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NAGPRA Issues in Hawaii, 2014

Coverage of NAGPRA-related topics in Hawaii first came to this website in 2003 when the national NAGPRA review committee decided to devote its national meeting to the Forbes Cave controversy. Forbes cave was the most intensively covered topic from 2003 to 2007. But other topics also came to public attention, including Bishop Museum, the Emerson collection repatriated and reburied at Kanupa Cave, the discovery of ancient bones during a major construction project at Ward Center (O'ahu), construction of a house built above burials at the shorefront at Naue, Ha'ena, Kaua'i; etc.

The Forbes cave controversy up until the NAGPRA Review Committee hearing in St. Paul, Minnesota, May 9-11, 2003 was originally described and documented at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagpraforbes.html

The conflict among Bishop Museum, Hui Malama, and several competing groups of claimants became so complex and contentious that the controversy was the primary focus of the semiannual national meeting of the NAGPRA Review Committee meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota May 9-11, 2003. A webpage was created to cover that meeting and followup events related to it. But the Forbes Cave controversy became increasingly complex and contentious, leading to public awareness of other related issues. By the end of 2004, the webpage focusing on the NAGPRA Review Committee meeting and its aftermath had become exceedingly large, at more than 250 pages with an index of 22 topics at the top. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagpraforbesafterreview.html

That large webpage became so difficult to use that it was stopped on December 29, 2004; and a new webpage was created to collect news reports for NAGPRA issues in Hawai'i during year 2005. An index for 2005 appears at the beginning, and readers may then scroll down to find the detailed coverage of each topic. For coverage of NAGPRA issues in Hawai'i in 2005 (about 250 pages), see:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2005.html

For year 2006 another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2006.html

For year 2007, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/nagprahawaii2007.html

For year 2008, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/nagprahawaii2008.html

For year 2009, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/nagprahawaii2009.html

For year 2010, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/nagprahawaii2010.html

For year 2011, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2011.html

For year 2012, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2012.html

For year 2013, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2013.html

NOW BEGINS 2014

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LIST OF TOPICS FOR 2014: Full coverage of each topic follows the list; the list is in roughly chronological order, created as events unfold during 2014.

(0) NAGPRA-like issues on the U.S. mainland, or in other nations. The purpose for putting these items in this webpage is to show that most cultures worldwide have no objection to digging up old burials to do invasive research on the bones; that such research is aimed at clarifying historical facts and/or improving modern medical practices; and that Caucasian researchers do not seek to give special respect, exemption or protection to Caucasian burials as some Hawaiian activists frequently claim.

(a) Florida construction uncovers a perfectly preserved complete burial of 2,000-year-old native woman. There was no carbon 14 dating or DNA testing, as the Florida tribes don't want any physical destruction of the bones. The remains were reinterred at an undisclosed location donated by the local Miccosukee and Seminole Indian tribes.
(b) France To Return Head Of Kanak High Chief To New Caledonia
Atai was beheaded for resisting colonization
(c) The Smithsonian Magazine for September 2014 publishes a review of what has happened with Kennewick Man, tracing the controversy between scientists vs. tribes in light of NAGRPA, and the role of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in supporting the tribes and defying court orders.
(d) United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had previously ruled that the remains of Jim Thorpe should remain in a tomb in Pennsylvania which is a tourist attraction because NAGPRA does not require the remains to be moved to land held by his tribe or family; but his tribe and family are now asking the court to reconsider its decision.
(e) Navajo Nation paid $1.12 Million at an auction in Paris to get back 7 sacred masks, despite assertions the masks had been stolen long ago and despite demands the auction not be held. See previous news reports in NAGPRA 2013 webpage.

(1) The skulls of a Native Hawaiian man and woman are being returned to Hawaii after they were taken by a U.S. Air Force airman to his Texas home more than 50 years ago.

(2) Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 11, 2014 reports that the 83 objects from Kawaihae Cave (Forbes Cave) that were the focus of a major controversy several years ago remain at Bishop Museum and Volcanos National Park while awaiting further information from claimants to be followed by final determination of who gets custody of which artifacts. Hui Malama says it is now broke.

(3) In December 2014 construction workers building a new hotel replacing the old one next to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie came across some teeth and part of a human jaw. The bones were then covered and construction has halted. The island burial council has been notified but there is no timeline for a decision.

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FULL TEXT OF ARTICLES FOR 2014

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/14/florida-construction-uncovers-2000-year-old-native-woman-153113
Indian Country Today, January 14, 2014

Florida Construction Uncovers 2,000-Year-Old Native Woman

Construction was halted December 18 on a trench for a new water main on Pine Island Road in Davies, Florida when a perfectly preserved burial was uncovered. The woman was thought to be in her 20s or 30s and around 5 feet tall.

"To find a complete burial like this is pretty rare," Ryan Franklin, of the Florida Archaeological and Historical Conservancy, told the New York Daily News.

"Everyone was fully aware that there was this possibility," Franklin said. "Remains were found nearby in the late 1980s, so this is basically from the same site."

The area did not look the same 2,000 years ago Bob Carr, director of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy, pointed out. "Pine Island ridge was actually the Pine Islands," Carr told WPLG-TV. "There was a group of islands surrounded by the Everglades."

The woman most likely weaved baskets and smoked fish on an open fire. She may have also hunted and fished from a wooden canoe.

Out of respect to local tribes, carbon dating was not used. Archaeologists dated the remains using artifacts surrounding the bones, including a tool made from deer bone. "There was no carbon 14 dating or DNA testing, as the Florida tribes don't want any physical destruction of the bones," Carr told the Sun Sentinel.

Construction at the site resumed January 9. The remains were reinterred at an undisclosed location donated by the local Miccosukee and Seminole Indian tribes, WPLG-TV reported.

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http://pidp.org/pireport/2014/August/08-22-18.htm

France To Return Head Of Kanak High Chief To New Caledonia
Atai was beheaded for resisting colonization

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Radio New Zealand International, August 21, 2014) � France will return the head of a Kanak high chief to New Caledonia - 136 years after Atai was beheaded for resisting the colonisers in La Foa.

The head's return was promised last year by the then prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, during a visit to New Caledonia.

Next week, a ceremony is to be held in Paris at the Natural History Museum, where the relic of Atai has been kept.

The overseas minister is due to hand it over to a chief from La Foa, Berge Kawa, who is one of Atai's descendants.

As Kanaks claimed the head's return in recent years, it was officially declared missing. However, three years ago it was found at a Paris museum.

Atai was killed and decapitated when the colonial administrators put down a Kanak rebellion against their decision to expand their land expropriation.

Radio New Zealand International

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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462/?all
The Smithsonian magazine, September 2014 [photo of fully-fleshed reconstructed head is included in the actual article]

The Kennewick Man Finally Freed to Share His Secrets
He's the most important human skeleton ever found in North America -- and here, for the first time, is his story

By Douglas Preston

In the summer of 1996, two college students in Kennewick, Washington, stumbled on a human skull while wading in the shallows along the Columbia River. They called the police. The police brought in the Benton County coroner, Floyd Johnson, who was puzzled by the skull, and he in turn contacted James Chatters, a local archaeologist. Chatters and the coroner returned to the site and, in the dying light of evening, plucked almost an entire skeleton from the mud and sand. They carried the bones back to Chatters' lab and spread them out on a table.

The skull, while clearly old, did not look Native American. At first glance, Chatters thought it might belong to an early pioneer or trapper. But the teeth were cavity-free (signaling a diet low in sugar and starch) and worn down to the roots -- a combination characteristic of prehistoric teeth. Chatters then noted something embedded in the hipbone. It proved to be a stone spearpoint, which seemed to clinch that the remains were prehistoric. He sent a bone sample off for carbon dating. The results: It was more than 9,000 years old.

Thus began the saga of Kennewick Man, one of the oldest skeletons ever found in the Americas and an object of deep fascination from the moment it was discovered. It is among the most contested set of remains on the continents as well. Now, though, after two decades, the dappled, pale brown bones are at last about to come into sharp focus, thanks to a long-awaited, monumental scientific publication next month co-edited by the physical anthropologist Douglas Owsley, of the Smithsonian Institution. No fewer than 48 authors and another 17 researchers, photographers and editors contributed to the 680-page Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton (Texas A&M University Press), the most complete analysis of a Paleo-American skeleton ever done.

The book recounts the history of discovery, presents a complete inventory of the bones and explores every angle of what they may reveal. Three chapters are devoted to the teeth alone, and another to green stains thought to be left by algae. Together, the findings illuminate this mysterious man's life and support an astounding new theory of the peopling of the Americas. If it weren't for a harrowing round of panicky last-minute maneuvering worthy of a legal thriller, the remains might have been buried and lost to science forever.

The storm of controversy erupted when the Army Corps of Engineers, which managed the land where the bones had been found, learned of the radiocarbon date. The corps immediately claimed authority -- officials there would make all decisions related to handling and access -- and demanded that all scientific study cease. Floyd Johnson protested, saying that as county coroner he believed he had legal jurisdiction. The dispute escalated, and the bones were sealed in an evidence locker at the sheriff's office pending a resolution.

"At that point," Chatters recalled to me in a recent interview, "I knew trouble was coming." It was then that he called Owsley, a curator at the National Museum of Natural History and a legend in the community of physical anthropologists. He has examined well over 10,000 sets of human remains during his long career. He had helped identify human remains for the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and various police departments, and he had worked on mass graves in Croatia and elsewhere. He helped reassemble and identify the dismembered and burned bodies from the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Later, he did the same with the Pentagon victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Owsley is also a specialist in ancient American remains.

"You can count on your fingers the number of ancient, well-preserved skeletons there are" in North America, he told me, remembering his excitement at first hearing from Chatters. Owsley and Dennis Stanford, at that time chairman of the Smithsonian's anthropology department, decided to pull together a team to study the bones. But corps attorneys showed that federal law did, in fact, give them jurisdiction over the remains. So the corps seized the bones and locked them up at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, often called Battelle for the organization that operates the lab.

At the same time, a coalition of Columbia River Basin Indian tribes and bands claimed the skeleton under a 1990 law known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA. The tribes demanded the bones for reburial. "Scientists have dug up and studied Native Americans for decades," a spokesman for the Umatilla tribe, Armand Minthorn, wrote in 1996. "We view this practice as desecration of the body and a violation of our most deeply-held religious beliefs." The remains, the tribe said, were those of a direct tribal ancestor. "From our oral histories, we know that our people have been part of this land since the beginning of time. We do not believe that our people migrated here from another continent, as the scientists do." The coalition announced that as soon as the corps turned the skeleton over to them, they would bury it in a secret location where it would never be available to science. The corps made it clear that, after a monthlong public comment period, the tribal coalition would receive the bones.

The tribes had good reason to be sensitive. The early history of museum collecting of Native American remains is replete with horror stories. In the 19th century, anthropologists and collectors looted fresh Native American graves and burial platforms, dug up corpses and even decapitated dead Indians lying on the field of battle and shipped the heads to Washington for study. Until NAGPRA, museums were filled with American Indian remains acquired without regard for the feelings and religious beliefs of native people. NAGPRA was passed to redress this history and allow tribes to reclaim their ancestors' remains and some artifacts. The Smithsonian, under the National Museum of the American Indian Act, and other museums under NAGPRA, have returned (and continue to return) many thousands of remains to tribes. This is being done with the crucial help of anthropologists and archaeologists -- including Owsley, who has been instrumental in repatriating remains from the Smithsonian's collection. But in the case of Kennewick, Owsley argued, there was no evidence of a relationship with any existing tribes. The skeleton lacked physical features characteristic of Native Americans.

In the weeks after the Army engineers announced they would return Kennewick Man to the tribes, Owsley went to work. "I called and others called the corps. They would never return a phone call. I kept expressing an interest in the skeleton to study it -- at our expense. All we needed was an afternoon." Others contacted the corps, including members of Congress, saying the remains should be studied, if only briefly, before reburial. This was what NAGPRA in fact required: The remains had to be studied to determine affiliation. If the bones showed no affiliation with a present-day tribe, NAGPRA didn't apply.

But the corps indicated it had made up its mind. Owsley began telephoning his colleagues. "I think they're going to rebury this," he said, "and if that happens, there's no going back. It's gone." So Owsley and several of his colleagues found an attorney, Alan Schneider. Schneider contacted the corps and was also rebuffed. Owsley suggested they file a lawsuit and get an injunction. Schneider warned him: "If you're going to sue the government, you better be in it for the long haul."

Owsley assembled a group of eight plaintiffs, prominent physical anthropologists and archaeologists connected to leading universities and museums. But no institution wanted anything to do with the lawsuit, which promised to attract negative attention and be hugely expensive. They would have to litigate as private citizens. "These were people," Schneider said to me later, "who had to be strong enough to stand the heat, knowing that efforts might be made to destroy their careers. And efforts were made."

When Owsley told his wife, Susan, that he was going to sue the government of the United States, her first response was: "Are we going to lose our home?" He said he didn't know. "I just felt," Owsley told me in a recent interview, "this was one of those extremely rare and important discoveries that come once in a lifetime. If we lost it" -- he paused. "Unthinkable."

Working like mad, Schneider and litigating partner Paula Barran filed a lawsuit. With literally hours to go, a judge ordered the corps to hold the bones until the case was resolved.

When word got out that the eight scientists had sued the government, criticism poured in, even from colleagues. The head of the Society for American Archaeology tried to get them to drop the lawsuit. Some felt it would interfere with the relationships they had built with Native American tribes. But the biggest threat came from the Justice Department itself. Its lawyers contacted the Smithsonian Institution warning that Owsley and Stanford might be violating "criminal conflict of interest statutes which prohibit employees of the United States" from making claims against the government.

"I operate on a philosophy," Owsley told me, "that if they don't like it, I'm sorry: I'm going to do what I believe in." He had wrestled in high school and, even though he often lost, he earned the nickname "Scrapper" because he never quit. Stanford, a husky man with a full beard and suspenders, had roped in rodeos in New Mexico and put himself through graduate school by farming alfalfa. They were no pushovers. "The Justice Department squeezed us really, really hard," Owsley recalled. But both anthropologists refused to withdraw, and the director of the National Museum of Natural History at the time, Robert W. Fri, strongly supported them even over the objections of the Smithsonian's general counsel. The Justice Department backed off.

Owsley and his group were eventually forced to litigate not just against the corps, but also the Department of the Army, the Department of the Interior and a number of individual government officials. As scientists on modest salaries, they could not begin to afford the astronomical legal bills. Schneider and Barran agreed to work for free, with the faint hope that they might, someday, recover their fees. In order to do that they would have to win the case and prove the government had acted in "bad faith" -- a nearly impossible hurdle. The lawsuit dragged on for years. "We never expected them to fight so hard," Owsley says. Schneider says he once counted 93 government attorneys directly involved in the case or cc'ed on documents.

Meanwhile, the skeleton, which was being held in trust by the corps, first at Battelle and later at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington in Seattle, was badly mishandled and stored in "substandard, unsafe conditions," according to the scientists. In the storage area where the bones were (and are) being kept at the Burke Museum, records show there have been wide swings in temperature and humidity that, the scientists say, have damaged the specimen. When Smithsonian asked about the scientists' concerns, the corps disputed that the environment is unstable, pointing out that expert conservators and museum personnel say that "gradual changes are to be expected through the seasons and do not adversely affect the collection."

Somewhere in the move to Battelle, large portions of both femurs disappeared. The FBI launched an investigation, focusing on James Chatters and Floyd Johnson. It even went so far as to give Johnson a lie detector test; after several hours of accusatory questioning, Johnson, disgusted, pulled off the wires and walked out. Years later, the femur bones were found in the county coroner's office. The mystery of how they got there has never been solved.

The scientists asked the corps for permission to examine the stratigraphy of the site where the skeleton had been found and to look for grave goods. Even as Congress was readying a bill to require the corps to preserve the site, the corps dumped a million pounds of rock and fill over the area for erosion control, ending any chance of research.

I asked Schneider why the corps so adamantly resisted the scientists. He speculated that the corps was involved in tense negotiations with the tribes over a number of thorny issues, including salmon fishing rights along the Columbia River, the tribes' demand that the corps remove dams and the ongoing, hundred-billion-dollar cleanup of the vastly polluted Hanford nuclear site. Schneider says that a corps archaeologist told him "they weren't going to let a bag of old bones get in the way of resolving other issues with the tribes."

Asked about its actions in the Kennewick Man case, the corps told Smithsonian: "The United States acted in accordance with its interpretation of NAGPRA and its concerns about the safety and security of the fragile, ancient human remains."

Ultimately, the scientists won the lawsuit. The court ruled in 2002 that the bones were not related to any living tribe: thus NAGPRA did not apply. The judge ordered the corps to make the specimen available to the plaintiffs for study. The government appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which in 2004 again ruled resoundingly in favor of the scientists, writing: because Kennewick Man's remains are so old and the information about his era is so limited, the record does not permit the Secretary [of the Interior] to conclude reasonably that Kennewick Man shares special and significant genetic or cultural features with presently existing indigenous tribes, people, or cultures.

During the trial, the presiding magistrate judge, John Jelderks, had noted for the record that the corps on multiple occasions misled or deceived the court. He found that the government had indeed acted in "bad faith" and awarded attorney's fees of $2,379,000 to Schneider and his team.

"At the bare minimum," Schneider told me, "this lawsuit cost the taxpayers $5 million."

Owsley and the collaborating scientists presented a plan of study to the corps, which was approved after several years. And so, almost ten years after the skeleton was found, the scientists were given 16 days to examine it. They did so in July of 2005 and February of 2006. From these studies, presented in superabundant detail in the new book, we now have an idea who Kennewick Man was, how he lived, what he did and where he traveled. We know how he was buried and then came to light. Kennewick Man, Owsley believes, belongs to an ancient population of seafarers who were America's original settlers. They did not look like Native Americans. The few remains we have of these early people show they had longer, narrower skulls with smaller faces. These mysterious people have long since disappeared.

To get to Owsley's office at the National Museum of Natural History, you must negotiate a warren of narrow corridors illuminated by fluorescent strip lighting and lined with specimen cases. When his door opens, you are greeted by Kennewick Man. The reconstruction of his head is striking -- rugged, handsome and weather-beaten, with long hair and a thick beard. A small scar puckers his left forehead. His determined gaze is powerful enough to stop you as you enter. This is a man with a history.

Kennewick Man is surrounded on all sides by tables laid out with human skeletons. Some are articulated on padded counters, while others rest in metal trays, the bones arranged as precisely as surgeon's tools before an operation. These bones represent the forensic cases Owsley is currently working on.

"This is a woman," he said, pointing to the skeleton to the left of Kennewick Man. "She's young. She was a suicide, not found for a long time." He gestured to the right. "And this is a homicide. I know there was physical violence. She has a fractured nose, indicating a blow to the face. The detective working the case thinks that if we can get a positive ID, the guy they have will talk. And we have a positive ID." A third skeleton belonged to a man killed while riding an ATV, his body not found for six months. Owsley was able to assure the man's relatives that he died instantly and didn't suffer. "In doing this work," he said, "I hope to speak for the person who can no longer speak."

Owsley is a robust man, of medium height, 63 years old, graying hair, glasses; curiously, he has the same purposeful look in his eyes as Kennewick Man. He is not into chitchat. He grew up in Lusk, Wyoming, and he still radiates a frontier sense of determination; he is the kind of person who will not respond well to being told what he can't do. He met Susan on the playground when he was 7 years old and remains happily married. He lives in the country, on a farm where he grows berries, has an orchard and raises bees. He freely admits he is "obsessive" and "will work like a dog" until he finishes a project. "I thought this was normal," he said, "until it was pointed out to me it wasn't." I asked if he was stubborn, as evidenced by the lawsuit, but he countered: "I would say I'm driven -- by curiosity." He added, "Sometimes you come to a skeleton that wants to talk to you, that whispers to you, I want to tell my story. And that was Kennewick Man."

A vast amount of data was collected in the 16 days Owsley and colleagues spent with the bones. Twenty-two scientists scrutinized the almost 300 bones and fragments. Led by Kari Bruwelheide, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian, they first reassembled the fragile skeleton so they could see it as a whole. They built a shallow box, added a layer of fine sand, and covered that with black velvet; then Bruwelheide laid out the skeleton, bone by bone, shaping the sand underneath to cradle each piece. Now the researchers could address such questions as Kennewick Man's age, height, weight, body build, general health and fitness, and injuries. They could also tell whether he was deliberately buried, and if so, the position of his body in the grave.

Next the skeleton was taken apart, and certain key bones studied intensively. The limb bones and ribs were CT- scanned at the University of Washington Medical Center. These scans used far more radiation than would be safe for living tissue, and as a result they produced detailed, three-dimensional images that allowed the bones to be digitally sliced up any which way. With additional CT scans, the team members built resin models of the skull and other important bones. They made a replica from a scan of the spearpoint in the hip.

As work progressed, a portrait of Kennewick Man emerged. He does not belong to any living human population. Who, then, are his closest living relatives? Judging from the shape of his skull and bones, his closest living relatives appear to be the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands, a remote archipelago 420 miles southeast of New Zealand, as well as the mysterious Ainu people of Japan.

"Just think of Polynesians," said Owsley.

Not that Kennewick Man himself was Polynesian. This is not Kon-Tiki in reverse; humans had not reached the Pacific Islands in his time period. Rather, he was descended from the same group of people who would later spread out over the Pacific and give rise to modern-day Polynesians. These people were maritime hunter-gatherers of the north Pacific coast; among them were the ancient Jōmon, the original inhabitants of the Japanese Islands. The present-day Ainu people of Japan are thought to be descendants of the Jōmon. Nineteenth-century photographs of the Ainu show individuals with light skin, heavy beards and sometimes light-colored eyes.

Jōmon culture first arose in Japan at least 12,000 years ago and perhaps as early as 16,000 years ago, when the landmasses were still connected to the mainland. These seafarers built boats out of sewn planks of wood. Outstanding mariners and deep-water fishermen, they were among the first people to make fired pottery.

The discovery of Kennewick Man adds a major piece of evidence to an alternative view of the peopling of North America. It, along with other evidence, suggests that the Jōmon or related peoples were the original settlers of the New World. If correct, the conclusion upends the traditional view that the first Americans came through central Asia and walked across the Bering Land Bridge and down through an ice-free corridor into North America.

Sometime around 15,000 years ago, the new theory goes, coastal Asian groups began working their way along the shoreline of ancient Beringia -- the sea was much lower then -- from Japan and Kamchatka Peninsula to Alaska and beyond. This is not as crazy a journey as it sounds. As long as the voyagers were hugging the coast, they would have plenty of fresh water and food. Cold-climate coasts furnish a variety of animals, from seals and birds to fish and shellfish, as well as driftwood, to make fires. The thousands of islands and their inlets would have provided security and shelter. To show that such a sea journey was possible, in 1999 and 2000 an American named Jon Turk paddled a kayak from Japan to Alaska following the route of the presumed Jōmon migration. Anthropologists have nicknamed this route the "Kelp Highway."

"I believe these Asian coastal migrations were the first," said Owsley. "Then you've got a later wave of the people who give rise to Indians as we know them today."

What became of those pioneers, Kennewick Man's ancestors and companions? They were genetically swamped by much larger -- and later -- waves of travelers from Asia and disappeared as a physically distinct people, Owsley says. These later waves may have interbred with the first settlers, diluting their genetic legacy. A trace of their DNA still can be detected in some Native American groups, though the signal is too weak to label the Native Americans "descendants."

Whether this new account of the peopling of North America will stand up as more evidence comes in is not yet known. The bones of a 13,000-year-old teenage girl recently discovered in an underwater cave in Mexico, for example, are adding to the discussion. James Chatters, the first archaeologist to study Kennewick and a participant in the full analysis, reported earlier this year, along with colleagues, that the girl's skull appears to have features in common with that of Kennewick Man and other Paleo-Americans, but she also possesses specific DNA signatures suggesting she shares female ancestry with Native Americans.

Kennewick Man may still hold a key. The first effort to extract DNA from fragments of his bone failed, and the corps so far hasn't allowed a better sample to be taken. A second effort to plumb the old fragments is underway at a laboratory in Denmark.

There's a wonderful term used by anthropologists: "osteobiography," the "biography of the bones." Kennewick Man's osteobiography tells a tale of an eventful life, which a newer radiocarbon analysis puts at having taken place 8,900 to 9,000 years ago. He was a stocky, muscular man about 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds. He was right-handed. His age at death was around 40.

Anthropologists can tell from looking at bones what muscles a person used most, because muscle attachments leave marks in the bones: The more stressed the muscle, the more pronounced the mark. For example, Kennewick Man's right arm and shoulder look a lot like a baseball pitcher's. He spent a lot of time throwing something with his right hand, elbow bent -- no doubt a spear. Kennewick Man once threw so hard, Owsley says, he fractured his glenoid rim -- the socket of his shoulder joint. This is the kind of injury that puts a baseball pitcher out of action, and it would have made throwing painful. His left leg was stronger than his right, also a characteristic of right- handed pitchers, who arrest their forward momentum with their left leg. His hands and forearms indicate he often pinched his fingers and thumb together while tightly gripping a small object; presumably, then, he knapped his own spearpoints.

Kennewick Man spent a lot of time holding something in front of him while forcibly raising and lowering it; the researchers theorize he was hurling a spear downward into the water, as seal hunters do. His leg bones suggest he often waded in shallow rapids, and he had bone growths consistent with "surfer's ear," caused by frequent immersion in cold water. His knee joints suggest he often squatted on his heels. I like to think he might have been a storyteller, enthralling his audience with tales of far-flung travels.

Many years before Kennewick Man's death, a heavy blow to his chest broke six ribs. Because he used his right hand to throw spears, five broken ribs on his right side never knitted together. This man was one tough dude.

The scientists also found two small depression fractures on his cranium, one on his forehead and the other farther back. These dents occur on about half of all ancient American skulls; what caused them is a mystery. They may have come from fights involving rock throwing, or possibly accidents involving the whirling of a bola. This ancient weapon consisted of two or more stones connected by a cord, which were whirled above the head and thrown at birds to entangle them. If you don't swing a bola just right, the stones can whip around and smack you. Perhaps a youthful Kennewick Man learned how to toss a bola the hard way.

The most intriguing injury is the spearpoint buried in his hip. He was lucky: The spear, apparently thrown from a distance, barely missed the abdominal cavity, which would have caused a fatal wound. It struck him at a downward arc of 29 degrees. Given the bone growth around the embedded point, the injury occurred when he was between 15 and 20 years old, and he probably would not have survived if he had been left alone; the researchers conclude that Kennewick Man must have been with people who cared about him enough to feed and nurse him back to health. The injury healed well and any limp disappeared over time, as evidenced by the symmetry of his gluteal muscle attachments. There's undoubtedly a rich story behind that injury. It might have been a hunting accident or a teenage game of chicken gone awry. It might have happened in a fight, attack or murder attempt.

Much to the scientists' dismay, the corps would not allow the stone to be analyzed, which might reveal where it was quarried. "If we knew where that stone came from," said Stanford, the Smithsonian anthropologist, "we'd have a pretty good idea of where that guy was when he was a young man." A CT scan revealed that the point was about two inches long, three-quarters of an inch wide and about a quarter-inch thick, with serrated edges. In his analysis, Stanford wrote that while he thought Kennewick Man had probably received the injury in America, "an Asian origin of the stone is possible."

The food we eat and the water we drink leave a chemical signature locked into our bones, in the form of different atomic variations of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. By identifying them, scientists can tell what a person was eating and drinking while the bone was forming. Kennewick Man's bones were perplexing. Even though his grave lies 300 miles inland from the sea, he ate none of the animals that abounded in the area. On the contrary, for the last 20 or so years of his life he seems to have lived almost exclusively on a diet of marine animals, such as seals, sea lions and fish. Equally baffling was the water he drank: It was cold, glacial meltwater from a high altitude. Nine thousand years ago, the closest marine coastal environment where one could find glacial meltwater of this type was Alaska. The conclusion: Kennewick Man was a traveler from the far north. Perhaps he traded fine knapping stones over hundreds of miles.

Although he came from distant lands, he was not an unwelcome visitor. He appears to have died among people who treated his remains with care and respect. While the researchers say they don't know how he died -- yet -- Owsley did determine that he was deliberately buried in an extended, prone position, faceup, the head slightly higher than the feet, with the chin pressed on the chest, in a grave that was about two and a half feet deep. Owsley deduced this information partly by mapping the distribution of carbonate crust on the bones, using a magnifying lens. Such a crust is heavier on the underside of buried bones, betraying which surfaces were down and which up. The bones showed no sign of scavenging or gnawing and were deliberately buried beneath the topsoil zone. From analyzing algae deposits and water-wear marks, the team determined which bones were washed out of the embankment first and which fell out last. Kennewick Man's body had been buried with his left side toward the river and his head upstream.

The most poignant outcome? The researchers brought Kennewick Man's features back to life. This process is nothing like the computerized restoration seen in the television show Bones. To turn a skull into a face is a time- consuming, handcrafted procedure, a marriage of science and art. Skeletal anatomists, modelmakers, forensic and figurative sculptors, a photographic researcher and a painter toiled many months to do it.

The first stage involved plotting dozens of points on a cast of the skull and marking the depth of tissue at those points. (Forensic anatomists had collected tissue-depth data over the years, first by pushing pins into the faces of cadavers, and later by using ultrasound and CT scans.) With the points gridded out, a forensic sculptor layered clay on the skull to the proper depths.

The naked clay head was then taken to StudioEIS in Brooklyn, which specializes in reconstructions for museums. There, sculptors aged his face, adding wrinkles and a touch of weathering, and put in the scar from the forehead injury. Using historic photographs of Ainu and Polynesians as a reference, they sculpted the fine, soft-tissue details of the lips, nose and eyes, and gave him a facial expression -- a resolute, purposeful gaze consistent with his osteobiography as a hunter, fisherman and long-distance traveler. They added a beard like those commonly found among the Ainu. As for skin tone, a warm brown was chosen, to account for his natural color deepened by the harsh effects of a life lived outdoors. To prevent too much artistic license from creeping into the reconstruction, every stage of the work was reviewed and critiqued by physical anthropologists.

"I look at him every day," Owsley said to me. "I've spent ten years with this man trying to better understand him. He's an ambassador from that ancient time period. And man, did he have a story."

Today, the bones remain in storage at the Burke Museum, and the tribes continue to believe that Kennewick Man is their ancestor. They want the remains back for reburial. The corps, which still controls the skeleton, denied Owsley's request to conduct numerous tests, including a histological examination of thin, stained sections of bone to help fix Kennewick Man's age. Chemical analyses on a lone tooth would enable the scientists to narrow the search for his homeland by identifying what he ate and drank as a child. A tooth would also be a good source of DNA. Biomolecular science is advancing so rapidly that within five to ten years it may be possible to know what diseases Kennewick Man suffered from and what caused his death.

Today's scientists still have questions for this skeleton, and future scientists will no doubt have new ones. Kennewick Man has more to tell.

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http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/12/12/thorpes-family-appeals-court-ruling-gains-powerful-supporters-158270
Indian Country Today, December 12, 2012

Thorpe's Family Appeals Court Ruling; Gains Powerful Supporters

by Tish Leizens

Former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and the National Congress of the American Indians (NCAI) joined the sons of Jim Thorpe and his Sac and Fox Nation in petitioning a Philadelphia court to return the remains of the Olympic athlete to Oklahoma.

Their support was made known in separate documents when they each filed a friendly brief (Amicus Curiae) to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on December 8, the day Thorpe's sons asked the same court to rehear the case.

On October 23, the Court threw out an earlier ruling, and said Thorpe should remain in the mausoleum in a Pennsylvania borough named after him. His sons and the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma -- the main parties to the legal suit -- are appealing.

The court in October ruled that: "Thorpe's remains are located at their final resting place and have not been disturbed. We find that applying NAGPRA to Thorpe's burial in the borough is such a clearly absurd result and so contrary to Congress' intent to protect Native American burial sites."

NAGPRA refers to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act passed by Congress in 1990 to correct past abuses to Native Americans. Its interpretation is a big issue in this protracted legal battle.

Thorpe's sons from his second marriage, William, Richard and John (deceased), and the Nation, said in their petition that the panel of judges misunderstood NAGPRA. "Instead of focusing on the truly shocking facts surrounding the removal of Jim Thorpe's body from a traditional Sac and Fox burial rite, subsequent multiple interments, and the commercial use of his remains�the panel improperly speculated about theoretical consequences, none of which, in fact, are possible if NAGPRA is properly interpreted," their petition said. "Under NAGPRA the determination that an entity is a 'museum' is a threshold matter and repatriation requires additional processes, including notice to lineal descendants, and an opportunity for fact development to determine if repatriation is proper under the circumstances."

Senator Campbell, who was instrumental in the passage and the oversight of NAGPRA and was central to the enactment of the repatriation laws when he served in the House of Representatives, said in the amicus curiae that the court undermined the work in Congress with its decision.

"The definition of 'museum' in NAGPRA reflects Congress's deliberate choice that the law cover all Native remains in the possessions of any entity that receives federal funds, including historical societies, local governments, cultural and visitor centers, archives and other holding repositories, collections and displays," he said.

The borough's possession of Jim Thorpe's remains, he said in the amicus curiae, is a "disruption of a traditional, Native funerary process and returning-the-name ceremony, which is the last step before burial in the territory of the Sac and Fox Nation." He added, "The use of Jim Thorpe's remains to attract tourism to the borough perpetuates the concept that what is sacred to the American Indian is appropriate for cultural exploitation by the American public."

Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute and a key player in the creation of NAGPRA and the repatriations laws, said she agrees with the former Senator. "If they receive federal money and hold the remains of our people, then they are subject to NAGPRA," she told ICTMN.

Harjo said that Jim Thorpe has become a roadside attraction in the borough and that is exactly what Congress is concerned about in the law. There has already been a lot of spiritual damage to the elders and the tribe of Thorpe. He should be buried in a traditional manner. "It is just real common decency. They can still have the name and the mausoleum. The family wants the remains," she said.

Harjo is also the leading proponent in pushing for NCAI's involvement in the matter. She sponsored a resolution supporting the sons and Nation's position. The resolution was followed through with the brief in court.

NCAI, in court documents said, "Without rehearing, this fundamental misunderstanding will have far reaching implications in the future protection and repatriation of Native American cultural items and human remains."

NCAI said NAGPRA is of exceptional importance to the 566-federally-recognized Indian tribes and the 5.2 million individual Native Americans and Alaska Natives, and the 1.2 million Native Hawaiians across the nation. "Not one of the 566 federally-recognized Indian tribes resides within the boundaries of the Third Circuit," the organization said in court documents. "Yet, the rights of these tribes and individuals could be severely impacted by a panel opinion that disregards the plain meaning of the provisions of NAGPRA and misconstrues the intent of Congress in enacting this statute."

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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20141216_Navajo_Nation_prevails_will_get_back_sacred_masks.html?id=285943421
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, December 16, 2014

Navajo Nation prevails, will get back sacred masks

By Associated Press

PARIS >> The largest Native American tribe in the American Southwest won its bid Monday to buy back seven sacred masks at a contested auction of tribal artifacts in Paris that netted over a million dollars.

The objects for sale at the Drouot auction house included religious masks, colored in pigment, that are believed to have been used in Navajo wintertime healing ceremonies but that generally are disassembled and returned to the earth once the nine-day ceremonies end.

The sale went ahead despite efforts by the U.S. government and Arizona's congressional delegation to halt it.

The sale, which totaled $1.12 million, also included dozens of Hopi kachina dolls and several striking Pueblo masks embellished with horse hair, bone and feathers, thought to be from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Associated Press is not transmitting images of the objects because both the Navajo and Hopi have strict rules against recording and photographing ceremonies featuring the items that otherwise are kept entirely out of public view. The Navajo Nation initially included a photo of the masks in a news release but later retracted it, saying it was a mistake. The Hopi tribe considers it sacrilegious for any images of the objects to appear.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris had asked Drouot to suspend the sale to allow Navajo and Hopi representatives to determine if they were stolen from the tribes. But Drouot refused, arguing that the auction was in accordance with the law -- and that a French tribunal had previously ruled that a similar sale was legal.

Navajo Nation Vice President Rex Lee Jim said the objects are not art but "living and breathing beings" that should not be traded commercially.

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(1) The skulls of a Native Hawaiian man and woman are being returned to Hawaii after they were taken by a U.S. Air Force airman to his Texas home more than 50 years ago.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/hawaiinewspremium/20140113_After_50_years_in_Texas_skulls_come_back_to_aina.html?id=239880591
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, January 13, 2014

After 50 years in Texas, skulls come back to 'aina
The remains, taken by an Air Force airman, were given to a San Antonio college last year

By Timothy Hurley

The human remains of a Native Hawaiian man and woman are being returned to Hawaii after they were taken by a U.S. Air Force airman to his Texas home more than 50 years ago. The two skulls are now in the possession of the University of Texas at San Antonio but are expected to be handed over to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs for reburial on Oahu.

The skulls were apparently found at an undetermined Oahu hotel site eroding near or on the beach sometime between 1940 and 1960, according to the university's Center for Archaeological Research.

Cynthia Munoz, a UTSA archaeologist, said apparently the airman wound up taking the skulls to his home in San Antonio. After the man died, his son found the remains in a box while cleaning out his father's garage, she said, and he donated them to the center last year.

No identifying information or other objects were found with the skulls to help with identification, Munoz said.

The teeth of both individuals are worn, suggesting a diet containing abrasives, which is typical of native remains, she said.

Native Hawaiians traditionally believe that the mana, or spiritual essence and power, of a person resides in their bones, or iwi. For Native Hawaiians it is important for the bones of a deceased person to complete their journey and return to the ground to impart their mana.

Kai Markell, an archaeologist with OHA's Kia'i Kanawai Compliance Enforcement Office, said his office will consult with OHA's Historic Preservation Council and work with the State Historic Preservation Division and the Oahu Island Burial Council in an effort to properly rebury the remains.

The return of native remains by U.S. museums and federal agencies is overseen by the National Park Service under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which aims to protect unmarked graves and requires American institutions to repatriate human skeletal remains to descendants.

Markell said his office handles similar kinds of repatriation efforts once or twice a year. In August, for example, OHA helped to repatriate 145 kupuna iwi, or ancestral remains, from a London museum following a 23-year effort spearheaded by Hui Malama i na Kupuna o Hawaii Nei. Hui Malama Executive Director Edward Halealoha Ayau tracked down the remains in the British Natural History Museum in 1990 and then launched a letter-writing campaign and lobbying effort that spanned two decades and resulted in an act of Parliament paving the way for their return home. After more than a century in museums, the kupuna iwi were reburied last year in Puna and Kona on Hawaii island, Koolaupoko and Kona on Oahu and Moomomi on Molokai. OHA provided support letters and much of the funding for the London repatriation effort.

Notice of the UTSA's "inventory of human remains" was listed on the Jan. 8 meeting agenda of the Oahu Island Burial Council. No action was taken by the board because the notice indicated OHA was being consulted, said Deborah Ward of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

UTSA's Munoz said no other claims to transfer control of the remains were received from any potential descendants or from representatives of any other Native Hawaiian organizations other than OHA.

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http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/whateverhappenedtopremium/20140410__Kawaihae_Cave_artifacts_recovered_in_settlement_are_at_Bishop_Museum.html?id=254694191
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 10, 2014, "Whatever Happened To ..."

Kawaihae Cave artifacts recovered in settlement are at Bishop Museum

Question: Whatever happened to the 83 artifacts recovered from the Kawaihae Caves Complex following a 2006 settlement that required Bishop Museum and Native Hawaiian group Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei to share the $330,000 cost to recover the objects?

Answer: Bishop Museum is currently storing and caring for the Native Hawaiian artifacts known as the Forbes collection. The items were recovered in the Kawaihae Caves Complex on Hawaii island in September 2006. Five of the objects are stored at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

The Bishop Museum recently issued the following statement: "The items from the Kawaihae Caves Complex are and have been securely stored and cared for at Bishop Museum during the consultation process with the various claimants. Bishop Museum has continued to seek and accept consultation from claimants and expects to soon finalize the summarization of information amassed throughout the (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) process to make a determination as to the classification of the items."

Edward Halealoha Ayau, executive director of Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, said he disputed the museum's statement. Noting that the museum does not always return his emails, Ayau added, "It's been eight years. Cases like this shouldn't take this long."

Ayau said that by 2008 Volcanoes National Park officials had obtained a classification of artifacts stored there as scenery objects.

In February 2000, the Bishop Museum "loaned" the items to the group. In an act Ayau described as "repatriation," Hui Malama then stored the artifacts in an area also known as Forbes Cave and refused to give them back. In 2005, two other Native Hawaiian groups -- Na Lei Alii Kawananakoa and the Royal Academy of Traditional Arts -- sued Hui Malama and the museum in federal court, contending that they had been deprived of having a say in deciding where the artifacts belonged.

In 2006, Ayau and three others were found in contempt of court by a federal court judge, and Ayau was ordered to home confinement for 11 months.

In December 2006, a settlement was reached in the case, ordering the museum and Hui Malama to share the expense tied to retrieving the items, which were later returned to the museum. The museum said the costs incurred were satisfied, but Hui Malama did not have the funds to pay its $146,667.16 share.

Jim Wright, attorney for Campbell Estate heiress Abigail Kawananakoa, one of the plaintiffs in the federal case, said Kawananakoa paid Hui Malama's share of retrieval costs and was able to get some money back from the group. Ayau said the group no longer has money to operate.

Consultation with the 14 claimants, including Hui Malama, regarding the repatriation of the objects restarted in 2007.

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This update was written by Joie Nishimoto. Suggest a topic for "Whatever Happened To�" by writing Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210, Honolulu 96813; call 529-4747; or email cityeditors@staradvertiser.com.

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http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/27713152/discovery-of-iwi-complicates-construction-of-laie-hotel
Hawaii News Now (3 TV stations), December 26, 2014

Discovery of iwi complicates construction of Laie hotel

by Lisa Kubota

LAIE, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) -

A sacred discovery is complicating the construction of a new hotel on Oahu's North Shore. Workers found what are believed to be Hawaiian remains, or iwi, at the site of the future Courtyard by Marriott in Laie.

The new hotel is going up next to the Polynesian Cultural Center on the site of the old Laie Inn. The land manager said no bones were found during the archaeological survey for the environmental assessment that was completed before construction started earlier this year.

On December 9, a subcontractor came across the bones while digging out the area for the hotel pool. The land manager said the workers notified the project's archaeologist who then contacted the state.

"Basically immediately covered the bones, I understand, in some muslin cloth and put a lauhala basket cover over them," explained Eric Beaver, president of Hawaii Reserves, Inc.

Hawaii News Now has learned that the workers found some teeth and part of a human jaw. Beaver said the subcontractor halted all construction around the pool which is in the middle of the hotel property.

The State Historic Preservation Division is working with the project's archaeologist and the Oahu Island Burial Council. There is no timeline for a decision by the state.

"I think they're trying to determine whether the bones should be left in place or reinterred somewhere on the site or off the site," said Beaver.

Some are concerned that the discovery could be part of a larger burial site.

"I have no idea as to whether there are more bones in the area. I don't get that sense so far from what we've heard, but we're working with the contractor," Beaver said.

The 144-room hotel is slated to open next summer. Beaver said the project is still on schedule for now.

"With the holidays upon us and Christmas season, it's probably at this point okay, but I think that my guess is probably in January they would like to have a determination made," he said.

Hawaii Reserves, Inc. prefers that the iwi be relocated to a cemetery in the community that the company also manages. HRI is in charge of the property belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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Send comments or questions to:
Ken_Conklin@yahoo.com

LINKS

This present webpage covers only the year 2011.

For coverage of events in 2005 (about 250 pages), see:

https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2005.html

For year 2006 (about 150 pages), see:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2006.html

For year 2007, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/nagprahawaii2007.html

For year 2008, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/nagprahawaii2008.html

For year 2009, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/nagprahawaii2009.html

For year 2010, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/nagprahawaii2010.html

For year 2011, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2011.html

For year 2012, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2012.html

For year 2013, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2013.html

GO FORWARD TO 2015 AT
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2015.html

GO BACK TO: NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) as applied to Hawai'i -- Mokapu, Honokahua, Bishop Museum Ka'ai; Providence Museum Spear Rest; Forbes Cave Artifacts; the Hui Malama organization

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