The sessions shown below address activities associated with the Presentation on Cultural Resources Protection Law. There are sessions addressing Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Property Indian Law, Administrative Process, Protected Items, Repatriation, Disposition, Dispute Resolution, Title 18, ARPA vs NAGPRA and Case Examples.
Cultural Resources Protection Law – Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Videos
 | 1. Introduction ( 06:37)Description: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, NAGPRA, was passed in 1990 to address the cultural property rights of Native Americans, their tribes, Alaska Village Corporations and Native Hawaiian Organizations. NAGPRA tracks the common law of property to resolve long-standing issues regarding the ownership of Native American human remains and cultural items in the possession and control of federal agencies and museums, that is, repositories of NAGPRA Protected Items that receive federal funds.
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 | 2. Property Law and Indian Law (04:06)Description: To put NAGPRA into context, we should first look at property law and look at the common law property, putting aside Native American cultural property and looking generally at the way this country looks at the common law property with regard to human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony.
 3. Administrative Process (06:35)Description: Going now to the fourth aspect of NAGPRA, that is, that it is an administrative process and it has two attributes. It provides for dealing with collections and newly discovered items on the land. When we refer to collections, we often refer to repatriation or Section 7 of the law that deals with those collections in museums and federal agencies that have long been removed from the land and where determining the cultural affiliation and the rights to claim those items is all part of the NAGPRA process. |  4. Protected Items (01:59)Description: The NAGPRA Protected Items are the same as we discussed in our brief discussion of the common law. The NAGPRA Protected Items are human remains of Native Americans, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony, and the definitions in the law track the common law as well. When we talk about human remains, there is no definition. We assume the standard meaning of human remains. Funerary objects are those that were meant to be made or meant to be placed with or were placed with the deceased at the time of death or later. Sacred objects are those used by traditional adherence for the practice of their traditional religious practices. And objects of cultural patrimony are not individually owned; they are only group owned. |  5. Repatriation (07:46)Description: There are two aspects to the process under NAGPRA. You may think of it as bifacial. It deals with collections, and we call that repatriation, and it deals with new discovery on federal Indian lands, the determine of the first instance of ownership |  6. Disposition (07:43)Description: Let's turn now to the second half of NAGPRA, and that is ownership. And the ownership arises when the land manager must make an immediate determination when there is new discover -- when is there a new discovery on the land as to the cultural affiliation of the individual or items that have been dislocated and make a disposition decision. Again, it's not repatriation. It's disposition. Because NAGPRA changed the way we do business. It says we make these determinations in the first instance. |  7. Dispute Resolution (04:13)Description: From the process to dispute resolution, NAGPRA has an internal method of dealing with dispute resolution, and that is in the form of the NAGPRA Review Committee. The NAGPRA Review Committee are seven individuals who are appointed by the Secretary of Interior. Three are nominated by scientific and museum associations, professional associations, and three are nominated by tribes. Two of those three who sit on the Review Committee must be traditional religious leaders. Those six people get together and put forth a list to the Assistant Secretary to nominate -- and they nominate the member at large. So there are seven people serving on the NAGPRA Review Committee. |  8. Title 18 (03:39)Description: Now, we have gone through basically the process and the underpinnings of the law, and it's time to turn our attention to the new Title 18 offense that was established under NAGPRA, and that is trafficking in Native American human remains and cultural items under Title 18 United States Code 1170. And there are two aspects to this. First of all, if anyone knowingly sells, purchases, uses for profit or transports for sale or profit the human remains of a Native American without the right of possession, they have violated A. of NAGPRA, 1170A. If someone knowingly again sells, purchases or uses for profit or transports for sale or profit Native American cultural items obtained in violation of the act, they have again violated NAGPRA. |  9. ARPA vs NAGPRA (04:16)Description: We might look at, since we've talked previously in this series about the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the contrast or comparison between ARPA and NAGPRA, because there are many times in an investigation, in a criminal investigation, when Native American cultural items are involved, and so there may be charges in one indictment for both ARPA and NAGPRA. NAGPRA has no jurisdictional trial parameter, unlike ARPA that has a hundred-year time limit. So the individual or items under ARPA must be over 100 years old but in NAGPRA they can be of any age. In addition, NAGPRA, at least as to human remains of a Native American, may come from any land area. You need not show that they came from federal or Indian land as you would under ARPA. NAGPRA, however, is limited to only the four categories of NAGPRA Protected Items, Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony. Whereas, ARPA is a much more broad category of all those that meet the definition of archaeological resource having scientific interest and being of past human life or evidencing past human life or existence that is over a hundred years old. |  10. Case Examples (08:22)Description: Let's look at a few cases that have arisen under NAGPRA to give you some additional examples of thousand these cases have worked. There have been a number of NAGPRA criminal cases, and I'm pointing only today to three, because they may highlight certain issues that you may see. | |
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