Re: Skeptics

[Adam Levenstein <cleon42@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- cc136@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>- and to try
> to avoid knee-jerk reactions based on presumptions
> of nationalism,
> materialism, or scientific progress.

Because a knee-jerk opinion that the remains belong to
a particular group on their say-so is so much more
rational.

>   While her use of
> Foucault will undoubtedly drive some list members
> batty, she makes the
> very important point that for native peoples, there
> is a fundamental link
> between the body, identity, and the land. As she
> states, "The location of
> the body on Native lands, its residence within the
> soil for millennia,
> creates an inherent relationship of reciprocity and
> respect between the
> body and the Umatillas, who feel it is their
> responsibility to care for
> the land.  The body, in its decomposition, is
> fulfilling a relationship
> of reciprocity: the earth supports the body during
> life, and in death,
> the body supports the earth.  Halting this process
> threatens both
> ecological and spiritual stability."

That's all well and good, but a thousand years from
now should my corpse be turned over to the Umatillas?
No. Because I'm not Umatilla, or even remotely Native
American - millenium or no.

And THAT, my friend, is the issue. Not whether they'd
have any claim to a grave that's theirs. Of COURSE
they do, and I have no qualms with repatriation as a
general policy. The problem is that the specific rules
of repatration don't take into account the possibility
that a corpse *isn't* Native American. And that's the
issue I'm dealing with. What you and Louis are dealing
with is another matter entirely.

> Crawford also makes the central argument that the
> debate over Kennewick
> man really involves fundamental political-economic
> interests of the
> dominant society: specifically, the desire for
> non-natives to claim some
> legitimacy for their past and  current
> appropriations and genocide.  As
> she states, "the Kennewick Man controversy serves as
> a reminder to Native
> peoples of a long history of atrocities perpetrated
> upon Native
> communities by archeologists and anthropologists."
> By trying to argue
> that natives weren't really the original caretakers
> and occupants of the
> Western Hemisphere, assholes like Slade Gorton are
> strengthened in their
> efforts to erode native sovereignty.  In other
> words, if native peoples
> weren't here first, their legal and moral claim to
> the land is
> considerably weakened.

There is something to that, but you have to weigh that
with the possibility of rewriting history so that
ancestors of present-day Native Americans *were* the
original occupants. Of course, many archaeologists now
believe that there were probably two main immigration
waves into the Americas (humans didn't evolve here,
you know), not merely one. And if I recall correctly,
Kennewick Man has been dated to some time in between
the two waves.

Adam


=====
Adam Levenstein                          cleon42@xxxxxxxxx
ICQ: 17125158

And now, for something completely different.

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