California Legislative Meeting Starts with Prayer, Ends with Burying Science

Last month, California assemblyman James C. Ramos started a state legislative meeting with a prayer; it was appropriate for a meeting that would end with the funeral of anthropology in California.

The California legislators met with tribal leaders and California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) officials to review the progress California’s public universities are making in turning over prehistoric skeletal collections to modern Native American tribes who claim that these human remains are their ancestors. This meeting followed audits conducted on both university systems to assess their compliance with the 1990 federal law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

NAGPRA was enacted to return human remains to culturally affiliated, federally recognized tribes. Cultural affiliation was to be made based on a preponderance of the evidence, which means evidence that provides at least 51 percent certainty. The allowable evidence included historical documents, archaeological data, biological and DNA information, and oral history. The university systems complied with NAGPRA, as it was passed in 1990. Yet, the law has recently changed considerably: “Native American traditional knowledge” was added as a category of evidence; the category of “culturally unidentifiable” was deleted; and a lower bar for affiliation is now in place – “reasonable evidence” as opposed to “preponderance of evidence.”

Also, new laws have been enacted. AB275 passed in 2020 and states that traditional Native American knowledge must be deferred to when science and traditional knowledge are at odds. AB389 and AB226 passed in 2023; they target teaching collections that may contain Native American human remains or artifacts. These laws will bury our ability to teach osteology; previous laws applied only to research collections.

The auditors’ claim that the university systems have been woefully non-compliant did not take into account these moving goalposts. The CSU and the UC had complied with NAGPRA; they had already repatriated collections to federally recognized tribes where a preponderance of evidence established a genuine connection between the human remains and a specific tribe. The collections remaining in universities for research and teaching purposes show no clear affiliation to federally recognized tribes and, thus, were not removed from curation facilities.

Now, the guardrails are off repatriation laws, and all collections are slated for repatriation. Throughout the legislative meeting, apologies were issued by CSU and UC officials—including the new CSU Chancellor, Mildred Garcia. Promises were made to repatriate all collections before 2030, and there was constant discussion about prohibiting research. Statements about targeting retired professors who may hold any materials were repeated, queries were made about shutting down field schools, and concerns about community college collections were raised. University officials and the Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) discussed the millions of dollars allocated to repatriate collections and the millions more needed to get the job done.

Tribal leaders, such as Lynn Valbuena of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indian, who thanked “the Great Spirit” before arguing that universities should provide land for the burials, repeatedly stated that anthropology departments should be excluded from repatriation decisions. Anthropologists, however, are trained in identifying the remains and identifying links between the past and the present and know these collections better than anyone else. Leo Cisco of the Tachi Yokut tribe who spoke of “feeling the energy” that comes from skeletal remains of ancestors—an energy only Native people can feel—called scientific research into America’s past a “crime.”

Jack Potter of the Redding Rancheria tribe argued that repatriation isn’t difficult, and money is unnecessary—just give the ancestors back. However, Potter seemed to fail to understand that inter-tribal disagreements about affiliation can stall the process for years. And, as legislators chastised the universities for their slow actions, the NAHC noted the slow process of forming repatriation committees due to the requirements written in new repatriation laws that are intended to exclude anyone who may not just give the green light to any repatriation request. Raymond Hitchcock, the Executive Secretary of the NAHC, reported that 168 voting positions in repatriation committees needed to be filled, but only half of the applicants were deemed qualified for these positions, and only 29 had been nominated in the eight months since AB389 and AB226 had been passed.

Yet, most importantly, no one spoke up for science and teaching. No one mentioned the significant research conducted on these collections—research that aids in accurately reconstructing the past, helps forensic anthropologists identify the most vulnerable individuals—those who died alone and may not have been missed until their bodies became bones—and contributes to our understanding of health and disease through time. These are important lessons that were much needed—and yet ignored—during the COVID pandemic. Instead, tribal leaders lamented, as Jack Potter did, that their problems, such as alcoholism, stem from hearing the cries of unburied spirits. When all the bones are buried, Native Americans will still face these issues because prayer songs and burying bones will not eliminate disease or solve addiction.

Science can improve their lives if they choose to embrace it.

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