Understanding and Respecting Both Perspectives



Shereena Baker

AIS 410

American Indian Lit Seminar

Mr. McKinney

Understanding and Respecting Both Perspectives

Introduction

For hundreds of years the Native Americans and the Native Hawaiians have been fighting in order to defend repatriate their lands, cultural items, human remains, and other sacred objects. Even though the Native Americans and the Native Hawaiians have come a long way, but they still have to face certain jurisdictions imposed on them by the law, and it is their duty to fight in an intellectual manner in order to win. For this purpose it is essential for them to be well educated and have a better understanding of how things were and how to work with the laws that were forced against and for Indigenous people. “To know your future, you must learn from your past” (Jang, 2002). Recently, while I was in my tribal management class, our teacher, Mrs. Arkeketa James, explained us some of the qualities that are essential for a good tribal leader. One of the most essential qualities that a good tribal leader should possess is in depth knowledge of the culture as they are the representative's of their people. Along, with that they should also knowledge also be well educated on the western ways so that they should have the knowledge to lead your people in the direction to live and survive in both worlds. According to, Mrs. James it is crucial for an individual to possess both these qualities so they can successfully survive in the society, which is based on many different beliefs and morals. She referred it to certain tribes on getting their water, hunting, and sovereignty rights. There are resources that Native Americans and Native Hawaiians have to help assist them on protecting and repatriating what belongs to them.

In this paper my core focus would be on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Along, with that I am also going to focus on some of the other forms of constitutions and acts that are passed for the preservation and the protection of the cultural items of the indigenous people. In this paper I will discuss the pros and cons of NAGPRA from an Indigenous and Western points of view on different cases from museums, human remains, to sacred sites. Before the NAGPRA act was implemented, indigenous people were killed mercilessly in the name of “Manifested Destiny”, which has been the historical belief of the people of United States, and this belief has been evenly ordained, and has expanded across the continents of North America, right from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. Now, it is the destiny of Indigenous people to reclaim what was lost or taken out of greed and selfishness of this historical belief. These victims of genocide have now become victims in museums so that anthropologists can scientifically study the people that once ran this continent, in hopes of discovering vital information from the past. Vine DeLoria an American Indian activist, author, historian, and a theologian wrote that: ...