Indiana University Bloomington occupies homelands of Myaamiki, Kiikaapoi, Lënape, Bodwéwadmik, and Saawanwa people. Institutions across the region hold millions of indigenous objects recovered from these lands. The Learning NAGPRA project recognizes the rights of these people to access and repatriate their belongings. Two hundred years of settling by people of foreign descent do not erase the connections that these and other indigenous people who traversed or used this land, have to these places and things. We recognize also that indigenous people have been displaced from their lands in Africa, Eurasia, the Americas, Oceania, and Australia. We understand that an acknowledgment is valuable only as a preface to action. We believe the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation act could provide one step in the process of reparation, and that international repatriation must logically follow. We recognize that a land acknowledgment is only the beginning.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1449465, 1540447.
