\n
![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AP24200671032468-e1722273792559.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
Tucked within the expansive Native American halls of the American Museum of Natural History is a diminutive wooden doll that holds a sacred place among the tribes whose territories once included Manhattan.<\/p>\n
For more than six months now, the ceremonial Ohtas, or Doll Being, has been hidden from view after the museum and others nationally took dramatic steps to\u00a0board up or paper over exhibits<\/a>\u00a0in response to new federal rules requiring institutions to return sacred or culturally significant items to tribes \u2014 or at least to obtain consent to display or study them.<\/p>\n The doll, also called Nahneetis, is just one of some 1,800 items museum officials say they\u2019re reviewing as they work to comply with the requirements while also eyeing a broader overhaul of the more than half-century-old exhibits.<\/p>\n But some tribal leaders remain skeptical, saying museums have not acted swiftly enough. The new rules, after all, were prompted by years of complaints from tribes that\u00a0hundreds of thousands of items<\/a>\u00a0that should have been returned under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 still remain in museum custody.<\/p>\n \u201cIf things move slowly, then address that,\u201d said Joe Baker, a Manhattan resident and member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, descendants of the Lenape peoples European traders encountered\u00a0more than 400 years ago<\/a>. \u201cThe collections, they\u2019re part of our story, part of our family. We need them home. We need them close.\u201d<\/p>\n Sean Decatur, the New York museum\u2019s president, promised tribes will hear from officials soon. He said staff these past few months have been reexamining the displayed objects in order to begin contacting tribal communities.<\/p>\n The museum also plans to open a small exhibit in the fall incorporating Native American voices and explaining the history of the closed halls, why changes are being made and what the future holds, he said.<\/p>\n Museum officials envision a total overhaul of the closed Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls \u2014 akin to the\u00a0five-year, $19 million renovation of its Northwest Coast Hall,<\/a>\u00a0completed in 2022 in close collaboration with tribes, Decatur added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ultimate aim is to make sure we\u2019re getting the stories right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, a federally recognized tribe in New York\u2019s Hamptons, said he worries about the loss of representation of local tribes in public institutions, with exhibit closures likely stretching into years.<\/p>\n The American Museum of Natural History, he noted, is one of New York\u2019s major tourism draws and also a mainstay for generations of area students learning about the region\u2019s tribes.<\/p>\n He suggests museums use replicas made by Native peoples so that sensitive cultural items aren\u2019t physically on display.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think tribes want to have our history written out of museums,\u201d Gumbs said. \u201cThere\u2019s got to be a better way than using artifacts that literally were stolen out of gravesites.\u201d<\/p>\n Gordon Yellowman, who heads the department of language and culture for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, said museums should look to create more digital and virtual exhibits.<\/p>\n He said the tribes, in Oklahoma, will be seeking from the New York museum a sketchbook by the Cheyenne warrior Little Finger Nail that contains his drawings and illustrations from battle.<\/p>\n The book, which is in storage and not on display, was plucked from his body after he and other tribe members were killed by U.S. soldiers in Nebraska in 1879.<\/p>\n \u201cThese drawings weren\u2019t just made because they were beautiful,\u201d Yellowman said. \u201cThey were made to show the actual history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people.\u201d<\/p>\n Institutions elsewhere are taking other approaches.<\/p>\n In Chicago, the Field Museum has established a Center for Repatriation after covering up several cases in its halls dedicated to ancient America and the peoples of the coastal Northwest and Arctic.<\/p>\n The museum has also since returned four items back to tribes, with another three pending, through efforts that were underway before the new regulations, according to spokesperson Bridgette Russell.<\/p>\n At the Cleveland Museum in Ohio, a case displaying artifacts from the Tlingit people in Alaska has been reopened after their leadership gave consent, according to Todd Mesek, the museum\u2019s spokesperson. But two other displays remain covered up, with one containing funerary objects from the ancient Southwest to be redone with a different topic and materials.<\/p>\n And at Harvard, the Peabody Museum\u2019s North American Indian hall reopened in February after about 15% of its roughly 350 items were removed from displays, university spokesperson Nicole Rura said.<\/p>\n Chuck Hoskin, chief of the Cherokee Nation, said he believes many institutions now understand they can no longer treat Indigenous items as \u201cmuseum curiosities\u201d from \u201cpeoples that no longer exist.\u201d<\/p>\n The leader of the tribe in Oklahoma said he visited the Peabody this year after the university reached out about returning\u00a0hair clippings<\/a>\u00a0collected in the early 1930s from hundreds of Indigenous children, including Cherokees, forced to assimilate in the\u00a0notorious Indian boarding schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that we\u2019re in a position to sit down with Harvard and have a really meaningful conversation, that\u2019s progress for the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As for Baker, he wants the Ohtas returned to its tribe. He said the ceremonial doll should never have been on display, especially arranged as it was among wooden bowls, spoons and other everyday items.<\/p>\n Museum officials say discussions with tribal representatives began in 2021 and will continue, even though the doll technically does not fall under federal regulations because it\u2019s associated with a tribe outside the U.S., the Munsee-Delaware Nation in Ontario.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has a spirit. It\u2019s a living being,\u201d Baker said. \u201cSo if you think about it being hung on a wall all these years in a static case, suffocating for lack of air, it\u2019s just horrific, really.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u201cWe need them home\u201d<\/h2>\n
Written out of history?<\/h2>\n
\u2018That\u2019s progress\u2019<\/h2>\n