ACROSS the US, Native American tribes are asking museums to return thousands of sacred objects taken from their ancestors. But as curators comply, they are doing so with a warning 鈥� the objects may be covered in poisons, making them too dangerous to handle.
In the 1990s, federal law was amended to allow recognised tribes to reclaim objects of cultural significance. Many tribes have allowed museums to keep a large part of their collections, which often include human remains and ceramics, especially those that require special storage conditions and the attention of trained curators. But certain items they do want back.
For instance, David Hostler, a member of the 2250-strong Hoopa tribe in northern California, is using the act to reclaim around 4000 items, mostly clothing and jewellery that Hostler and other tribe members want to wear for traditional ceremonies and dances. So far, one institution, the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in Massachusetts, has returned 17 objects to Hostler, including dancing hides and ceremonial feathers. 鈥淭he majority of these items taken from our tribes were originally taken illegally, so we want them back,鈥� says Hostler. 鈥淲e want them to dance with and use as a basis to make new ones.鈥�
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But as staff at the Peabody Museum returned the items, they warned Hostler that they could be too dangerous to wear. In the past, museums and private collectors preserved such items by dunking them into mercury or arsenic solutions, or spraying the solutions around storage areas. Later, organic pesticides such as DDT were used. Because records are scant at best, no one is sure which objects have been treated with what.
To find out, Hostler teamed up with Pete Palmer, a chemist at San Francisco State University, to test tiny samples they scraped off the objects. While they found no traces of arsenic, they did find significant mercury contamination 鈥� up to nearly 5 per cent of the objects鈥� weight. There were also residues from five other pesticides, including DDT, Palmer will report in a future issue of Environmental Science and Technology. When the objects are worn, these poisons could be absorbed through contact with the skin, drip into the wearer鈥檚 eyes or even be inhaled. 鈥淭ribal members should not wear these objects,鈥� Palmer says.
The results leave Hostler and other members of his tribe in a quandary. 鈥淲e want to use them, but now we don鈥檛 know what to do,鈥� he says. He thinks the museums should take responsibility and find a way to treat them and make them safe.
But that may not be easy. 鈥淭here are currently no known techniques for removing these preservatives,鈥� says Paula Molloy of the government programme set up under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
鈥淭his is a very serious and tragic problem and we are trying to work with tribes on the issue,鈥� says Ruby Watson, director of the Peabody Museum, which has the largest collection to fall under the NAGPRA mandate. 鈥淩ight now, we need to find out what鈥檚 feasible in terms of treating [the collections],鈥� she says.
It鈥檚 not just the Hoopa tribe that is affected. More than 700 tribes are eligible to claim items under the NAGPRA. 鈥淚n terms of how big the problem is, there鈥檚 simply no way to know,鈥� says Molloy.