UPDATE: And here's the original study plan submitted by the scientists to the Corps of Engineers in 2002. (And it's only 2005! Things move so quickly, no?)
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
...thus prompted, the audience shouts "So what have you been reading?"
Well, since you asked... I can't recommend highly enough this translation of Dante's Inferno. The book's format is what really made it for me – the side-by-side original and translation allowed me to exercise my feeble Italian skills, and capture at least an echo of the feel of the original; and the incredibly thorough line-by-line notes at the end of each canto eliminated the tedious flip-to-the-back-of-the-book-and-back routine that endnotes impose. And the notes themselves, as I said, are incredibly thorough. (Hollander & Co.'s translation of Purgatorio is quite tasty, as well.)
But wait, there's more! Impelled by forces that I myself can't explain, I've been working my way through Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time duodecology — yes, that's right, twelve, count 'em, twelve volumes of mid-20th Century upper-middle-class British ennui. I can honestly say I am not enjoying it; after the first two volumes, I thought, "This is the literary equivalent of eating uncooked dry oatmeal." After the third (The Acceptance World), I revised my simile to "uncooked dry oatmeal with a nice ripe strawberry sliced in". With three more volumes down (I'm now on The Valley of Bones), the former, pre-strawberry version is becoming more accurate again. Reading the encomia that the series has received, I can only conclude that the praisers are reading a different series, or have seriously different ideas about what qualifies as "brilliant literary comedy". There is comedy here in the same homeopathic quantities as there is vermouth in an extra-dry martini. And yet I persist...
But I have to take breaks, and I just finished Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari. Nobody writes travel like Theroux; his The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific managed to catch, absolutely perfectly, the experience of living on a Pacific island, even though depression occasionaly clouded his judgement (we found New Zealand a much happier place than he did, for example).
Theroux spent time in Malawi as a Peace Corps worker, and in Uganda as a faculty member; Dark Star Safari is a record, in part, of his return to those places some forty years on to visit old friends and see old haunts. His main discovery is that all his work was for naught; the institutions he helped staff are crumbling away, the projects he aided abandoned and forgotten. Though I've never been to the places Theroux goes to in this book, the descriptions resonate to anyone with experience with third world governments:
You could not spend a more wasted day than in an office of the Tanzanian government... This waste of time suggested what might be wrong. Tanzanians complained of unemployment -- in the capital almost half the adults had no jobs. But those with jobs did next to nothing, if the Office of Immigration was anything to go by. I had my passport, my fifty U.S. dollars in cash, my filled-out application for a tourist visa, and I stood the requisite hour in line. I was no one special. Everyone else in line was encountering the same obstacles in the open-plan office of twenty employees: apathy, then rudeness, and finally hostility.The crowd I was among just watched and waited. The office was dirty, the desks messy: one civil servant was eating a hunk of cake; another one, a woman with curlers in her hair, was reading the morning paper at her desk; yet another, a man, simply stared into space, drumming his fingers. I tried to detach my personal urgency from this charade (in fact, I needed this visa and my passport to buy a train ticket) and watched as though it were a comic documentary. "You come back later," a surly woman said. But I wanted to monitor my application as it proceeded through all the stages, moving from desk to desk, getting cake crumbs on it from the gobbling man, tea stains from the fingers of the cup sipper. Six people examined and initialed my form. And then it was put in a tray, where it remained for twenty minutes. It was then handed through a slot in the wall, a side office.
If I had complained, they would have replied, with justification, "What's the hurry?" "Who are you?" "What does it matter?" "Why should we care?" Nothing had ever worked in Tanzania. All Tanzanians had ever known was failure, empty political rhetoric, broken promises. True, the unemployed in Dar es Salaam looked desperate. but the workers, too, looked cheated, envious, and angry.Following my passport, I sneaked over to the side office door and opened it, apologizing -- pretending to have entered the wrong office -- and saw the visa officer in a white shirt and blue necktie with a tin tray on his desk, a hunk of bread in his hand, tucking into a big bowl of meat stew, slopping gobs of gravy on the stack of visa forms.
Theroux heaps great piles of scorn on charity workers and African governments together; charity unintentionally aiding brutal, uncaring kleptocracies. Here's another vignette:
Fiona and Rachel worked for a British charity. What Kurtz was trying to accomplish on the Congo, and Mrs. Jellyby on the Niger, they were attempting in the region of Marsabit. The were on their weekly trip up from the south. They were in their mid-twenties, damp-faced from the heat and their long drive. They had a driver, however, and a high-tech vehicle that was worth a fortune. Am I imagining that the logo on the side showed a weeping continent and the slogan 'Shed Tears for Africa'?(I can't help myself, I start quoting and I can't stop!) While the aid workers appear deeply concerned and motivated, they seem unaware of any possible ramifications of their actions, or indeed unable to question whether their actions are necessary, and if so why."We have a wet feeding tomorrow," Fiona said.
Rachel said, "Ninety underweight children, some of them malnourished, infants up to four-year-olds."
"What's a wet feeding?"
"That's porridge. Unimix for nutrition -- maize, beans, oil, some sugar and fat. Americans call it Corn-Soy Blend."
"You are going to a village to dump Unimix in a trough for people to eat."
"I wouldn't put it that way," Fiona said.
I said, "We used to say, 'Give people seeds and let them grow their own food.'"
"The rains have been unreliable," Rachel said.
"Maybe they should relocate. If they relocated they might find work, and they might plant gardens if you weren't feeding them."
"We save lives, not livelihoods," Fiona said, and it sounded like a phrase from a brochure that might have been drafted by Mrs. Jellyby.
I said, "Or family planning advice -- you could give them that."
"We don't discuss family planning," Rachel said. "We feed children under five and lactating mothers. Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I don't know," I said. "Something about 'supervising a wet feeding.' It sounds like something you'd do in a game park." [...] I said, "In a game park, in a bad year, the rangers might spread some bales of alfalfa near a water hole to help the hippos make it through the season."
They looked at me, unhappy to be challenged.
I said, "And what would happen if you just sent the food?"
"Their parents would steal it and let the kids die."
"The farmers in Kenya are very demoralized, because the government does not support them," Mr. Maina said. "In so many places the farmers have torn up their coffee bushes to grow cabbages and maize for subsistence."The Kenyan government is quite satisfied to let the NGO's and other charities take over the burden of feeding much of the rural population; it leaves more aid money available for graft."Why doesn't the government care?"
"Why should they care? They get money for the World Bank and the IMF and America and Germany and everyone else."
Theroux provides no prescriptions of what should be done. He mainly records how current aid practices aren't helping, and suggests that the whole concept of foreign aid to Africa is fatally flawed; that African governments haven't got the will to help themselves out of their current mess, and that without that, foreign aid is, at best, futile. The sense of futility comes out again and again:
Before I left Finland I understood the problem of AIDS in Zambia and I thought I had some good solutions," Ursula said... "After I got to Zambia I realized that it's more complicated than I thought. Now I don't understand the problem so clearly. It is all some complicated, and I don't know about any solution.""What did you find out in Zambia that you didn't know before?" I asked.
"The behavior," she said, and rolled her eyes. "There is so much sex. It is all sex. And so young!"
"How young?"
"As if you don't know," Kelli said, teasing me.
"Ten years old is common," Ursula said.
"But with their own age group", I said, repeating what I had learned in the Chalbi Desert from the Samburu man.
"Not with their age group. Almost with anyone," Ursula said. [...] "It is horrible. There is no sex education. No one will talk about sex, but everyone does it. No one will talk about AIDS, and everyone is infected. We were sent an anti-AIDS film and we showed it. But people in the villages said it was shameful -- too indecent -- and so it was withdrawn. What could we do?"
"Did you talk to them about it?"
"I tried to."
"And what happened?"
"They wanted to have sex with me." [...] "The men follow me. They call me muzungu. I hate that. Always calling out to me, 'Muzungu! Muzungu!'"
"Racial profiling," Conor said, trying to lighten the mood. "Shouldn't stand for it, if I was you, not a bit of it." But Ursula did not smile. For her it was more than outraged decency -- it was despair, a recognition of futility, a kind of grief even, along with anger.
—
muzungu – n. "white person".
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Scientists from around the country plan to convene in Seattle for about two weeks early next month to conduct the research, said Alan Schneider, Portland-based attorney for the scientists.
However:
The study potentially could be halted if the tribes asked for a stay, but they haven't yet, Schneider said. But further studies of Kennewick Man might be stopped if a bill proposed by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., passes and changes the wording of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.The senator has introduced a two-word amendment that would let federally recognized tribes demand the return of remains, even if they can't prove a link to a modern tribe.
"Right now skeletal remains that are culturally unaffiliated are being given to tribes and reburied," Schneider said. "If the McCain amendment goes through, we are very concerned about what would become of Kennewick Man and all of these other skeletal remains that are so different from present day Native Americans."
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Perhaps there's still time: I own two cookbooks, four dog-eared O'Reilly manuals, and the journal of a 19th century English adventurer who was cannibalized by a relic Homo habilis gang encamped outside of Samarkand. That last is the last book I read, and that was thirty years ago. The last book I bought was The Emperor's New Mind, sometime in the eighties, but I never read it. There were books I read that meant a lot to me in my formative years but I've completely forgotten their contents.
Now I can retire without insomniac anxiety.
*Yeah, I know Ginny already grabbed that one this weekend, but I thought it apt here.
Tribal members believe that they have simply been here. Their creations stories have them created from the coyote or from other animals that are indigenous to these places and have always been here. And again, those stories have to be respected.
Now, it is true that, depending on exactly what issues and rights we're talking about, science doesn't always legally trump "cultural beliefs" - people are, after all, free to believe what they choose about origins. But note what he is explicitly arguing for here: inscribing respect for particular "creation stories" into U.S. law, and requiring all other citizens, whatever their beliefs, from studying any evidence that might challenge the protected creation stories.
Odd, isn't it, that when people try to pull stunts similar to this (if not quite so extreme in scope) in Kansas or Georgia, a lot of other people (rightfully) go nuts on 'em.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
First, some basic instruction on whom to contact and how to do it can be found here. At the bottom of this page is an example for getting started on your letter. I also recommend this paper as a good summary of the law as it stands and the issues at stake in changing it.
Here are some suggestions for points to cover in your letter (courtesy of opposition volunteers):
• Open with your statement of your position: Example - that you oppose the McCain bill (or any similar legislation) to extend NAGPRA's definition of Native American to include all people on the continental US before European contact.
• The actual intent of this legislation is not clear. The impact
raises legitimate political, social, and scientific concerns:
• The First Amendment prohibits using any religion as the basis for
public policy.
• Modern American Indians would have the singular privilege of claiming remains or other items to which they have no relationship.
• Prehistory is complex and our understanding of the past should not be limited to one explanation.
• Identity of human remains should be established not assumed, then imposed.
• The peopling of the Americas is of interest to people world wide. The ancestors of American Indians did not evolve on this continent, they came from elsewhere.
• The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the government's claim that 'or was' is implied in NAGPRA yields an absurd result. Making it law will yield an equally absurd result.
• This and future generations (including those of American Indians) should have access to a factual information about the past.
• NAGPRA's requirement to establish cultural affiliation for a claim
does not protect ancient remains if it is ignored.
• An example: The Army Corps of Engineers assumed Kennewick Man was a Native American and assumed that the Umatilla et al. claim was legitimate. A lawsuit was needed to stop the Corps from simply handing over the remains. The court ordered the Corps to re-evaluate their process and follow NAGPRA's requirements. The result: the claim was based on false assumptions and untrue assertions. The Indian Claims Commission had not established aboriginal lands where K-man was found as the Umatillas asserted. No credible evidence demonstrated any cultural link to the tribes.
• Government's defense in the Kennewick Man case of its insupportable assumptions about prehistory have already set the taxpayer back approximately $6,000,000.
I'll add:
• The panel for the hearing appears to be stacked in favor of proponents of the amendment, suggesting to a concerned citizen that the hearing is for special interests, not the public interest.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
(Related links here.)
While this is heartening, it's important that all of the public's concerns should get an airing at the hearing. To that end, a volunteer who is helping to organize the testimony for the amendment's opponents has asked me to send out the following request to everyone who has written (or will write!) their representatives and pertinent committee members:
We have received disturbing news that only the speakers' testimony goes into the official record of the hearing. If you write to the committee please send copies to your Senators, Represenatives and tocleonehawkATcomcastDOTnet
with the subject line: input to McCain committee
She will make every effort to enter your particular concerns as part of a speaker's testimony. If the bill passes the committee, we'll also make the packet available to members of Congress to show the broad range of people who are against this legislation. The packet may also be made available to the press.
So please take a moment to cc your letters to the above address. And if you've come up with any other brilliant points or important concerns you think germane to the hearings, they probably wouldn't mind hearing about them, too. ("While we can't absolutely promise that we'll get them all worked into oral testimony, we will try. Also there may be important points raised that we haven't thought to cover!!!")
UPDATE: In response to popular demand, here are some helpful tips for writing your letters.
(Related links here.)
______________________________________________________________________________
Note: Here's some more info and background on the McCain amendment hearing (see two previous posts). I'll be adding more info as I get it and expanding background if I can.
He's Mr. Anti-Special Interests, so I'm sure McCain's proposed amendment to NAGPRA couldn't be motivated by the concerns of any special interests. The list comprising those invited to testify at the hearing scheduled for 14 June does not, however, indicate any great concern with expanding perspective beyond an echo chamber. Of six invitees, two names have not yet been made public pending acceptances, but the four remaining slots are filled by proponents of the amendment. All are on record as supporting an interpretion of NAGPRA that would produce the "odd or absurd results" rejected by Judge Jelderks in Bonnichsen et al. vs. United States (the Kennewick Man case). Their preferred, highly idiosyncratic definition of "Native American" having been rejected by the courts, they now support amending NAGPRA such that the law is required to return "absurd results".
Some brief background on the named invitees:
The representative of the Department of Interior is as yet unnamed. Interior under Secretary Babbitt during the Clinton administration ruled in favor of the tribal claimants in the Kennewick Man case, rejecting morphological anomalies, and the implausibility of static populations and discernable descent over hundreds of generations, in favor of evidence for continuity such as: "[t]he oral tradition evidence reveals that the claimant Indian tribes possess similar traditional histories that relate to the Columbia Plateau's past landscape. The oral tradition evidence also lacks any reference to a migration of people into or out of the Columbia Plateau." (I don't think the list of possible representatives for Interior at this hearing includes anyone not enthusiastically in favor of the amendment. I will provide more background as more information becomes available.)
Walter Echohawk is an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) who has disputed court rulings in the Kennewick Man case and argued that the Kennewick litigation demonstrates that "NAGPRA itself is under attack by the scientific community...". He expressly advocates changing NAGPRA to alter the results of cases such as Kennewick - that is, changing NAGPRA in precisely the same way that other advocates of this change insist will not have the slightest bearing on cases such as Kennewick:
But Bender and Walter Echohawk, a Native American Rights Fund (NARF) attorney, said Congress can correct the problem [the "wrong" decision in Bonnichsen] with a simple change in the law to ensure that the goals of NAGPRA are met. The changes were suggested at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on July 14."The court seized on two words, 'that is' in the definition of Native American, and rewrote the entire statute," Echohawk told the committee, adding that the court cited "no legislative history" to aid its interpretation.
One may ask what "legislative" history supports the "or was" interpretation, as one may ask exactly how the precedent in any way limits legitimate claims protected by NAGPRA.
The Bender mentioned above is Paul Bender, one of the original drafters of NAGPRA. He is a law professor at Arizona State University, who has previously testified in Congress in support of the "or was" addition to NAGPRA, against the Ninth Circuit's decision in Bonnichsen. Bender argues that NAGPRA was intended to give Native American groups control over even unaffiliated remains by the spurious but not uncommonly employed method of imputing a certain mystic aura to the word "indigenous". The simple trivial fact that Kennewick Man was "indigenous", "not a tourist or explorer from a far-off place", is interpreted to mean that he bears some undefined but sacrosanct and not to be questioned relation to any other human groups who happened to wander into, wander around, and settle in North America, over thousands and thousands of years, at any time prior to 1492.
Why this highly arbitrary, not to say nonsensical, connection should be accepted is never satisfactorily explained, though, predictably, the abuses and violations of rights that had led to NAGPRA being enacted in the first place are adduced and then confused with the quite distinct cases exampled by Bonnichsen. NAGPRA, as was intended, addresses and provides for the redress of these historical wrongs, but by what reasons it should be expanded to cover remains to which Native American groups have no more reasonable claim than any other interested citizen is never made explicit. This is the fundamental point in this controversy, and one that proponents of tribal claims in the Kennewick case, and McCain's amendment, consistently obfuscate and refuse to address. This amendment unconstitutionally privileges some groups' preferred, religious views about the unknown ancient North American past.
The same view is espoused by another invitee, Keith Kintigh, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University. (Let's see, where else have I been hearing about this Arizona place? Ah yes - bill sponsored by Arizona senator supported by testimony by two professors from an Arizona university....sounds like we're working on balanced input here...) Professor Kintigh is representing the Society for American Archaeology. While the SAA supported Jelderks's decision in favor of the scientists in the Kennewick Man case, noting the necessity of giving due weight to science and evidence, and strongly ciriticized the actions of Interior in its decision to repatriate the skeleton, it rejected the logic by which Jelderks had arrived at his decision. That is, they clove to the "or was" interpretation, arguing that the courts should have accepted that Kennewick Man was "Native American" and thus subject to NAGPRA. I have not been able to puzzle out how one can reconcile these two positions. If one respects NAGPRA and the rights of Native Americans to control what is legitimately theirs, on what grounds could one rule that the tribes had no legal claim, if not Jelderks's?
Regarding McCain's amendment, the SAA, while deploring procedural irregularities, is fully on board with its substance:
SAA is not opposed to the substance of this proposed amendment, which affirms the Society's position that the definition of "Native American" was intended to include tribes, peoples, and cultures that were once indigenous to the United States as well as those presently recognized as indigenous.[...]
Kintigh evinces the same contradiction in his own statements, earnestly asserting the importance of "adequately address[ing] scientific concerns" and the need for "focus[sing] our public policy attention - and the public's attention - on the disposition of culturally unidentifiable human remains and the potential these remains have to contribute information of enormous importance about the past". These quotes from the linked 1999 address are preceded by this curious statement (curious, that is, in light of the present proposed legislation):
The disposition of the remains of First Americans [i.e., Paleoamericans] will depend not on their classification as Native Americans but on the determination that the remains have, or lack cultural affiliation. Because the earliest Americans will likely fail to meet the legal standard of cultural affiliation, they should be classified as culturally unidentifiable. As such, they are not now subject to repatriation, but under the proposals that have been floated, they would be.
And what are those floated proposals?
We face a major additional repatriation issue: culturally unidentifiable human remains-remains for which a disposition process is not specified by NAGPRA. Recognize here that many Indian groups are arguing for universal repatriation of these remains. Further, the NAGPRA Review Committee has made their disposition a high priority. SAA has consistently commented on the Review Committee's draft proposals, none of which has adequately addressed scientific concerns. Considerable attention is now focused on this issue; it will not go away. The scientific community is going to have to deal with culturally unidentifiable human remains in the near term, and the outcome is going to be really important.
There is a great deal of brow-furrowing going on in these statements radiating Grave Concern about the lack of adequate attention to scientific concerns. And yet, read carefully, they do not reveal any identifiable position on the repatriation of unaffiliated remains. As of 1999 Kintigh recognizes that certain proposals would change the rules of affiliation prescribed by NAGPRA, and that NAGPRA as it stands does not allow "universal repatriation", yet he does not come out yea or nay for these vaguely referenced "proposals". But whatever they are, the outcome of the debate to which they are addressed - the disposition of unaffiliated remains - is going to be Really Important.
Fast forward to 2005, and Kintigh is now sure that Proposals That Are Floated, affecting what can or cannot be repatriated under NAGPRA, are not really Really Important: “This won’t disastrously affect research”. That's a comfort.
The current official SAA position is, however, consistent with his 1999 views that "under NAGPRA, First Americans are Native Americans, regardless of how many migrations there were, where they came from, when they came, or whether some groups died out. I think that is what the law says; and I'm certain that is what congress intended."
Senators McCain, Cantwell, and Smith pooh-pooh concerns about negative effects on science, but never explain just what function that "or was" is supposed to serve, and never explain just why its absence is damaging to Native American interests. Or why the Kennewick ruling is damaging to Indian interests, but "or was" will have no effect on cases like Kennewick Man.
Last year the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that no direct link exists between the tribes and the skeleton.Scientists say McCain's bill, with a two-word change, could nullify that ruling.
The change would add the words "or was" to a definition. It would then say that in the context of ancient remains, the term "Native American" refers to a member of a tribe or culture that is or was indigenous to the United States.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved the bill on a voice vote last month. Rob Roy Smith, an attorney for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state, and other supporters say the bill would apply to future archaeological finds, and would strengthen the case of tribes across the country that want to claim and bury ancient remains.
But Andrea Jones, a spokeswoman for McCain, said attorneys have told the committee the bill would not apply to Kennewick Man, because the 9th Circuit has already made a decision.
Spokesmen for Sens. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also say the bill does not apply to Kennewick Man.
Angela Becker-Dippmann, a spokeswoman for Cantwell, said that even if the bill is signed into law, tribes "will still have to prove a cultural connection" to an archaeological find before being allowed to claim them.
But as I have noted before, NAGPRA already "does not apply to Kennewick Man", and NAGPRA already requires that claimants "prove a cultural affiliation". So, once again, exactly what is this amendment supposed to accomplish? We've yet to get any straight answers. Not from the congressional sponsors, anyway. To their credit, at least some of the invitees are refreshingly straightforward on what they think the purpose of the amendment is.
I highly recommend dialing 202-224-2251 (the Senate Indian Affairs Committee) and requesting a clarification.
(Related links here.)
In the meantime, you might wish to courteously make your views about the McCain amendment known to the the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Phone calls (202-224-2251) would be excellent.
In addition, please convey your concerns to you congressmen:
(Related links here.)
The latest on Section 108 of S.536 is that a (ahem) public hearing will be held on 14 June. I'll just post the text of the blogospheric alert I'm sending out:
Status update on S.536 Section 108:Thanks again to all of you who blogged on McCain's stealth amendment to NAGPRA (Section 108, S.536). A public hearing on this amendment is now scheduled for 14 June. I heard through the grapevine that the decision to hold a hearing on this deplorable "'was' vs. 'is'" amendment was effected by the number and variety of citizens who wrote in protest. I know many people wrote to say they'd contacted their congressmen; I'd like to think the blogosphere had a hand in getting this into the light.
Unfortunately, as you will note, the hearing has been scheduled on very short notice, and no public notice has been given. Furthermore, word is that the hearing invitations are very much biased against the opponents of the amendment (possibly 5-1 or 4-2), and no time was allowed for the advocates of the underrepresented side to organize, re-arrange their schedules, and find an affordable flight to Washington. [UPDATE: Apparently a staffer of McCain's had indicated that the hearing was to be scheduled for the fall. If so, why the big rush now?] Obviously McCain et al. consider this hearing to be an inconvenience, temporarily interfering with their efforts to ignore the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the public's interest in scientific inquiry.
So now I'm doing my Struthers-esque "save the skeletons" act one more time: time is short, and I'm asking bloggers and readers to make their views known once again to their representatives and to all the members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee - and perhaps to ask what's the big damned hurry here. Friends of America's Past has all the amendment and contact info. (And, of course, you can find more background at my joint.)
Thanks again for your help.
Updates for 6 June: Major and minor.
Related links here.
