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Our Ruined Lives with Ash Boydston-Schmidt - Ep 42
352 Plays5 years ago
For this edition of Our Ruined Lives we chat with Ash Boydston-Schmidt. Ash is a descendant of the Crow Nation and shares with us her families history, growing up in Oklahoma, her experiences with the Tiger King, and her academic journey at the University of Oklahoma double-majoring in Anthropology and Indigenous Studies. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Museums Studies at the University of New Mexico, where she started this past fall during the COVID-19 Pandemic. We finish up the episode with a conversation about Ash's work with the Diversity and Inclusion Council for the Boy Scouts of America.
*Disclaimer: Ash's views regarding the topics discussed in the third segment of this episode are solely her own and not representative of the Diversity and Inclusion Council.
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- Email: alifeinruinspodcast@gmail.com
- Instagram: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Facebook: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Twitter: @alifeinruinspod
- Website: www.alifeinruins.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 42 of Life in Ruins
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Meet the Hosts and Guest, Ash Boydston Schmidt
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to episode 42 of a life in ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living life in ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gover, and I am joined by my co-host Connor Johnen and David Ian Howe. In this episode, we are interviewing Ash Boydston Schmidt, the master's student in museum studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Thank you so much for joining us tonight, Ash. How are you doing this evening? I'm pretty good. How are you guys?
00:00:40
Speaker
doing all right. Can't complain. So what's your, like, what are you currently doing? Like, what's your, what's
Ash's Academic Journey and COVID Impact
00:00:49
Speaker
your thing? Well, right now I am a master's student at the university of New Mexico and I am a graduate assistant at the Maxwell museum and the archeology collection. Uh, but with COVID right now, everything's a little weird. So those are my like official things I'm doing, but there's a lot of like stuff going on. That's just like in my living room.
00:01:07
Speaker
Oh, that museum is top notch. I think, did we visit that when we were in New Mexico? We did. And it has that giant open excavation in it, which is just baller. Oh yes. It's, I have a deep love for it. I got to spend a lot of time in the collections and within the exhibits while it's been closed. So we're actually going to be looking at changing a lot of those and updating them because they haven't been updated since the eighties. So we're going to be hopefully working on that soon.
00:01:34
Speaker
That's super cool. We kind of know you through Carlton. How did you two guys end up meeting? So I actually met him through Instagram.
Networking with Professionals on Social Media
00:01:42
Speaker
I was listening to some podcasts on the APN and I listened to Heritage Voices and Carlton was on an episode, which led me to Life and Ruins, which led me to interacting with him on Instagram because
00:01:54
Speaker
someone once told me, like, if you find someone in a position that you want to interact with them, whether that's someone wrote a book and you need to email them and talk to them about the book or it's a professor or it's someone on the internet, just interact with them and see what happens. And then we kind of became friendly. And then he actually ended up staying with me in Albuquerque and I would consider his friends now. But yeah, kind of Instagram was kind of how that happened.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely agree. I think it started over something I was doing with Devin. So I remember we had interacted on Instagram, but I was doing something with Devin and you reached
Carlton's Albuquerque Adventure
00:02:24
Speaker
out. You mentioned that you had a lot of Osage orange wood that you were getting rid of from like a house in Oklahoma, which is a really good
00:02:32
Speaker
source of material for ancient weapons technology. So when I drove to Oklahoma over the summer, I swung back through Albuquerque, which is a little out of the way to meet you, your partner, Austin. And yeah, we got to hang out together in Albuquerque and got some sweet Osage orange that me and Devin are still working on.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, there'll be more, so be ready. I'm looking forward to it. I'm having a hard time. It's a steep learning curve to making bows, that is for sure. Oh, yeah, that one is something else to work with.
Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Identity
00:03:02
Speaker
It's something else to cut down to. It's kind of a struggle. Oh, I absolutely bet. So one thing that I found fascinating during our time, oh, by the way, Lana says hi. Oh, hi, Lana. I told her we were here. She wanted to say, she said hi to you in Austin.
00:03:19
Speaker
Oh yes, absolutely. Tell her we said hello. Absolutely. So one thing that we discussed, we were talking about indigenous heritage and you have a rather interesting story behind your family's indigenous heritage. Would you mind telling your audience a bit about that?
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I am an Absalaka descendant from the Crow tribe. I'm not an enrolled member, I'm a descendant. But we ended up in Oklahoma and I grew up in and around the Chickasaw Nation and a lot of Choctaw people because, as you know, Oklahoma is a really interesting place with how all the tribes interact and kind of settle everywhere. So growing up, I had a lot of Chickasaw and Choctaw friends and some of them I even consider family.
00:04:01
Speaker
So I consider myself more culturally Chickasaw, Choctaw, slash more Pan-Indian because I wasn't raised on Crow and I wasn't raised up in that area and I only know a little bit. But my family ended up in Oklahoma because my grandmother
00:04:16
Speaker
who was a little bit far back, but my grandmother was Crow and ended up being married to a U.S. cavalry soldier who was then taken from Montana and he was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma and we have been here ever since.
00:04:32
Speaker
And the big wide world of identity politics with indigenous peoples, it gets a little messy sometimes. And my story is a little messy, but we ended up in Oklahoma and I loved growing up there. And I loved growing up where I did and around the people I did. So shout out to everyone back home.
00:04:48
Speaker
That's super cool. Yeah. It's interesting. I think we as anthropologists and people in general, I want to put people in categories and say, okay, you're from this nation or you're from this location or you're from this kind of heritage, but it's like you said, it's extremely complicated in a lot of situations. It's not.
Language and Identity Complexities
00:05:13
Speaker
is cut and dry as someone is of this heritage or that. So it's cool to see that things kind of worked out for you, where you are part of one nation, but also your culture is kind of different from that.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely something that I've been working on a little bit. I've been actually learning a little bit of Crow because I feel like that's kind of necessary. But I know a little bit of Choctaw as well, but my partner also kind of has the same kind of story of one of his ancestors came here on the Orphan Train and had no last name. So it's really hard to track that kind of stuff.
00:05:49
Speaker
But almost everyone you meet in Oklahoma is going to have some kind of interesting story when it comes to their indigenous heritage. Speaking of, would you be able to tell the audience the difference between descendants and tribal member?
00:06:01
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. So a tribal member is someone who is politically a part of the tribe, because indigenous identity can a lot of times be broken down three ways, racial, political, and cultural. So a lot of people can identify racially and culturally, but maybe not
00:06:19
Speaker
with a tribal ID. Some people identify with the tribal ID, but don't identify culturally. Again, it gets messy. But as a descendant, I am not an enrolled member for a lot of different reasons. The way my tribe decides who gets to enroll who doesn't has a lot to do with family, heritage, lineage, how you can go about that and prove it. There's a little bit of blood quantum involved as well, and it's a rather high
00:06:41
Speaker
portion of blood quantum. So depending on who your family is and things like that is going to depend on how you enroll. But personally, I'm not sure if I want to enroll for a couple different reasons. I personally don't believe in the blood quantum system. I don't think it's a good thing. I think it's a very colonial and genocidal construct that is being used to wipe out indigenous peoples.
00:07:06
Speaker
I also don't want to take resources away from the tribe who is living there on Crow and need those resources. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position to where we're okay and we can take care of ourselves. Whereas I want to make sure that a lot of those resources are still available for people who really need them because I don't necessarily need the resources.
00:07:26
Speaker
So there's a lot of different reasons why.
Cultural Upbringing and Experiences
00:07:28
Speaker
I'm personally not enrolled, but that's what enrollment is, is you are enrolled in your tribe and you have a specific identity within that tribe. And it typically comes in a little card. Sometimes it's on paper. It depends on how the tribe wants to do it. And then depending on if you're enrolled, depends on if you have certain rights within the tribe. So I do not have voting rights within the grow tribe. Most descendants are just culturally and
00:07:51
Speaker
ethnically and racially descendant from the tribe, we are not actually enrolled. But again, it does vary, tribe to tribe. So it really depends on how people are identifying as descendants and stuff. And it's really something that if someone tells me they're a descendant from a tribe, I'm like, oh, okay, great. And then I don't really go on and question them because it's complicated.
00:08:10
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. And I imagine, especially given the history and politics of it all, it's definitely complicated. Yeah. Well, especially with situations of like my specific situation, I don't feel it's appropriate to identify as a tribal member because A, I'm not enrolled, but B, I didn't grow up there. So I think descendant kind of fits perfectly what I am. Yeah.
00:08:31
Speaker
And then so for you and your family, the culturally Choctaw and culturally Chickasaw, was that just a product of the location where your family grew up? Yeah. My dad's family, which is where I get my indigenous heritage from, grew up in Southern Oklahoma in the Chickasaw Nation before Oklahoma was even a state. So they were down there like
00:08:53
Speaker
a while before the Boomers and the Sooners came in, too. They were down there for a while and grew up there our entire lives. I grew up down there, grew up around a bunch of different people within the tribe and then people who were again, tribal members, but not culturally affiliated. So there was a huge, huge presence of indigenous people down there. I think growing up in high school, we used to have these things called I think it was JOA days where
00:09:20
Speaker
you'd have tribal members come in and we'd have a powwow in the gym and we'd have fancy dancing and fancy shawl and jingle and hoop and we'd have all this amazing people come and perform and I was just always kind of in the stands like oh this is amazing and it's not my tribe but like I'm having a great time but it was it was a little weird because almost everyone in my high school if they were Indigenous they're like oh I'm Chickasaw oh I'm Choctaw
00:09:44
Speaker
Oh, and then you'd have the occasional person who was Kiowa or Caddo or someone else down in Southern Oklahoma. But I was always like, Hey, I'm Crow. So that was interesting. But I was never felt like I wasn't accepted by the people around me because we were all indigenous together, if that makes sense. Like we all kind of
00:10:01
Speaker
banded together and had our own experience, which is kind of why I feel like Pan-Indian is another good way to talk about it because we kind of had a huge cultural sharing. All these different ideas and thoughts and stories and it was just really cool. But yeah, it's mainly related to the area I grew up in.
00:10:18
Speaker
Cool. Yeah, I can definitely vibe with you. It feels like we were kind of switched because like growing up on Wind River and Crow Agency and being around Crows, Arapahos, Shoshones, and Cheyenne to be like, yeah, I'm Pawnee. And like, why are you out of Oklahoma? Who lets you out of there?
00:10:34
Speaker
Oh yeah. So I definitely get those vibes. But like, so very important question in terms of like coming from like Southern, like Eastern Oklahoma. Do you know the Tiger King? I do actually. I grew up about 15 minutes away.
00:10:51
Speaker
Well, no way. Yeah, actually, it's been something that when Tiger King first came out, I was like, Oh, no. And I watched it because I actually did know a good amount of people who were in it. And then I got texts from friends who were like, Oh, my mom's in the background of this shot. And I was like, Oh, yeah, there she is.
00:11:09
Speaker
So it's been really interesting. I feel like within the past year, anytime I introduce myself in any setting, people are like, do you know the Tiger King? And I'm like, yeah, I actually do. I knew a girl in high school who did an internship at the park. Yeah, he was an interesting guy for sure. There's a lot of stuff I don't think just general towns people knew growing up. Like we knew he was a little.
00:11:32
Speaker
out there and a little interesting and a little crazy, but we didn't know the full extent of what was going on. But I do remember when he ran for governor, he came to our Christmas parade. It was very interesting. I was in high school and I was in marching band and we were marching down the street and he was like throwing candy at people and he was like, vote for me. And his little like Tiger King for governor stuff, like that is a hot commodity down there. People love it.
00:11:57
Speaker
That's so wild. I wouldn't have thought about that. He's like a mythical figure to me at this point. Yeah, he's something. Wow. I thought that was just going to be a one-off joke. I didn't know you actually knew him. I mean, I don't know him personally, but like, yeah, I'd see him in Walmart occasionally or something like that. Buy an expired meats.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I didn't know that's what he was doing. That was, I had no comprehension of that's what was going on, but yeah, we'd see him at Walmart occasionally or just around town. Yeah. All right. Well, moving on,
Historical Context of Indigenous Ancestry
00:12:31
Speaker
moving on from that, like so the Chickasaw and Choctaw, I'm from Tennessee ish that they're from like originally from like Northern Alabama, Mississippi area, right? Or is like the modern tribes now live in Oklahoma?
00:12:45
Speaker
Yes, I think that that is the ancestral area of the Choctaws. I know the Chickasaws are almost all in Oklahoma, but the Choctaws do have another tribe outside of Oklahoma. I can't remember exactly which state, so sorry. But yeah, to my knowledge, that is where they came from, and also the Cherokee and the Seminole and Muscogee Creek and everyone who got removed with that big removal. But some of them do still remain in that area, yeah.
00:13:10
Speaker
Okay, cool. Cause I just know a lot of, I went to UT Knoxville. So I just knew a lot of people in like the anthro area that were, I mean, mostly Cherokee obviously, but then like Chick saw Choctaw. Like a lot of people had that descendant. Yeah, I would say it's probably not uncommon.
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah. And it's interesting you mentioned the, like, I forget the word, the blood, blood quantum. So in, I believe at UT, like you get a, like a tuition stipend if you are a Cherokee student, but then like, obviously so many people claim to be Cherokee and it becomes an issue. And I don't know anything about that other than I had just heard
00:13:52
Speaker
that becomes an issue. So I was always curious about how that works. So it's interesting you bring that up because I can see that getting very sticky. Yeah, we had the running joke of my great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess.
00:14:03
Speaker
Oh, okay. I've heard several jokes about that. Yeah, no, it's, it's a running joke. I think some of it is because, and we've talked a little bit about this, like in some of the circles I was in when I was doing my undergrad, but we would talk a little bit about it, why we think that is. And maybe it's because I don't think Cherokee use blood quantum. I think it's just lineage. Okay.
00:14:27
Speaker
And so maybe I think that might be why, but I think Cherokees also have the highest enrollment number. So I think that might also be another reason. It's also just a really well-known tribe. So.
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah. That sounds about right. Yeah. There was also a big thing during segregation that on the whiteness scale, being Indian was above being black. And so many people would try to pass off their dark skin or a family member by claiming, oh, no, no, they're not black, they're Cherokee. So a lot of that kind of actually stems from some of the racial politics in the United States.
00:15:03
Speaker
To add to that, yeah, that's why we also see situations of people saying they're Black Dutch or they're Black German or they're Black Swede. Well, a lot of the times that means that your family was indigenous because they were trying to hide it because of segregation and racism and things like that. Excellent. I think this is a good stopping point and we'll be right back with episode 42 of A Life From Its Podcast and with Ash Boyston-Schmidt here in a hot second. So enjoy these fabulous commercials by our producers.
Academic Pursuits and Passion for NAGPRA
00:15:30
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 42. We are interviewing Ash Boydston Schmidt. We had a really interesting conversation about kind of indigenous heritage and things in the first section. Um, and we're going to change a little bit, but still kind of get out of this in this next section. So it looks like from your CV that you sent us, you double majored in anthropology and native American studies. Can you, can you explain to us why you chose to pursue both degrees?
00:15:58
Speaker
Absolutely. When I went in as a freshman, I had no idea what I wanted to do, like most freshmen. But I kind of had an idea that I wanted to do something with people. And I took an anthropology 101 class, as you do, and absolutely loved it. So I declared my major as soon as I could. And I was an anthropology major. Well, I went through my basic classes in linguistics and sociocultural and all that. You go through the very, very basics. And I went through an archaeology class. And we covered NAGPRA.
00:16:26
Speaker
And it was a really emotional time. I remember breaking down in class and my professor not knowing what to do with me. And I just had this feeling of like, I have to do something with this. I don't know what, but I have to do something with NAGPRA. And for any of the listeners that are not archaeology and anthropology minded, that stands for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. And so I knew I wanted to do something with that, but I knew I didn't want to just approach it from an anthropology perspective because we always hear about it from an anthropology perspective.
00:16:54
Speaker
So I decided I wanted to approach it from a more well-rounded way. So I went to the Native American Studies Department and I talked to Dr. Amanda Kopp-Greatham about what she thought I should do because she's had a really, really good career in Native law and sovereignty, law, and policy. So I talked to her for about two hours about it and kind of brainstormed on what I could do and we decided I just needed a double major and I just needed to do it. So I declared my second major and
00:17:24
Speaker
Thinking more and more about it, I decided that if I really wanted to go forward with it, I'd have to go get my master's eventually. But yeah, I ended up majoring in both and absolutely loved it. It was a great time. It was very stressful. So if anyone wants to do a double major, just know it's going to be stressful because I was taking about 21 hours a semester, but I made it out and we're here now.
00:17:47
Speaker
Hey, good on you for getting through that. I think I did like 16 to 18 and it was too much. I had kind of a similar experience. I was like, oh, I'll do anthropology and history and double major and this will be awesome. Yeah, I bailed super quick.
00:18:04
Speaker
And mostly it was like this, I had this assignment in history where I had to basically justify the reasons why King Leopold, what good he did for the Congo. And I kind of like, that's where the end was for me. And kind of building off that, did you ever kind of have conflict between these two degrees? I mean, it's
00:18:29
Speaker
They're not like diametrically opposed to each other, but there are some areas of contention between anthropology and kind of Native American studies. Oh yeah. Yeah, it did happen. It didn't happen actually from the NAS department, Native American Studies department. They were a huge family. I miss them so much. So if any of you guys are listening, I miss you, but we still stay in contact with each other.
Internship at the Sam Noble Museum
00:18:51
Speaker
It's a huge family and it's just such a great dynamic and I loved it.
00:18:56
Speaker
But unfortunately, it was actually from the anthropology side. I didn't have the best experience. Anytime I kind of talked about what you do, because, you know, when you're in a class like this is my name, this is my major, this is what I'm doing. And I always felt like people didn't know what to do with me. They kind of looked at me like you're doing what now?
00:19:13
Speaker
And I don't think people knew how to talk to me very well in the anthropology department, because I think they were so scared of either offending me or saying something wrong. And I was like, no, let's just have a conversation. If you don't know, you don't know. Let's talk about it. But I felt like people didn't want to interact with me or want to talk to me. It wasn't really hostile. That's just the way it was. I didn't really have a relationship with almost anyone in the anthropology department, aside from other indigenous people who were in the anthropology department. That was it.
00:19:40
Speaker
I look back on my time there fondly at the University of Oklahoma, but I definitely would say I felt way more at home in the Native American Studies Department, and I just took classes in the Anthropology Department. I definitely didn't form a lot of connections over there.
00:19:55
Speaker
Thank you for sharing that. I know we've had guests on previously who've kind of talked about some of these experiences between anthropology and like other fields. So it does happen. I mean, it's just kind of a legacy, I think of some different, I mean, of multiple disciplines, right? In terms of some of these long held perceptions of other fields, but
00:20:17
Speaker
You were able to, through, I mean, you got to work at the Sam Noble Museum, right? Would you mind telling us how you're able to work at the Sam Noble Museum during undergrad? So I needed to do an internship for my Native American Studies degree.
00:20:33
Speaker
Because in order to graduate, they want you to have some kind of experience in whatever you want to do. And a lot of people did their internships with different tribes around the area or with the Bureau of Indian Affairs or wherever it fit for them. But since I was kind of a weird case, I was kind of like the odd one out in a lot of situations because of what I wanted to do.
00:20:53
Speaker
They didn't really know what to do with me. So we called the collections manager for the archaeology collection and we just asked her, like, do you need help with anything? And she was like, yes, please send me whoever you have. We always need help. So I ended up being an intern with the Sam Noble Museum as an undergrad. And I actually interned with one of the NAGPRA grants that they were working on. I got to work up close and personal with a lot of the NAGPRA process through all the way from inventory to a consultation.
00:21:21
Speaker
So that was really, really cool. And then when my internship was up, as they always need help, they actually ended up offering me a position as a collections assistant. So I ended up working with the Sam Noble Museum until I graduated.
00:21:31
Speaker
Excellent. Do you have any interesting stories from maybe not NAG-related, but just being a part of the Sam Noble Museum? I do. The Sam Noble Museum, as it currently exists, is actually relatively recent. It's under 30 years old. I don't remember the exact date that they built the new museum, but the old one used to be a building that OU wasn't using, and they just put the museum in it.
00:21:55
Speaker
Well, when they got a grant to build a new museum, they were kind of going through everything and figuring out, oh, we had a lot of stuff in storage. We didn't even know we had. Well, at the same time, they were renovating the football stadium. And it turns out we were using the football stadium as extra storage, and we had totally forgotten because it had become a legacy collection.
00:22:13
Speaker
because whoever had done that had moved on. So we didn't even know it was there until they started renovating the football stadium. And so as they did that, we were finding a lot of artifacts, a lot of different things, a lot of purchases we didn't even know we had. We were like, OK, we got to move them. And this was before my time. So I'm telling the story as if I was there. But this story has been told to me many a time because many people are very proud of it. But they ended up finding an almost complete skull of a triceratops just in the bottom of the football stadium in a crate.
00:22:44
Speaker
That's crazy. No one knew it was there. It was part of a legacy collection. But now if you go to the Sam Neill Museum and you go through the paleontology collection, you can actually see it. It's on display now. So if you see that, no, it was found in the bottom of a football stadium.
00:22:59
Speaker
That's, that's hilarious, especially cause Triceratops skulls are not particularly small. Yeah, I have no idea why or how that happened or maybe what the football team thought it was. I don't know, but it was there and now it's at the Sam Noble. So, so just for clarification, like one, who is Sam Noble and two, like what is this museum a part of? Is this like the University of Oklahoma is like on campus,
00:23:28
Speaker
Yes, so the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History is one of two museums on OU. So OU has the Fred Jones Museum of Art, and they have the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Sam Noble was a very prominent figure in Oklahoma history, along with his brother Lloyd Noble. So a lot of stuff on the University of Oklahoma is either named Lloyd Noble or Sam Noble. And there's a lot of different things around Oklahoma named Noble. And so their family was heavily involved in almost everything.
00:23:57
Speaker
from government, oil, to politics, to all kinds of stuff. So they were just a really prominent family who gave a lot of money to the University of Oklahoma. You could say they worked for a noble cause. You could. You could say that. I'll leave. I'll leave, don't worry. So it's funny because I feel like there's that on every campus, there's someone who
00:24:27
Speaker
is named something out of that. Luckily yours just happens to be very, very punny.
00:24:34
Speaker
So, uh, did you find anything else really interesting as part of that collection? I think, and I also think it's hilarious because the university of Tennessee, I think at Knoxville, their anthropology department and the collections were in the basement of a football stadium as well, which is like, I just don't, I mean, it's like, they build these big stadiums. They're like, Oh gosh, we have an extra room here. Yeah. Just, you know, throw the archeology in there. It's totally fine. It'll be, it'll be, it'll work out.
00:25:03
Speaker
It must be a common theme. Whoa, those big, giant prehistoric reptiles from the Mesolithic era down now. That's how I imagine those things. Those conversations go just absolutely ridiculous. Would you consider
Understanding and Improving NAGPRA
00:25:17
Speaker
that like working as with this NACRA project at the Sam Noble Museum kind of propelled you to pursue a museum studies degree at the University of New Mexico?
00:25:28
Speaker
Absolutely, because I got to see the process up close and personal and it wasn't just on paper and it wasn't just theoretical anymore. I actually got to see just what goes into it and what all the struggles are and all the complications and the setbacks and just really what the actual meat and potatoes of it is and not what it is on paper. And I saw that almost all the situations we see that are issues
00:25:54
Speaker
is not necessarily because of the museum themselves, at least not in the Sam Nobles case, it was outside influences. So whether they didn't have the room, they didn't have the manpower, they didn't have the ability to fund it. There was all these different things where the want to do the work is there. I was so grateful to be able to work with so many people who really did believe in NAGPRA and what it stands for and what we're trying to do with it.
00:26:18
Speaker
And it was just really great to be able to mentor under so many of them, but they were constantly set back by other issues. And it was just so frustrating to see that because NAGPRA could be so much better. It's great as it is now. It was a huge advancement for the world as we went forward because we were kind of, in America, we were kind of the first to really move forward with a legal standing for repatriations and for consultations like that.
00:26:48
Speaker
But since it just turned 30, we're really getting to see the pitfalls of it now because there's a lot of things that could not be accounted for when it was first written or situations that we had no idea was even going to happen or things that we didn't even think would be an issue, but they are. So being able to see that now.
00:27:06
Speaker
We're able to see where NAGPRA needs to go as a law. We're able to see where NAGPRA needs to go conceptually. We can see where NAGPRA needs to go in practice with museums. We can see where NAGPRA needs to go to service the tribes. There's so many ways it needs to change and be updated and be moved forward, but we're just stuck. And that definitely propelled me forward. And I really do feel like it's something I'm meant to be doing. It's just something that I feel really strongly about.
00:27:34
Speaker
No, absolutely. And what made you choose to pursue that at the University of New Mexico?
00:27:39
Speaker
So I knew I needed to go to grad school because most places will not hire you unless you have a master's degree. That's just the fact of it. But I also knew I needed to expand my knowledge and I needed to have more understanding of all these different facets of NACRA. I had the understanding of a grunt worker, essentially. I didn't have the understanding as a collections manager, as a Tippo or a Shippo or private consultant or any of those. I didn't have any of that perspective whatsoever. So I knew I needed to get it. And I could have stayed at OU,
00:28:08
Speaker
and probably done it, but OU's museum studies program is actually online. It's not in person and I really wanted an in-person program. So I started looking for in-person programs and that already limited me a little bit, but I specifically wanted a institution that had a strong native studies department or indigenous studies or American Indian studies, whatever they decided to call it. I wanted them to have a strong department because I knew I was going to need to
00:28:33
Speaker
be able to pull from those classes and be able to talk to those people that were in that department and be able to interact. Plus, I really needed community. I don't think I could go anywhere and not have my Indigenous family with me. But I really wanted that. But I also wanted an institution that was really strong in sovereignty law and policy, Indigenous law and policy, and antiquities law. So again, that limited me a lot.
00:28:56
Speaker
And then I wanted, again, the museum studies program. So I actually only had five universities that fit all of my qualifications of what I wanted. And on a whim, I emailed the director of the UNM program, kind of like how I just randomly messaged you, Carlton. So just email people, you never know where it's going to go. But I emailed the
00:29:17
Speaker
professor and we kind of talked for a while. And then my partner and I got married and we had our honeymoon in New Mexico. And on our honeymoon, I decided I wanted to tour UNM and interview with the department. So I did that and it was just a really good fit. And so that's how I ended up at UNM. I love that so much that as an anthropologist and museum studies person, you spent part of your honeymoon. I think that's absolutely fantastic.
Transition to Diverse Interests
00:29:47
Speaker
I mean, NAGP is important to me and my partner is very supportive of that. And he's on the NAGP train too, so it needed to get done. Well, yeah. And if listeners are in New Mexico and have some time visiting the museums around the university of New Mexico, they're fantastic. Also the Atomic Energy Museum is also top notch. Oh, totally recommend that.
00:30:13
Speaker
We always have someone ask us about the nuclear museum and they're like, Oh, is this city nuclear? And I'm like, no, no, but thank you. Thank you for your contribution. That's where David and Connor found out about my superpower when it comes to museums. Well, that, that thing used to have this or anything. And there was a plane and there was a plane over there. But in 1979, they changed that from this to that.
00:30:39
Speaker
It was beautiful. It was absolutely beautiful because he could have given a whole tour of the planes and everything like that. It was fantastic. I loved touring it with Carlton. It was quite the superpower. Amazing. Okay, Carlton, next time you come to Albuquerque...
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, we'll do. We'll do. I think on that note, we are going to end this segment. This is episode 42. We're talking with Ash Boyston Schmidt about helium. No, no, no, no, no. That's a noble gas. It was the Sam Noble Museum. That's what it was talking about. Okay, sorry. I get confused. All right. I quit.
00:31:26
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Carlton Gover here from Life and Ruins Podcast. Now, before we begin segment three of episode 42, I'd like to drop this disclaimer that the views and perspectives of Ash during the segment are completely her own and not representative of the organization that we'll talk about. And so please keep that in mind as we move into the segment. Hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
00:31:48
Speaker
Welcome back to segment three of episode 42 of a life in ruins podcast. That was a mouthful. And I got the episode number. Right. Finally. Cool. Wait, 42 is another number with Jim Carrey. That movie. Uh, checkers guide to the galaxy. Yeah. Oh, it's, oh, whoa. Okay. Just hitting all the numbers
Public Education on NAGPRA
00:32:06
Speaker
today. Okay. So in this segment, we usually it's kind of a potpourri round and we just kind of talk about any topic the guests wants to talk about.
00:32:14
Speaker
I don't know if we've done that every time. I'm just rambling. Yeah. But what would you like to talk about? Well, first I'm going to correct myself. It was not a triceratops. It was a pentaceratops. Um, that was found at the university of Oklahoma. So sorry, but I am not a paleontologist. That's okay. I think it's a pretentious seratops if it wants to go by that name anyway.
00:32:35
Speaker
I mean, sure. Boo. I'm just kidding. I'm going to get my spell for the rest of the time. No, and that's even a larger skull than a triceratops, which is pretty nuts. It's a big boy. I got very nostalgic and looked it up and I was like, oh wait, I was wrong. But yeah. I mean, the running joke goes that we're not all... Yeah. The running joke goes though that we're not all paleontologists though, right? So there we go. We really are not paleontologists.
00:33:04
Speaker
All right, let's grab this segment by the horns and keep going. All right. So with a lot of my NAGPRA work, I ended up having to do a lot of public education, not formally, but kind of more informally, because when most people ask me what I do and I tell them I work with NAGPRA, they kind of stare at me like, what the heck is
Cultural Appropriation in the Boy Scouts
00:33:27
Speaker
that?
00:33:27
Speaker
So, a lot of my work does center around raising awareness with NAGPro and a lot of the problems with it and a lot of how we should be going forward because a lot of people don't necessarily realize why we have NAGPro, why we even needed it in the first place, and why we still continue to need it. I have a lot of people ask me like, oh, well, my grandpa dug this up and I'm like, well,
00:33:48
Speaker
That wasn't very good. So a lot of it is trying to gently educate people while still trying to make sure my point is across. So I do a lot of work within public education, although it's not necessarily formally. But within that, I also do a lot of education with cultural situations. I have been involved with scouting for about 19 years now. I was first involved with girl scouting and then secondly with boy scouting.
00:34:15
Speaker
As we all know, this past year has raised a lot of questions and talks and situations surrounding not only Black Lives Matter, but Native Lives Matter and Hispanic Lives Matter and Indigenous Lives Matter and all these different lives that matter.
00:34:32
Speaker
Speaking about this, the Boy Scouts decided to take an introspective look. I was invited to be on a task force with the Diversity and Inclusion Council for the Boy Scouts. We are currently working on situations of cultural appropriation within the Boy Scouts. We are working on how to move forward in an appropriate way.
00:34:53
Speaker
and not continue to move forward with the inappropriate practices. So hopefully that will be happening soon. It will be like a five to 10 year plan. So nothing's going to happen immediately. But behind the scenes, there is stuff happening. So again, that kind of goes with a lot of the public education that I work with, because I really do feel like the more education that we put out there into the world and the more that we make an effort to speak to people and explain what's going on, it'll be easier for us to move forward in the future.
00:35:18
Speaker
I love that. I love the public education piece of that, especially because in between our segments, you actually told us that there's only really three options for when you become an Eagle Scout of how to like, or how to become an Eagle Scout. There's only three avenues for you to actually that you can take. Do you mind explaining that for us?
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, so they're not serious avenues. These are more of a running joke. But in scouting, you're either going to become a pyromaniac and you're going to want to set everything on fire. You are going to join an organization called the Order of the Arrow and do a lot of community service and do some not so great cultural appropriation.
00:35:59
Speaker
And then there is the next avenue where you earn a bunch of merit badges and you get really sucked into a lot of more theoretical stuff and you kind of become like the classic nerdy Boy Scout. But those Boy Scouts know so much. So don't go picking on them. They are the ones who probably know the most. And their popcorn is a top notch even though it's encrusted with gold. Oh, absolutely. I am an advocate for Boy Scout popcorn and Girl Scout cookies. I have an entire shelf of my pantry devoted to that.
00:36:27
Speaker
Absolutely. And this is kind of an ongoing, what goes on with Boy Scouts in particular, the Order of the Arrow. I have several friends, two of which that we've interviewed on this podcast, Devin Pettigrew and Mackenzie Corey, who are both Eagle Scouts who went through Order of the Arrow. And to hear them reflect now as graduate students in anthropology as to that process is just fascinating.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's something. It's something that I think the kids don't really understand a lot of what's going on. And I mean, I say that and I sound like a very aged person because I would say kids these days are way more plugged in to what's going on than say when we were all kids, like we had no clue what's going on.
00:37:12
Speaker
But I would say a lot of the kids don't really understand the gravity of the situation and what's going on. They're just really excited to be in this super cool group because the way you get in the order of the arrow is if you exemplify the scout oath in law and if you put yourself out there to be a leader by service, like a leader through service. Servant leadership is the technical term.
00:37:35
Speaker
A lot of these kids have no idea what's going on. It's on the adults to be like, hey, this is not okay. It's really interesting when these kids who are in the OA grow up and then they learn and figure out and they're horrified. That's why there is a movement to change these things. It's long overdue. That needs to be acknowledged. It is long overdue.
00:37:57
Speaker
But it is slowly happening. We are working on it and we are working on how to phase things out without it being incredibly a financial burden on the kids themselves, because the kids do pay to be in this organization and they pay for all their gear and they pay for their uniforms and they pay for all that. So we need to figure out a way to where it's not a financial hardship on the children and on their parents and their families. But we also need to figure out a way to make sure that this is happening. So it's going to be a slow phase out, but it's going to happen.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess just for clarification, this isn't just like slamming the Boy Scouts of America, but there's a particular, you know, Scouts was founded by an individual who idolized and glorified American Indian culture and try to teach a lot of these things to kids and order of the arrows in a particular is particularly a ceremony that has a lot of cultural appropriation issues embedded into it. So this isn't like bashing Scouts that this is just like, Hey,
00:38:52
Speaker
it's 2021, you know, current year. I don't even know if that even, you know, same current year anyways. Yeah. But some of those things, it's like not, it's not okay. And today's climate because we do, we know better. Yeah, absolutely. That's interesting that you're involved in it. Yeah, thank you. I adore the Scouts. I was raised in scouting. I'm a fourth generation, generation girl scout. It's a huge part of my life. And I love the Scouts, which is why I'm doing this work. Because if I didn't love the organization, I wouldn't try and change it.
00:39:19
Speaker
So this is not a bad thing of any of the Scouts. I do love them very dearly. But because I love them dearly is why I'm trying to do this work. And with the phase out, it's going to be very interesting on how we go about it. But it was it's really interesting because Boy Scouts was founded overseas in England by Lord Baden-Powell.
00:39:38
Speaker
And then it was brought back over to America by some other gentlemen. And the two gentlemen that ended up formulating the Order of the Arrow, they did it at a summer camp because they wanted it to be an honor system to recognize the scouts that were going above and beyond. Because children do need to be recognized when they're going above and beyond. And it actually originally did not start out with a lot of the cultural appropriation. That actually came later. So it started out as an honor society.
00:40:06
Speaker
And then a couple of years later, I say a couple, it may have been five. About five years later, that's when the more cultural appropriation started coming in. And a lot of the history surrounding it is, as we know, a lot of even in anthropology, we hear about how everyone thought indigenous people were dying out and they wanted to preserve that way of life and those thoughts and concepts and things like that. And that's kind of the same thought process that was blended into the Order of the Arrow.
00:40:35
Speaker
And then it just kept going and going and going and going, and nothing really stopped it. They did change their logo, I think in the, it was either late 80s or early 90s, from the head of a plane's warrior wearing a warp on it.
Boy Scouts Reform and Inclusivity
00:40:48
Speaker
And they changed it to an arrow and they stopped wearing face paint. So that stopped, but nothing else stopped. There was a lot of other things that were happening. And so going forward,
00:40:58
Speaker
We're trying to get back to the original ideals, recognizing kids for their exemplary service and how they serve the Boy Scouts, because that's what it needs to be about. And you don't need cultural appropriation to do that. You don't need it to be a service organization, to serve your community, to serve the Scouts.
00:41:15
Speaker
slowly working on it. But getting there, I'm very excited to see where it goes, especially because I have a lot of very dear friends of mine who were in the OA, who have spoken to me a lot about it, and I've been bouncing ideas off of them. I'm working with National OA, so it's not like I'm just doing this completely on my own. There's a lot of input from a lot of people to make sure that this is done right, so it doesn't have to be done again in the future.
00:41:39
Speaker
Well, and, you know, kind of, kind of building off that, you know, this thing was started in, you know, 1910. So, you know, you would hope that they would have done these kinds of updates, cultural updates as they went through these things and eventually, you know.
00:41:55
Speaker
in the 2000s, the 90s, when Nagra's coming out and we're trying to kind of these wider movements to be more cognizant of how we are taking or working with other cultures. So you would hope that through that time that they would have this kind of update, but it just doesn't seem like it ever happened.
00:42:19
Speaker
Yeah, there was a small effort at one point, again, with the logo change and the no more use of face paint. And there is something called the AIA. I believe it stands for the American Indian Activities Council. So the AIA Council within the Boy Scouts. And it's supposed to help with situations of cultural appropriation by being a liaison or being able to consult with local tribes on what's appropriate.
00:42:44
Speaker
But because there's not many guidelines on that and there's not a lot of direction on how to do that, it just kind of ends up being almost like a tool to say, well, but we're trying, even though in reality it's not always happening. And there are some AIA councils that are trying. I will give them that. There are a handful that are trying.
00:43:08
Speaker
But a handful is not enough, not for a national organization. So I think moving forward, it's just better to not, if you're not going to do something right and you're not going to do something respectfully, you need to not do that. So there has been a small effort, but yeah, as you said, it hasn't been big enough and it was not done timely. Because if we think about it, when the Order of the Arrow was founded, Native peoples were not even citizens of this country.
00:43:33
Speaker
because the American Indian Citizenship Act had not gone through yet. And the Religious Freedoms Act did not go through until the 70s. And NAGPRA didn't go through until the 90s. The American Indian arts and crafts did not go through until the 90s. All of these laws that protect indigenous people's rights were not even in place when this was happening. And so I think that context is so important when looking at situations with the OA because we had
00:44:00
Speaker
kids and adults playing Indian when native peoples were being persecuted and jailed and sometimes even killed over this. So that context is incredibly important when looking at these situations. I would hope that I mean, I've just kind of seen a pattern of kids as of late being
00:44:19
Speaker
fairly progressive, you know, like just, they seem to see things in a more holistic light. So it would just take enough kids to see it in the, you know, this isn't the nicest thing to do or the most respectful thing to do. And hopefully in, you know, the next generation of Boy Scouts that comes up might see it as, you know, in poor taste to do. Hopefully it would go away soon, but I don't know. Just took a while for the football team to change their name too. So.
00:44:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we have to look at that. The motivating factor there was money. Even though the Boy Scouts is standing for creating children of service and
00:45:01
Speaker
good morals, however you want to define good morals, whether that's burning something down or being service to the community. It's meant to fill the gaps that children are missing in some way, shape, or form. You could have a wonderful family and not need the more parental figure in your life, but you still need to go camping. You still need to experience a lot of this stuff.
00:45:26
Speaker
Boy Scouts as its whole is there to lead forward with its law and oath. And we are seeing a lot of these younger generations of Scouts. They are actually in agreement with this. They are not opposed to the changes we are making. They've actually made some suggestions themselves because I thought that the task force I'm on, we were going to have to pull some punches and the kids are actually cheering us on. They're like, no, go further. And we're like, oh, great. Awesome. It's actually some of the older guys that have been in for
00:45:57
Speaker
their entire lives and they're hitting their older years that are actually fighting back against it. So it's actually the kids that are really some of our biggest cheerleaders. They're really pushing for it. That's awesome. Yeah. And that, you know, my experience, cause I, I was in there for a little bit is just, you know, the outdoors and you know, meeting new people. And that's what I really remember about it. And I think that's what it, like you mentioned, like that's what it does so fantastically, but
00:46:25
Speaker
There's always room for change. There's always room for things to be better. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to see them go away. I just want them to help better educate the youth.
00:46:36
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And there's a lot of work being done within the Diversity and Inclusion Council that I'm not a part of. I am only on this specific task force. There's also task force working on how to make it more accessible to different minority groups, from children from LGBTQ plus groups, from children who don't fit within the gender norms that they are assigned. There are people working on how to make it more accessible for people with disabilities. They are trying to make Boy Scouts, well, Scouts now as a whole,
00:47:04
Speaker
more inclusive for everyone because that's just what we need to do. It is Boy Scouts at the national level because that's what the legal name is, but it is scouting now. We do have young women joining Scouts and we do have a more inclusive policy of LGBTQ plus children.
00:47:22
Speaker
and LGBTQ plus adults that are also within the program. And so we are slowly seeing these changes to become more inclusive. Now it's not going to happen overnight. And what happens at the national level is going to have to trickle down slowly to these smaller councils. But we are making progress and we are going forward to make sure that scouting is for everyone.
00:47:44
Speaker
That is interesting. It's kind of relevant to this, but I just remember in high school, one of my friends, I don't know if it was because he was agnostic or atheist. I don't remember exactly what he identified as, but he wasn't allowed to get his Eagle Scout because of that, because he had told his scout leader that.
00:48:01
Speaker
So they went to court and they like took it, I think like to like DC or something like that. And like, he was able to get his, uh, Eagle Scout because of that. It's just, it's like the Boy Scouts seems to be making like a lot of, or the Scouts, I guess making a lot of changes as of late. I was not a Boy Scout, so I have no idea of anything that goes on, but it's cool to see that they're, they're changing.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah, it is slowly getting there. I mean, we got a lot of ways to go, but we're getting there. And it is unfortunate that that did happen to a lot of kids who were not or fit in the Boy Scout box of what was Christian. And that did happen a lot because it was founded as a Christian organization. But we are seeing it be more open to different religions or the absence of religion, if that is what that person so chooses. There is some work being done in that section as well.
00:48:52
Speaker
I do actually remember when that happened, so I'm incredibly fascinated that you knew the person.
00:48:58
Speaker
But I do remember, yeah, I do remember when I was I think in middle school that that kind of started to shift. And I mean, attitudes are going to be different depending on where you are with the Boy Scouts. Another big factor with that was the Latter-day Saints Church ended up withdrawing from the Boy Scouts and creating their own program because there were differences in what they wanted as opposed to what the Boy Scouts were going forward with. And so I think with the Latter-day Saints pulling out of Boy Scouts,
00:49:24
Speaker
Boy Scouts ended up shifting a little bit because there wasn't that influence there. Not saying there's anything wrong with that influence, but that influence did have ramifications that trickled down, just as a lot of these changes are going to have ramifications because we're going to see if they work or not work. Again, kind of like NAGPRA. Back in the 90s, we didn't know what was going to work and what wasn't going to work, and now we're seeing that. And so it's all a process that just needs to constantly be reevaluated to make sure that we really are serving the people we need to be serving.
Reflections on Career in Archaeology
00:49:50
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for your work on that and for helping to be a part of that change. And thank you so much for being on this podcast with us.
00:50:02
Speaker
We're a little predictable. So you might hear this, you might see this coming, but because this, this podcast is called a life in ruins, we always got to ask this question at the end. So if you were like given the chance to do it, do it all over again, you know, life from step one, would you still choose to live a life in ruins? Absolutely. This is what I'm meant to be doing.
00:50:28
Speaker
Awesome. Well, excellent. And with that, we just interviewed Ash Boyston Schmidt, a master's student at the University of New Mexico, and we will be back with another another one next week.
00:50:48
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. So this comes from the dad jokes from my father. So thank you Dean for all you do. So I found a wooden shoe in my toilet today.
00:51:18
Speaker
Turns out it was clogged. Wow. Oh, thank you, Dean. All right. All right. Let's do a guy walked into a bar. It was 2019. Ow. Ooh.
00:51:42
Speaker
I know. That one's more sad. But it hurts. I saw it on Instagram today and I was like, oh. And with that, we are out.
00:52:03
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV Traveling America, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.