Learning Goals
- To understand federal recognition of tribes.
- To understand the role of state vs. federal laws.
- To understand differences between legal, emotional, and ethical responses.
Stumbling Upon Remains at a Dig
Keywords
- field school
- federal recognition
- non-federal recognition
- jurisdiction
- historical trauma
- the nature culture
- authenticity
Case Study
Recently, field school excavations in a small prehistoric site outside of Grenville inadvertently uncover human remains. Charles Merriweather, the field school director, did not arrange to have tribal monitors at the site because there are no federally recognized tribes in the area. He instructs the students to remove the remains from the ground and put them in a labeled bag, so they can decide later how to proceed. The next day, members from a local group that professes to be Indigenous visit the site and learn of the find. They demand that they be allowed to hold a reburial ceremony on the site, immediately.
Discussion Questions
- What is a field school and what are the director’s responsibilities?
- What important details have been left out of the case description?
- How and why does it matter if this incident occurs on private, state, or federal land?
- How willing should people be to apply the law?
- What is the role of public pressure?
- What is the role of tribal monitors?
- When there isn't a clear tribe to call, whom should Charles consult?
- What help could Charles ask for, from whom?
- How is tribal affiliation for the remains important?
- How might the reality of historical trauma affect how the players react? What is meant by authenticity and how would it affect the outcomes of the case?
- Consider a circumstance in which some of the students present realize that they could find human remains. What could students do? How might the experience of finding remains or sacred objects mean something different to people of different backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities?
- Consider the outcomes if Charles allows the group to rebury? If he doesn’t allow them to rebury?