FINDERS KEEPERS Exploring the origins and ownership of cultural artifacts By: Leah Davis Witherow, Curator of History In Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archeological Plunder and Obsession, best-selling author Craig Childs examines issues related to the origins and rightful ownership of cultural artifacts. He prompts his readers to question; when you see an artifact in a museum, do you know where it came from? Was it unearthed illegally? Was it sold at auction to private collectors or donated to museums? Who does it really belong to and where should it rest? These issues are of vital importance in the 21st century as museums around the world examine how and why their collections were formed, and then work with indigenous peoples to identify objects of cultural patrimony. Maude McFerran Price, Curator of the EPCPA Collection, ca. 1910 In the United States, a mandate to identify ownership and provide potential repatriation of human remains and funerary goods was passed by Congress on November 16, 1990. Known as NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act established procedures for future acquisitions of archeological materials and created a process by which certain objects can be claimed by lineal descendants or federally recognized tribes under specific conditions. The passage of NAGPRA ensures that museums and cultural institutions who receive federal money return human remains, grave goods, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony when lineal descendants or federally recognized tribes with cultural affiliation to the materials come forward. To facilitate this process, the law requires museums to publish inventories in a national database, identifying the geographical and cultural affiliation of culturally sensitive objects in their possession. The CSPM is grateful for the work of former museum Registrar Davie Ryan who completed a summary of indigenous materials within our collections, shared this information with Native American tribes, and listed relevant materials on the federal registry to ensure the CSPM is compliant with the NAGPRA mandate. To this day, the work continues as we receive inquiries related to our collection of over 1,200 American Indian artifacts. It is important to note that at this time, the CSPM has only a few items that fit the specific NAGPRA protocols, nevertheless it is extremely important for us to continue to research the provenance (the origin or record of ownership) of American Indian artifacts in our collections. An often asked question by museum visitors is, “How did you get these artifacts?” Although every object has a unique story, the vast majority of items in our collections were donated by individuals. Donations vary greatly in size, from a single photograph of Garden of the Gods — to 20,000 photographs taken by Colorado Springs resident Sara Jackson Loomis from 18951965. History museums rarely have acquisition funds, and as a result rely on the generosity of members of our community to ensure that we collect important documents, images and objects from the past and present. Knowing visitor’s interest in the provenance of artifacts, we installed “Collector Panels” in our Cultural Crossroads exhibit in 2011 which detail the sometimes complicated ways that objects end up in CSPM collections. A few interesting stories are listed below. MUSELETTER MAY 2019| PG 2
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