Should the remains of Kennewick man and Spirit Cave man be give to the Paiute Tribe for reburial?

Question

The Paiutes are going to court to get hold of the remains.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/spirit-cave-man/

Bear in mind that the Paiute have legends about wiping out another tribe, and these guys look nothing like the Pauites, and may well be members of the tribe they recall smoking to death. If these men were members of the tribe (and ethnic group) they admit to exterminating, won't this offend the dead mens spirits?

Answer 1

No.  Kenewick man is MY ancestor.  I demand the body myself.  And I won't allow DNA testing to prove it is my ancestor.  I just want it.

Answer 2

Has anyone contacted Patrick Stewart about this?  From the reconstruction of the skull I saw, Kennewick man is an obvious ancestor.  

This spiritual stuff and political correctness was run into the ground & broken off long ago.  Allowing a tribe currently occupying that area to take possession of the find is absolutely nuts.

Answer 3

According to the letter of the law, the Paiute do not have a claim to Kennewick Man. Currently, no one does (so the researchers get him). The law would have to change for that to happen. Of course, that's exactly what is currently being proposed to Congress: a small wording change to NAGPRA that would allow many more tribes to make claims for repatriation of remains and materials.

I don't think there is any way to link Kennewick Man to any one tribe. The Paute's resistance to DNA testing is largely irrelevant here, as they probably wouldn't get the claim even if they did undergo testing. Amplification of Kennewick Man's DNA has been unsuccessful, and there isn't any other way to link him to any modern people.

Similarly, your musings above are irrelevant. There would be no good way to tell if the Paiutes are the people that were attacked (or at least no evidence currently), so it's impossible to say with any certainty how the dead men's spirits would feel. Frankly, it's improper for you to assume one way or the other.

Anyway, NAGPRA is a complicated issue, and any press about it seems like a good thing to me. Too many people just don't understand it, or even know about it.

EDIT: Bah, they were aggressors as part of a war, and a coalition of tribes, as your source indicates. I was more making a point about using presumptions about their cultural beliefs to bolster your point. That's their point to make, not ours. Additionally, there's no evidence in your source that they are confusing their own legends around. They may well have been the other guys. Sure, why not. At any rate, I'm fairly certain that Holocaust comparisons are completely off the mark.

But don't miss my main point, which was that we don't have DNA from Kennewick Man, so even forcibly testing the DNA of every Paiute man, woman, and child won't make a l**k of difference. Under the current law, they don't have much a claim. This was established years ago on the legal scene. Kennewick Man was already reburied once and dug up again, in fact. But lawyers can be tricky devils, so who knows.

Answer 4

I used to HATE these kinds of questions in college.

     No, I don't think they should be returned simply because the Piaute's want them.  They have no more information to go on as to his inclusion in this tribe  as we do to his exclusion.

     It is very possible that he DOES belong to them, but I can think of just as many reasons why he may not either.

     DNA evidence may put him within a certain group, but I can think of a time in American history that people sharing identical DNA types managed to point one rifle against another and die on the same battlefield side by side.  That doesn't mean they shared the same cultural viewpoints at all.

     I'm actually for the idea of reburial after all of the information that we can get has been retrieved, and reburial under the same conditions as we found it may make it possible for future archaeologists to retrieve more information that we simply do not have at our disposal yet.

  The Paiutes, and any other indian tribe that wishes to claim human remains as their own are simply going to have to allow the scientists to perform the tests they need to get the answers, or come up with more convincing ways of getting the remains returned to them other than "we think they belong to us".

Answer 5

if it is a probability to extract some DNA and prove (at the very least ) weather or not these are Paiute remains.. maybe that should be tried fist.. if they are Piaute remains then Yes return them if not then if at all possible return them to the peoples they belong to..  or to their burial place or another burial place.. science has had them long enough . they can freeze their tissue samples and photograph every square inch in side and out to learn what they want to know.

Answer 6

Fifteen years?  How long does it take them to do tests?  I'm always for leaning on the spiritual side of things.  Do your tests, then rebury the bones.  I've seen and heard of too many restless spirit stories to think it should be okay now to go ahead and keep the bones out to study them.

Answer 7

There are five other Native American tribes claiming Kennewick man as their own. This makes the Paiute one of many.

The claims are based on  the `Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act', (NAGPRA) passed by Congress in 1990. Concerned over the number of human remains being held in museums, and private collections, Congress passed the act mandating the return of identifiable human remains to the appropriate tribes. In short, if you have human remains or artifacts from a specific tribe and the tribe asks for them back, you return them.

NAGPRA works best when a tribe is recognized by the federal government and the remains or artifacts have a direct cultural, link.

The key to NAGPRA is the "cultural affiliation." This is:

"Cultural affiliation" means that there is a relationship of shared group identity which can be reasonably

traced historically or prehistorically between a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization

and an identifiable earlier group...Cultural affiliation is

established when the preponderance of the evidence -- based on geographical, kinship, biological,

archaeological, linguistic, folklore, oral tradition, historical evidence, or other information or expert

opinion -- reasonably leads to such a conclusion."

http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/TRAINI...

Kennewick man and Spirit Cave man are two of the oldest remains found in the Americas. Neither has the same physical characteristics as the Native Americans. More recent examination of Kennewick man suggest that he has a probable Asian heritage, possibly related to the people living in northern Japan or Polynesia.

When the Carbon14 dating of Kennewick man was completed, it was determined that the remains were at least 9,300 years old!

How then do the tribes establish cultural affiliation? What makes "preponderance of the evidence"? Most tribal positions are that they were always where they now live. Therefore Kennewick man "has to" be one of them. Migration from Asia and the normal movement of humans and culture over thousands of year is dismissed. As are historic records show that one of the tribes moved into the area only 400 years ago.

The US government's position during the court case was that since Kennewick man predates 1492, he "must be" native American. The judge then asked if remains of the European Vikings that settled Vinland were found, they then would be given to the tribes? "Yes" was the reply.

With Kennewick man the politics and skulduggery was fast and nasty. Bones disappeared from a locked storage area, bones were stolen, Native American rites were allowed that contaminated the dating of the bones.

The Department of the Interior justified giving the remains to the tribes based on the carbon 14 dating. This is a return to the "If it's before 1492, it's Native American" position.There was no discussion of "cultural affiliation."

It's not possible to return to the site where the body was found. The Corps of Engineers deliberately dumped tons of rocks on the site effectively crushing anything there.

Under strict letter of  NAGPRA "cultural affiliation." definition, it's up to the tribes to provide a "preponderance of the evidence."

Answer 8

The problem is that their is no way of telling what tribe the Kennewick man really belongs. It could be any of the native tribes around there. So while we can not conclusively pinpoint its linage, it should remain in the hands of the museum. Beside, it's dead and the spirit have rested in peace along time ago.

Answer 9

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The spirits are well on their journey. Their remains are of little importance.

Answer 10

h**l no....they've been fighting this over for like 15 years now....indians wanting the remains back but unwilling to allow DNA testing to be done on it, which would trace the ancestry more accurately than listening to these conflicting claims based on oral tradition.... I dont think any of these native american groups have any more claims to kennewick man than the Asatru folk assembly who is trying to claim it as their ancestor....

I dont think the bones should go back into the earth until they've been tested.

Answer 11

I think the bones should be reburied if only to end all the fighting however I see no reason DNA testing would violate tribal customs since modern procedures would only require a very small amount of material.

Given Kennewick Man dates back 9000 years more or less the Paiutes may not have even been living in the area at the time.

As for claims of disturbing the spirits ... bones that old?

No way!

If ghosts could manifest from bones that old ... well let's just say most psychics agree they dont!