the right thing. This can only be accom- plished through educating them about Native American history, culture and faith traditions through direct experience with Native Ameri- cans and their governments. Only then can an ethics of repatriation be instilled and the return of these objects elevated to a moral im- perative as well as a legal obligation.X
Kevin Gover (Pawnee) is director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. You can email Gover at
NMAI-Director@si.edu.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 13
Bill Martin, Tlingit Haida president from 2007-2010, and Kevin Gover, director of the National Museum of the American Indian, at the receipt and release signing for the repatriation of a shaman’s robe.
PHOTO COURTESY SMITHSONIAN NMAI
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