The days of finding arrowheads and pottery shards and taking them home to gather dust in the attic are fading. What was once casual fun is now something understood to be serious stuff. In many cases, federal law says, “leave it where it is.”
Artifacts are the concern of both tribal descendents and people studying native cultures. Where these things are found, and how they are placed, tell a story. That's why laws now say, if you find something, take a picture, and tell someone. But leave it there. On federal land it's a law. If the artifact is on state or private land, it's strongly recommended.
“The old days of finding something and assuming it's abandoned are gone. It isn't finders-keepers anymore,” Candy Tierney, legal advisor to the Bay Mills tribe explained.
It's so formal that Michigan created the Michigan Anishnabe Culture and Repatriation Alliance. If something is found, this alliance decides who in fact has jurisdiction, and who should take care of it.
That seems to be the guiding thought here. These artifacts don't belong to somebody. They are part of a continuing existence and once uncovered, they have stewards to place them in context for everyone.
This is especially true, and most seriously guided, in the case of graves and human remains. Don't mess with bones. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act has already proven its heft. In hundreds of cases, museums and universities have had to take the responsibility of getting bones and grave materials they harvested in the name of education back to the rightful places. The most notorious case here was the Smithsonian's repatriation of Anishnabe remains back to Sugar Island. Bones in drawers and on shelves mean more than simply interesting cultural artifacts. They needed to return.
The law is almost as weighty when it comes to eagle feathers. No non-Native can keep eagle feathers. Period. In the 1960s the federal law allowed Natives ceremonial and cultural reasons for keeping eagle feathers, but no one else. Old headdresses and buckskin adornments have to be given back to Native jurisdictions. Even those from before the law was passed. Tierney cited the headdress used by the Hamms Beer marching band that, when abandoned, were dispersed to tribes in the plains and northern Midwest. Those were the only ones who could legally own them.
All these rules have a sense to them. But whenever tight restrictions apply to artifacts, it makes them more valuable on the black market. Ivory, as an example. The temptation is there to horde these things and prize them more, but the longer view is that these artifacts are going to outlast the owner anyway, so what good are they? They may as well be where they can do their task continually, and that is to be where they belong.
Pat Egan is the former publisher of the Sault Evening News. He is a recipient of the William Allen White award for editorial writing. He and his wife Debra live at Salt Point.
