National Museum of American Indian act

The National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAIA) was passed in 1989, as Public Law 101-185. The law established the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution. This law also made it necessary for the Smithsonian to take an inventory of the Native American burial artifacts in its collections, as well as consider the repatriation of certain artifacts to federally recognized tribes.

Smithsonian

The NMAIA was passed with the Smithsonian in mind. The NMAIA included provisions for the erection of a new museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to house Native American artifacts, as well as the new acquisitions from the Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian made possible through the NMAIA. In recognition of the Heye Foundation's origins in New York, the George Gustave Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian was also created by the NMAIA in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City.

The purpose of the NMAI is threefold:

• To advance the study of Native Americans
• To collect, preserve, and exhibit Native American objects
• To provide for Native American research and study programs

Inventory and Repatriation

As a result of the law, the Smithsonian Institution was required to document and repatriate culturally affiliated artifacts within a certain timeline. The preponderance of these artifacts are housed in the National Museum of the American Indian and in the National Museum of Natural History.

The Smithsonian had amassed a huge collection of Native American artifacts and memorabilia including:

• 4,000 Native American remains. In 1867, the Surgeon General of the United States Army requested Army medical officers to send skeletal remains of Native Americans to the Army Medical Museum. These remains were later transferred to the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1898.

• Through archaeological excavations, individual donations, and museum donations, the Smithsonian was able to acquire about 14,000 additional Native American remains.

• The acquisition of the Heye Foundation's collections added 800,000 artifacts to the Smithsonian's Native American collections.

Repatriation Criteria

The 1996 amendment to the NMAIA included five criteria for items that are eligible for repatriation, based on the definitions offered in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990:

• Human remains of known persons
• Culturally affiliated human remains
• Associated and unassociated funerary objects
• Sacred objects
• Objects of cultural patrimony

About 3 percent, or 25,000 artifacts, fall under the provision of these criteria.

References

• Watkins, Joe. Representing and Repatriating the Past, North American Archaeology 2005. Blackwell Publishing
• National Museum of the American Indian. "Repatriation Office." 2006. Repatriation

External links

• Congressional Transcript of the passing of the bill
• Law review article comparing legislation in the US and Australia