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Monday, September 23, 2002CLEVELAND MUSEUM CRITICIZED FOR AUCTION OF INDIAN ARTIFACTS http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd02&DOCNUM=41313&TERMV=250:6:331:6:5430:6:31134:7:41316:7:66797:7:92327:6:112718:7:122933:7:128140:6: Saturday, September 21, 2002 NEWS 03E By Phil Helsel THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Illustration: Photo The Western Reserve Historical Society is planning to sell about 400 American Indian artifacts via the Internet, a move that some find appalling. "We're disappointed,'' said Robert Rouche of the Indian Education Center in Cleveland. He thinks the items "should really go back to the tribes they were stolen from.'' The auction, set to begin Friday and to be conducted online by Cowan's Historic Americana, is expected to raise about $500,000 for the Cleveland historical society. The society defends selling the items, which it doesn't want because they aren't from northeast Ohio. Most of the objects are from the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. "We are very careful about selling things that came from grave sites or religious items,'' said Tammi Brown, a spokeswoman for the society. "We have been working for several years to make sure all our pieces are legal.'' The society came under fire in July after the Associated Press erroneously reported that a Ghost Dance shirt would be included in the sale. The shirt, sacred to American Indians, was not being sold, Brown said. "I think the Native American community was at first upset,'' she said. "After they (the AP) printed a retraction, it seemed to die down.'' The Ghost Dance was popular with Plains Indians in the late 1800s. They believed the shirts would protect them from bullets and allow the dead to rise and help them return to their traditional way of life. The historical society is negotiating with three Sioux centers to find a proper place for the shirt, although Brown declined to name them. Auctioneer Wes Cowan said the item caused a lot of misconceptions. "They made it sound like the Western Reserve was selling all this religious and sacred stuff,'' he said. "Of course, no one reads the retraction.'' Cowan said most of the pieces to be sold were made by American Indians for white tourists during the 1800s. But Rouche and others still aren't satisfied. "Any of the pieces you have that are valuable enough to be auctioned off, those weren't made for tourists,'' he said. "They were stolen, taken off dead bodies or dug up.'' Rouche pointed to pipes, several of which are included in the collection, as items of cultural significance. Ken Demsey, executive director of the Native American Cultural Foundation in Cleveland, found four Sioux pipestone pipes on the Web site. "These Sioux pipes are sacred,'' he said. "It's like an eagle feather -- you're not supposed to have one unless you're a real Indian. Anything made out of (pipestone) is illegal.'' The pipes were traditionally passed from generation to generation. "Where did these pipes come from?'' he asked. "There's no written records. Museums have selective amnesia a lot of times.'' Federal law requires that items from grave sites or that have religious significance be returned to descendants or tribes. Museums are required to list any items they have that are especially significant to American Indians, such as human remains, religious artifacts and objects known to belong to individuals or tribes, said Martha Otto, curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus. Institutions can face fines if they fail to do so. Some American Indians think the law -- the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 -- isn't adequate. "The law only applies to federal or public land, that's one of the problems with it,'' said Barry Landeros-Thomas of the Native American Indian Center in Columbus. "Fortunately, more people seem to call up and say, 'I don't feel right about (keeping) this.' '' phelsel@dispatch.com posted by Webmaster@ AIM Support 2:20 PM Last updated:
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