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The Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training and Education Program (INSTEP) - Ep 79
765 Plays1 year ago
On today’s episode, Jessica chats with Jayne-Leigh Thomas (NAGPRA Director at Indiana University) and Chance Ward (NAGPRA Coordinator for History Colorado [although speaking here on his experiences as a private citizen]; Lakota- Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe) about the first Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training and Education Program (INSTEP) held last summer in Indiana. We talk about where the idea for this NAGPRA training came from, how it was developed, and what it was like to be part of it. We also talked about how they might change the program for future years, as well as what the two of them would like everyone to know about NAGPRA and its implementation. There’s some really important NAGPRA advice and specific recommendations throughout this episode, including a segment where we discuss how to best approach TSA when working on NAGPRA repatriations.
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/heritagevoices/79
Links
- Heritage Voices on the APN
- National NAGPRA- https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1335/index.htm
- NAGPRA community of practice- https://www.nagpracommunityofpractice.com/
- NAGPRA community of practice facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/groups/NAGPRACommunityofPractice/
- Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training and Education Program (INSTEP)- https://nagpra.indiana.edu/INSTEP-program.html
- Indiana University BloomingtonIndiana University Bloomington Office of the Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act - https://nagpra.indiana.edu/index.html
- National Preservation Institute Trainings - https://www.npi.org/trainings#NativeAmericanCulturalInterests
Contact
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Transcript
Introduction and Land Acknowledgment
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Before we begin, I'd like to honour...
Introduction of Guests
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm recording on today are part of the Nooch, or Youth People's Treaty Lands, the Dneita and the Ancestral Puebloan homeland.
00:00:28
Speaker
And today we have Chance Ward and Jane Lee Thomas on the show. Very excited to have both of you. Jane Lee Thomas is the NAGPRA director at Indiana University. She has a master's degree in resource management and a PhD in archaeology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Hello.
00:00:48
Speaker
All right, and Chance Ward was born and raised in Eagle Butte, South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation and is a proud member of the Lakota Nation. He is a graduate from the University of Colorado Museum and Field Studies program and an alumnus of Fort Lewis College. Chance has done CRM work in the Four Corners area and is currently the new NAGPRA coordinator for History Colorado. Hello, everybody.
00:01:14
Speaker
Right. Well, welcome to the show, guys. Very excited to have both of you. You're both people I've had in mind for a long time. So very
Explaining NAGPRA
00:01:21
Speaker
excited. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us on. I do want to state that I am not representing my position as the NAGPRA coordinator at History Colorado. And I will be only speaking as myself. Which makes sense because you're part of the field school as yourself.
00:01:42
Speaker
So it's, well, I guess now that we're, we're talking about the field school, Jane Lee, do you want to give a little bit of intro about, you know, the basics of what the NAGPRA field school was and what is NAGPRA for, for anyone that's not familiar with what?
Origins of NAGPRA Training Program
00:01:59
Speaker
Sure. NAGPRA is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which was passed November 16th, 1990.
00:02:06
Speaker
NAGPRA is basically human rights law, which provides a legal mechanism for the return of Native American and Native Hawaiian ancestral remains and their belongings back to communities in addition to objects of cultural patrimony and sacred objects belonging to communities. So in a nutshell, that is as what the NAGPRA law is. The NAGPRA Summer Training Program or field school is a week long
00:02:34
Speaker
training that was funded this year as part of a Werner Grand project focusing on the ethical treatment of human remains. And originally, the idea came from the fact that there is very little to no NAGPRA training nationwide. There are no master's degrees in NAGPRA or compliance work or repatriation, and there are very few semester-long courses.
00:02:59
Speaker
a lot of the information that students receive about NAGPRA, a lot of times that is by faculty who have never done NAGPRA. And they have no experience working with indigenous communities. And so students are not prepared to enter the workforce being able to collaborate with indigenous communities or have any knowledge of how NAGPRA works. And unfortunately, a lot of situations arise where a staff member is hired,
00:03:29
Speaker
And they're told, well, you also have to do NAGPRA and they don't have any experience and there's no training for them anywhere. And in addition to students, we wanted to create a training that would be open for anyone, whether that be federal agents, tribal elders, tribal archeologists, graduate students, undergraduates, current employed faculty members.
Expansion and Demand for Training
00:03:55
Speaker
And yeah, we're very excited that it looks like
00:03:58
Speaker
we will be able to have this training again next year. And hopefully we are going to be looking into funding sources that will allow it to be an annual sustainable program every summer. Awesome. All right. So where did where did this idea come from? How did you guys get to the point that you knew that you wanted to do this? A lot of it was just kind of encountering situations where students and other folks
00:04:24
Speaker
weren't really aware of how the law worked. And it was kind of a personal complaint of mine that a lot of faculty who were teaching NAGPRA had never done NAGPRA. Those that were doing NAGPRA work, because they're so busy working on compliance issues, they're not the ones that are teaching classes. And we just really recognized myself and my collaborator at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Kristiana Krupa, that there's just no NAGPRA training nationwide for anyone.
00:04:51
Speaker
There are very limited National Preservation Institute trainings, but they're very expensive. And we wanted to have something that also wasn't cost prohibitive. And so we started looking for grant opportunities and that grant money actually paid for all of our indigenous applicants and the rest of the participants, they just had to get to Bloomington.
Participant Experience and Significance
00:05:14
Speaker
There was no additional fee for them to attend.
00:05:17
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. Okay. And that's also I didn't know that that there's no programs across the country that you know, like there's no masters anywhere. No, and a lot of the and what students are generally getting is that nag pro was a law, the Kennewick man case or the ancient one case was a court case, and a very vague recommendation that folks consult and collaborate with indigenous communities, but students are not taught how to do that. And there are certain
00:05:46
Speaker
protocols, per se, on how to approach a tribe or how to collaborate with tribal communities. And students are not being set up for any amount of success. But that aside, there are other individuals, as I said, that come to the NAGPRA field already as professionals. And so what are those folks supposed to do if all of a sudden they are tasked with NAGPRA work but they're not a student? Where do they go to get any sort of training?
00:06:15
Speaker
National NAGPRA has some trainings on YouTube, but again, a lot of that is just what the law is. It's not the actual hands-on logistics of how to do NAGPRA work. And so that was something we really wanted to incorporate into this training. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you guys had this idea that you wanted to do this NAGPRA training, and then
00:06:40
Speaker
Well, we'd actually been I'd been complaining about it for years and Christiana found the grant opportunity and contacted me and said, you know, you're the thing you're always complaining about. What do you think about this? So I thought, actually, that could work. So, yeah, that's that's kind of something I've been complaining about for years. And then what was it like setting that up? Like, how did you decide what needed to be in that training? How did you decide?
00:07:09
Speaker
Well, we, we decided it would be a week long and originally we anticipated only taking 10 to 15 people. When we put out the call for applicants, we made sure that it was not based on number of degrees. It didn't have anything to do with your publication record or being a student. We had people write a 100 to 200 word kind of summary of why
00:07:34
Speaker
they needed the NAGPRA training and why that would be relevant to the work that they're doing. We were completely surprised to have nearly a hundred applicants, which was way more than we anticipated. And like I said, this was, we had applications come in from retired faculty, tribal archeologists, folks that work for federal agencies. And at that point we realized that yes, again, this just was a reflection of the dire need for this kind of training.
00:08:02
Speaker
And we ended up deciding to take 40 people instead of 10. We took all of our Native American applicants and then we had to look through everyone's applications to take the remaining folks that would be able to attend. Most of the training for that week, it was a full, full five days. And some of the training was taught by guest speakers.
00:08:29
Speaker
We had five Native American individuals do part of the training because I wanted people to hear from Native American museum professionals, Native American elders, Native American archaeologists, rather than just myself. I'm not Native American. And so I wanted to make sure that the training was hearing from Native American voices as well.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. And we are, we are very sad that Carlton couldn't join us today. He was one of the instructors of the last second something came up. So Carlton, if you're, if you're out there listening, we're thinking of you and we're, we're very sad. You're not here with us. We miss you Carlton.
00:09:09
Speaker
And you can obviously listen to Carlton on the Life in Ruins podcast. He got his start in podcasting by coming on this show and he was like, I want to do this. So I will take full credit for that. You're welcome. All right. So, okay. I want to, I want to make sure that Chance has a chance to jump in here and Chance, how did you hear about all of this? You know, I think I
Educational Background and Hands-on Experience
00:09:33
Speaker
actually heard about it through Carlton. That Carlton guy. Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, good old Carlton always sending me things, even the middle of the night. Yeah. Got it from Carlton. And I don't think I would have heard about it if it wasn't for him. I know because my grads, my grad school program, they try to send everything out they can to their students, but this was not one of them. And then I saw it a bit later on the NAGPRA community of practice Facebook page.
00:10:09
Speaker
And then I kind of shared it out to my grad student cohort and then to a few other people that I've either worked with or.
00:10:18
Speaker
were other native people, either in archaeology, anthropology, or doing museum work. And I tried to get them to sign up for it too, or apply for it. Yeah. Okay. So, well, let's talk about what it actually looked like. And so first, Jane Lee, you started to talk about, you know, you had these five indigenous instructors, but can you give kind of a quick overview of the different topics that were covered, like the structure of what those five days looked like?
00:10:48
Speaker
Paint us a picture. Sure. We had a large welcome breakfast in the morning on Monday. We wanted everyone to kind of, even though it was going to be a short week, to try to create some sort of sense of community. And that's really also important in NAGPRA work. And we were quite thrilled to hear that throughout the week, folks were going out for dinner and going bowling and doing pub quiz and very quickly became kind of close, which was, I didn't anticipate, but it was quite, quite nice.
00:11:16
Speaker
A lot of the training that myself presented was a lot of, you know, NAGPRA 101, what is the law, what does it require, the legal step-by-step, talking about consultation based on some, you know, what consultation is, what it isn't, talking about how tribes need to be put in the driver's seat and making a lot of the decisions and that the museum needs to step back, and a lot of
00:11:43
Speaker
based on the experiences that I've heard from the feedback I received from the communities I work with and a lot of tribal elders. We talked a little bit about the Angel Mounds repatriation, which was a large repatriation that IU had completed in 2021 that was used as a case study to show kind of a step by step from beginning to end repatriation case study.
00:12:07
Speaker
And then also
Community Building and Networking
00:12:08
Speaker
talking about repatriation and reburial. And a lot of that is, again, from the university side. And that's what I was presenting. But even some of the logistics. For example, if you are asked by a community to escort the ancestors to them, how do you do that? How do you get ancestor remains through TSA? How do you respectfully travel? But also keeping in mind,
00:12:35
Speaker
doing what the tribe wants you to do. And if that means rehousing, then rehouse. If they don't want you to rehouse, don't rehouse. And just really talking about the details of how to actually do things rather than what the law just says. That is a good question. How do you deal with T.S.? Oh, well, yeah. I mean, then that was not really something I was ever taught. It was kind of a throw in the deep end, kind of figure it out as you go.
00:13:04
Speaker
Across the United States several years ago, TSA did some sort of investigation to try to see if anything potentially dangerous was getting through TSA. And out of 70 airports, 67 of those failed, one of those being Indianapolis. And that's the airport that we would go out of.
00:13:25
Speaker
And, you know, one of the things that I would do if I was asked to escort ancestors back to a community, which I have been asked to do several times, is to have TSA on speed dial. And to know the contact, have them meet you at the security gate the morning of your flight, send all of the information about your flight beforehand. But there's also, out of Washington, D.C., there's a program called TSC Cares.
00:13:53
Speaker
Their role is to ensure an efficient means of travel, particularly if, for example, Native American communities are wanting to travel with eagle feathers on a plane. I contacted folks at TSA Cares, but also TSA Indianapolis, and let them know well in advance of what I was planning to do. Having a letter from the tribal community that says I am permitted to do this, and this is federal law, and then deferring to the tribes on how they would like their ancestors to travel,
00:14:22
Speaker
And, you know, with Indianapolis TSA failing their assessment, the only way to get through security is either to have the container X-rayed or looked through in a private room. And knowing all that in advance, allowing the tribe, having the tribe make that decision and then going through, we never tell the airlines because airlines have rules about human remains on a plane being under the plane in a coffin.
00:14:52
Speaker
or a funerary urn. And in some instances, that won't work, particularly when the tribal communities I've
Challenges of NAGPRA Implementation
00:14:59
Speaker
worked with have said that they do not want their ancestors to be underneath the plank. And so we don't tell the airline. Yeah. Wow. That's, I mean, talk about things that you would never get in a class, but really important. I mean, the key in all of that is, you know,
00:15:21
Speaker
Again, the tribes are making the decision about all this. If they are deciding that's what they wish is that you will be escorting their ancestors, that they are making all of the decisions about how the ancestors will go through security, how they will be transported, and any of the other specific details. Sometimes tribal communities will come to a university and pick up their ancestors or cultural items and escort them home.
00:15:49
Speaker
and then I would have no additional participation in that process. Sometimes a community has asked me to escort their ancestors by myself to their community, but I've also had several instances where tribal communities will come to our university to pick up their ancestors, but have invited me and asked me to come back to the community with them to participate in the reburial ceremony.
00:16:16
Speaker
All right. Well, we're already at our first break. It's kind of crazy, but when we come back, I'd love to hear more chance about, you know, like how your background at Fort Lewis and at the University of Colorado, like how that prepared you for this, this field school and what you felt like you learned or took from it. That was maybe the same or different from, from your previous background. So we'll, we'll talk about that right when we come back.
00:16:45
Speaker
And we're back. A chance you just said that way better than me, I'm like. And we are back with more practicing. Oh yes, I was right back in RDS.
00:17:00
Speaker
But yeah, Chance, I'd love to hear about how your background before this field school you felt like set you up for this field school. Did you feel prepared or not? I felt very prepared. I think I'm quite comfortable with myself and my ability to navigate out in the world. So going to a new place like Indiana, I wasn't too worried. I think
00:17:29
Speaker
Carlton being there was probably a bit of comfort as well. I actually had no idea what to expect in going to Bloomington because I didn't know if there was going to be 10 people or 100 people.
Practical Applications of Training
00:17:44
Speaker
I didn't know anybody in the beginning that was also going. As far as I knew, I was the only person from my school, from Colorado that was going.
00:17:58
Speaker
And once I got there and we got to see and meet everybody else that was going to be in it, I actually knew a couple people and have heard of a couple others through the NAGPRA community of practice Zoom calls that happen every month or twice a month. So was this a topic that came up at all, you know, in your studies before this, before this training?
00:18:23
Speaker
I actually had no idea what NAGPRA was until I got to undergrad at Fort Lewis. And I took an intro to anthropology, intro to archeology, and then I ended up taking a museum class. And that's kind of where I learned about the issues around NAGPRA. You know, after undergrad, I ended up doing CRM work for a few years, but it didn't
00:18:49
Speaker
feel fulfilling or meaningful enough for me. And that's kind of where I made the decision to go to grad school. And I ended up going to University of Colorado in Boulder into their museum studies program. And same thing there, there was no formal NAGPRA training. And it was just to mirror what Jane Lee was saying, it was basically shadowing somebody that
00:19:15
Speaker
has had experience doing the process, doing the paperwork for the federal registry, and doing an internship. I was fortunate to do an internship at History Colorado under their NAGPRA coordinator last summer. And once that person moved on to another job, it was a perfect internship. I was able to just be hired and fill the position that she left.
00:19:44
Speaker
super excited we'll have to have you back on once you've been in the position for a while and we can talk about all the cool things you're doing. Yeah, so what was the training like itself for you? I thought it was very good. I thought they were hitting on topics that were important, topics that normally have not come up in my experiences. And again, as Jane Lee was talking about things like NPI,
00:20:11
Speaker
like the YouTube videos, you know, they're really focused on just following the law, letter of the law. And in Indiana, we went over, you know, how to talk to tribal elders, how to talk to native people, how to be a good host for consultation and, you know, kind of doing what
00:20:35
Speaker
the tribes want you to do as far as like housing and traveling on a plane, right? You don't want to shove them under the plane or even, you know, as Jane Lee was saying too, you know, they've asked her to drive herself and pick them up or things like that. And that's something I'm coming across right now is that we may have to go pick some items up on the East Coast, but we don't know if
00:21:05
Speaker
tribes want to go pick them up?
Success and Expansion Plans
00:21:07
Speaker
Do we want that institution to bring them to us? Do they want me to go get them? Do they want me to go alone? Do they want me to bring somebody with me? And, you know, those are conversations that I have still yet to figure out. But one of the things I did like about the training was having everybody in the same room at the same time.
00:21:31
Speaker
I think being able to be in person and having these big group discussions was probably one of the more important parts that I thought being able to meet everybody and, you know, the tables seem to change who sat there every day.
00:21:50
Speaker
I got to meet most, I didn't meet everybody, but I did get to meet a lot of different people. The seating arrangements were not assigned, but they kind of rotated so that you can meet other people. And even afterwards, we were getting invited to go do trivia night at the bar, going out for dinner, we went bowling, even little things like,
00:22:17
Speaker
going to buy snacks at the grocery store because we didn't want to walk alone or, you know, I don't think any of us really knew the layout of the city of Bloomington, but I will say it was hot and humid.
00:22:31
Speaker
Sorry about that, yes. The one down slide to doing stuff in the summer in Bloomington, it's very hot and very humid. Yes, it was very hot. I'm from the west, so I'm used to the good old dry summers. Yeah, that's right. Chance, me too. I mean, I'm from Washington state originally. I've either lived in Seattle, where it's pouring rain in 60 degrees, or in the eastern side, where it's 105, but it's a desert. So yeah, humidity is tough.
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah, it was. All the trees surprised me. That's not what I expected. I think a lot of people assume that Indiana is all just cornfields, which a lot of it is. But everything for the most part south of Indianapolis, the glaciers didn't come any further down. And so that's why everything from about 20 miles north of us to Lake Michigan is really, really flat because the glaciers
00:23:30
Speaker
flattened it and then everything south where we are is trees and forests and ruining rolling hills and waterfalls and caves and all kinds of stuff. So very different. Learn all kinds of things on this podcast.
00:23:46
Speaker
That's interesting, I didn't know that. Yeah, no, and that's really cool. I like that you guys had that welcome breakfast and that it seemed like, you know, this community built because when you do a training like that, especially with something like NAGPRA where there's not a lot of resources, I mean, that community that you can go back to and ask questions of, and hey, how are you guys doing this? And have you thought about this and blah, blah, blah? Like that would be really important to actually becoming, you know, the kind of practitioner that you would want to be.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah. We were also able to have lunch at the, I think it was like the Native American center. Yeah. Our First Nations Educational Cultural Center hosted lunch for a couple of days, which was really great. Again, trying to, you know, get everyone to talk to one another and foster a sense of community. It's a very intense of week and we try to build in lots of breaks and opportunities because
00:24:42
Speaker
you know, some of the discussions can be a little bit heavy. And so we really wanted to make sure that, you know, folks had plenty of breaks and that there was time for that. And also we do plan to have a Zoom call, you know, like once every six months for the group to get together and to talk and just to check in and see how everybody's doing. And if there's any other questions and we've put all of the materials
00:25:06
Speaker
or planning to put them in like a cloud drive for the group. So if they wanna look back at PowerPoints or anything like that, that there's resources that they can look back on. That's awesome. So were there any like highlights that really particularly stood out to either of you or both of you? I was just shocked, but so pleased at how quickly a group of strangers became very collegial and very, I mean,
00:25:34
Speaker
people were kind of emotional leaving on Friday, which I was not anticipating. I was not assuming that people would become very good friends in such a short amount of time. And so that was, that was really great with a lot of people exchanging the contact information and then, you know, not only creating new friendships, but that, that network of support for future Niagara work. Yeah, that's awesome.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah, same thing. I, you know, left with new friends, you know, we connect through Facebook, LinkedIn, exchange business cards. And I think it was very cool. Very cool. I'm glad that it came out like that. And I was a little sad to leave. I was hoping to keep going with the training for another week and just keep going with it and see where else we can go.
00:26:26
Speaker
Folks have asked us to do it twice a year, which I don't foresee us being able to do just because we're so busy with the compliance work. But it's wonderful to know that the participants felt it was successful enough that that was their feedback to us. So even more of a driving force for us to make sure that we can find external funding to do this every year.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, I would happily come and participate. I mean, I feel like we all, there's so much to learn with NAGPRA. The idea is that in the future that it will move around the country. We've already had, you know, it'll be at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign next summer, but we've also had four other universities also reach out. Tribal community has also reached out as well to say that, you know, keep us in mind, we'd be interested in hosting.
00:27:20
Speaker
And that's really wonderful because then we could potentially, you know, we took applications from anyone across the whole country. We had folks from Alaska, California, Connecticut, you know, but a lot of our tribal presenters were kind of regionally specific. So for example, if we did go to California, we could have more folks from California speaking, for example, you know, there's a lot of just different options there. But yeah, we've been really, really pleased to hear that folks have already reached out and said, hey, we would be
00:27:48
Speaker
willing to be the host location for you.
Diverse Participants and Selection Process
00:27:52
Speaker
And so the idea would be that the training would stay the same, we would just move it across around the country. That's awesome. Yeah, that reminded me. I think that was probably a highlight I heard too at the end was that in the future it could potentially move around. Because I know that it was in Indiana and I think majority of the participants were probably from east of the Mississippi. Oh, really?
00:28:17
Speaker
Yes. And with the grant, we were, we were able to provide honorariums for our guest speakers. And, but they were, they were all from east of the, of the Mississippi where they are today. And so the idea is that, okay, you know, if we have, we move the program around, we could have, you know, local community members speaking wherever the training ends up being. Cool.
00:28:45
Speaker
And we're going to be putting the new application out for the next year, probably in around December. So please, Jessica, if you want to apply, but also, you know, share with any folks you think might need the training or if they have students. Like I said, we're not, we're not just focusing on students, anyone who's already a professional in the field. I have worked with tribal members who.
00:29:10
Speaker
have been on tribal council and left the room for a minute and came back and they had been nominated the NYPER coordinator. I mean, and so, you know, and the person, yeah. So they said, I need NYPER training. And so what we want to do is make sure that it's open to anyone and everyone who might need it. Again, because we were so surprised to have such a large number of applicants, we never assumed it would be that large so quickly. And so we had to kind of go through the applications and try to make a selection.
00:29:38
Speaker
We don't want to have some sort of like gatekeeping behind it where you can only apply if you're a student or you can only apply if you have a master's degree. We don't want to do that. Yeah. That's tough though. I mean, that would be really hard to narrow from a hundred down to 40, but it was, it was, we definitely went back. I mean, we had some folks that I'm sure it would have been lovely to meet them. But for example, we had retired professors applying.
00:30:01
Speaker
a retired professor doesn't need NAGPRA compliance training. So in a sophomore, an undergrad in art history doesn't necessarily need that
Feedback and Program Improvements
00:30:12
Speaker
right now. We were trying to really focus on folks that need it crucially and they need it right now and then trying to look at that next generation of folks who would be up and coming for NAGPRA work. I think that really showed in the
00:30:26
Speaker
in looking at everybody. Of course, there was a range of age differences from early 20s up to elders that are currently doing NAGPRA work, whether it's for a university or a museum or a Tippo office. There's a couple of people in Tippo offices. And a lot of them were, I think something that kind of gave me a little bit of comfort was that we were all on different
00:30:56
Speaker
stages of our learning and we all have different levels of knowledge from complete blank slate beginner to somebody that's been doing it for a few years and has found a way to be successful with it. I think one thing we were really surprised about is that almost 10% of our applicants were already NAGPRA coordinators. Wow. Yeah. And that was a little concerning because it's like, women, if you're already a NAGPRA coordinator, but you don't
00:31:26
Speaker
have the training behind you. So it was like, oh my gosh, you know, there's already, there's a lot of folks that are already supposed to be doing NAGPRA out there, but they were desperate for some sort of training. And so that was just even more highlighted that this is something that really is really needed nationwide.
00:31:43
Speaker
Okay. Well, other than, you know, the fact that it should have been two weeks, is there anything that like on reflection and the regional aspect too? I think that's really smart. Is there anything else that on reflection you're like, Oh, you know, like maybe we could have done that differently or, you know, things you would maybe change for the future. Honestly, I mean, we, we gave out surveys at the end of the.
00:32:08
Speaker
week because we wanted to receive feedback from the participants, exactly what you're asking, you know, is there a topic we didn't cover? Is there something that you wanted to hear more about more, you know, if there was other people you wanted to hear from? And I think we were trying to see if there's more maybe variety in different case studies, you know, for example, because
00:32:29
Speaker
something that works for NAGPRA in the Midwest may not work in California and that might not work in Hawaii and that might not work in Florida or Alaska, if you see what I mean. And so a lot of the knowledge we shared was just basically from my experiences and my experiences are going to be completely different, for example, than someone in, let's say, Hawaii. And so, you know, like I said, that regional diversity, being able to talk about that, I think we're going to look at in the future and how can we really
00:32:56
Speaker
make sure that a lot of different angles are being discussed. I could add something. Please. I think for me personally, I don't know how everybody else felt, but if I could add something that we didn't quite get into, it would be going step by step through how to write an inventory and a summary and
00:33:23
Speaker
the notices to the federal registry. Because even though I've seen them and read them, I was usually the background person in all the NACPA work and I didn't have to actually fill out the paperwork or documents. That's a great, great recommendation Chance. I appreciate that because you're, you're absolutely correct. We very briefly talked about that, but we didn't actually get into
Building a Supportive Community
00:33:50
Speaker
it.
00:33:50
Speaker
One other thing that I think we could have talked about that we didn't was the grants and grant writing, because as the new regulations are getting ready to change fairly soon, especially, I think there's going to be a lot of folks looking for financial support for documentation, consultation grants, repatriation grants, and those type of grants are different than, for example, an NSF grant, which is much more large. So you have to be a lot more
00:34:19
Speaker
concise with a NAGPRA grant and very project specific. And so we weren't really able to talk about that and we didn't have that time. And I'm not sure how we'll fit that in, to be honest, because we had kind of a full week. We did stop just after lunch on a Friday. We wanted folks to have the opportunity if they needed to go home on that Friday that they could get to the airport. But we might have to just flat out extend that as another complete full day.
00:34:47
Speaker
just so that we can do some of this, this other stuff. Two weeks, two weeks. Oh, that brings up something else I just thought of. So if I could recommend another thing, I will say that for those of us that already have NAGPRA experience,
00:35:11
Speaker
Day one was kind of a review for some of us. Uh, it was, cause it was very much kind of a NAGPRA 101. So, so I feel like day one was review, which was helpful. Sometimes I kind of forget the early things that I've learned, but so I don't know if this is the two weeks thing definitely makes sense, but I don't know if in the application, maybe asking.
00:35:39
Speaker
what their level of knowledge and experiences and the people with zero can probably go on day one. I'm not sure how that would work with logistics and everything, but. Yeah, we could. We could definitely make that something where, you know, that's, you know, if you don't need NAGPRA 101, you come in on the Tuesday and you travel in for say on the Monday, we could possibly do that.
00:36:07
Speaker
Or even like a Monday has like an option where you can do like the Nagapur 101 or you can do some like super advanced topics. Sorry, now we're just like, now we're just brainstorming. That's okay. That's fine. You know, we definitely, we're, we're interested in this kind of feedback because this was actually a pilot study. So that's the way we pitched this to winter grin is that this was like a pilot program.
00:36:34
Speaker
nothing like this has ever been done. There's been no like, quote, summer training type of thing, like a field school, because I in the past, I was always complaining like, okay, archaeologists, you know, they go to summer field school, that's where you get your like hands on training, but there's nothing like that for NAGPRA. And so we, when we wrote the proposal, we pitched it as this pilot program, like, okay, well, we've never done this. And there's not really, aside from like a summer archaeological excavation field school,
00:37:04
Speaker
We're not really sure how this is going to work, so we're going to give it a try. And so we're definitely interested in receiving feedback because, you know, there might be just different options that we can do or especially like, okay, you know, maybe the first couple of days is that NAGPRA 101. We bring other folks in later or we extend it for two weeks. Or maybe that we're able to, at some point, if we do extend it to two weeks, is there opportunity for very specific
00:37:35
Speaker
you know, questions, like if someone says, hey, let's break down a NAGPRA grant, or we could do a lot more small group activities, which we weren't able to do either. So yes, we're definitely interested in any feedback that we can get. Okay, we're already at our second break point. So I'm gonna stop us right here, because I know we could keep going. But we will be right back here in a second. Okay, we are back and we are we're just having too much fun during these breaks. So
Cultural Awareness and Institutional Challenges
00:38:04
Speaker
We gotta, we gotta dive back in, make sure we get some of this good stuff on air for you guys to listen to. So Chance, you know, having done this training, what would you say are things that you took from this training that you are going to apply in your future work? I think one of the first things is that me or me and everybody else were not alone in our
00:38:31
Speaker
whatever stage of learning we're in, that there is a community out there that we didn't know existed, but we do now. We exchange contact information. There's this Google share drive that we're all gonna have access to. And I did contribute a PDF document I wrote into it so far. And in the training, I think,
00:38:59
Speaker
you know, hearing the experiences that Jane Lee has had, especially when she talked about that tribes need to be in the lead on everything. Ultimately, you're going to be working at the pleasure of their time and schedule. And I think that's what a lot of the universities and museums don't
00:39:23
Speaker
quite understand is they want answers now. They want responses as soon as possible without taking into consideration tribal people's schedules. You know, Tippo offices are always swamped, just inundated with mail, email, understaffed, underfunded. So I feel like I have a good
00:39:49
Speaker
position or perspective because I was able to be on both sides of that spectrum. I worked in a Tippo office and got to handle their mail and emails myself. So I know well what they receive or don't receive. And now I'm on the museum side and I get to see the museum folks sort of want tribal people to respond quicker and
00:40:18
Speaker
you know, I often have to kind of facilitate the conversation of, well, you know, they're understaffed and they're underfunded and they're probably busy and they have tribal ceremonies, so they're not going to respond as quick as you want them to. And, you know, even things like it to take into consideration cultural care needs, like how to house ancestors, how to handle them, how to feed them if you're,
00:40:48
Speaker
museum professional is capable or has the ability to do these cultural and spiritual feedings. And that's something I didn't think of until recently, but will they do it in the same care that tribal people will do it?
00:41:05
Speaker
So I guess this question then goes for both of you. Well, first we'll start with Chance, since you were just talking about this. If you could make sure that people knew just like one thing about NAGPRA based on that experience from all those different positions, like what would you, what would you want people to know? I think it would be to be aware of the history that Native people have with.
00:41:30
Speaker
colonial institutions, universities, museums, even the fields of archaeology that those past relationships and ongoing relationships are still there. So being the representative of a state government, a university, a museum, that you're automatically going to be blamed for those institutional mistakes.
00:41:58
Speaker
And that's going to always loom over you no matter what. So always be aware of that and always be respectful. Yeah. I feel like that's always a tricky one for people because they're like, but it wasn't me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then me as a native person in this role, you know, I'm getting like double the double the working for
00:42:29
Speaker
the opposing team, basically.
Key Takeaways and Collaboration Benefits
00:42:33
Speaker
Well, and I think there's a lot to be said for being able to, like you said, understand where that's all coming from and being able to handle that with grace. Even if you're not understanding fully what's happening or just
00:42:54
Speaker
that it can be kind of a healing moment, I guess, for the other person to be heard and be respected in your response to that. Because it's easy to want to defend yourself, but that handling it with grace can be much more positive for everybody involved. That was not very eloquent, but hopefully, you know what I mean.
00:43:20
Speaker
So, Jane Lee, what about you? If there was three things that you wanted the people that participated in this program to come away with about NAGPRA, what were those things? I think the first one would be just the importance of meaningful consultation. Consultation is what the tribes want it to be. Sometimes that is a Zoom call because the tribes are super busy. For the most part, face-to-face consultation is the best way
00:43:50
Speaker
universities need to get out behind their desk, get out of the email behind the emails and go and visit communities, sit and learn and listen. And, you know, don't just show up and talk shop, you know, you're creating relationships. And that's not something that can be done overnight, especially if an institution has a history of slow or no compliance. That's that's not again, that's not something that's going to happen quickly.
00:44:18
Speaker
I think also with those consultations and in any NAGPRA work, universities need to step back and put the tribes in the driver's seat. However that the tribes wish that to be, like I said, whether that's Zoom calls, whether that's face-to-face consultations, whatever is going to be best for the community. Perhaps it's just emails. That's the way they want to work. Perhaps they want to come to your university.
00:44:42
Speaker
have the tribes make the decisions for how collections are curated, how they're taken care of, how they're returned, how they're repatriated. I think there's a lot of instances where people, they can work with tribes, but they either flaunt the number of degrees they have or their position in the university and that they're the ones that should get to make the decision. And that's absolutely not true, especially with things like cultural items. The tribe is the expert on their cultural items. And so,
00:45:13
Speaker
This just really, again, comes back to meaningful consultation and relationship building. I think also understanding that NAGPRA is definitely each situation, even with working with the same tribe, it's case-by-case basis on everything, especially, you know, there could be a new person in the role for a community. It's every single time you start a repatriation project, it may be different than the time before, and being willing to understand that.
00:45:43
Speaker
I think a lot of universities don't realize that tribes are working with 40 to 50 institutions a year on NAGPRA compliance. And just because they don't get back to university right away doesn't mean that that's not important. It's just for the moment, they are exceptionally busy.
00:46:04
Speaker
thing? Was that three? I think so. Yeah, I think also one thing I might also mention is that, you know, a lot of institutions view NAGPRA still is something that they have to do this like carrot versus the stick type of thing. And the one thing that we've really realized, especially here in Indiana,
00:46:28
Speaker
is the amazing effects of the relationship building with all the different collaborative projects that we have going on that started with a NAGPRA discussion, you know, whether that be opportunities for Native students, whether that's collaborative conference presentations, whether that's new grants coming in, whether that's, you know, posters, there's just so much
00:46:51
Speaker
There are so many new things that have come out of the initial NAGPRA discussions that we're just seeing this ripple effect across our campus and working with different communities on all sorts of different projects.
Conclusion and Future Opportunities
00:47:04
Speaker
And that's been beneficial for both university and for tribal communities.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. So we're like right at the end here. And I'm just curious for both of you, is there anything that you're like, I didn't get to mention this part? Or, you know, I'd really like to tell people about this or anything that you want to add before we finish up here? I just that if anybody is interested, we do have a website for the instep program. But
00:47:36
Speaker
Just be on the lookout for around December, early January for if anyone has an interest or if you have students that have an interest in the training program, we will be putting the application process out around that time. And I believe the training will be next July in Illinois. I could definitely share that out with my CU grad school program here in my position now and with some of the tribes I work with, including my own.
00:48:05
Speaker
That would be great, I appreciate that. And you mentioned earlier, right, that you guys are still looking for some funding for next year, so if anyone knows of grants or funders that would want to support an effort like this, you know, we're to find Jane Lee. Yeah, I think we do have some really good ideas and some opportunities, but, you know, any and all suggestions would be very welcome. Yeah. Great. Chance, any last minute thoughts?
00:48:33
Speaker
Hmm. I mean, I have a lot, but I actually filled out all the questions that you sent me. Yeah. Well, we'll just have to do a separate one, which is, you know, we get to all of those. Like, so how did you get into this field? What got you interested? Actually, I have the best story for how I got interested. Okay. Yeah. Right now.
00:49:00
Speaker
Or what's up to you? We can save it. We can leave everyone in suspense. We can save that one. OK. All right. I think it'll take a little bit too long. Oh, that's awesome. Yes. Yeah. So everyone stay tuned. Next time we have Chance, he's got a great story for us.
00:49:21
Speaker
Well, I mean, thank you both so much for coming on. This is really important work. And I didn't even realize it was quite that needed. I mean, I knew it was very needed, but, um, but yeah, I guess I would have assumed that there would have been at least one NAG prep program out there somewhere. So that's, that's pretty shocking to me. Yeah. I, I, you know, didn't realize that the training that I was getting wasn't
00:49:53
Speaker
ideal, I guess I kind of just thought that's just the way it is. But, you know, going to this training and being able to hear about Jane Lee's work and her experiences that, you know, she's right, there is no training other than YouTube or NPI. I believe the Institute of American Indian Arts, and hopefully I'm not incorrect on this, they used to have a repatriation class in a semester.
00:50:22
Speaker
And I believe that there may be a couple other programs that have a semester class on repatriation or NAG prep, but there's no actual master's degree. There's no actual workshop or not workshop and stuff. So yeah, particularly for those folks who are already professionals, there's definitely no options and the ones that are out there either don't get into the logistics or they're cost prohibitive.
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah, in grad school, there was no section on NAGPRA, so we had to be creative and kind of create our own reading group or study group where we can talk about these things. And we reviewed case studies, assigned articles with each other so that we can have these discussions.
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah. And that's a museum focused program. That's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And it all had to happen outside of class. Yeah. On our personal time. Well, thank you both so much for not only coming on today, I really appreciate that, but also for the really important work that you're doing. And Jane Lee, you might expect applications from both Chance and I for the next year at Chance's work. Thank you
Episode Credits and Contact Information
00:51:43
Speaker
again. Thank you both.
00:51:45
Speaker
Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you. Thanks for listening to the Heritage Voices podcast. You can find show notes at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com slash Heritage Voices. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, or the Google Play Music Store. Also, please share with your friends or write us a review. Sharing and reviewing helps more people find the show and gets the perspectives of Heritage Voices amazing guests out there into the world.
00:52:14
Speaker
No, we just need more of that in anthropology and land management. If you have any more questions, comments, or show suggestions, please reach out to me at Jessica at livingheritageanthropology.org. If you'd like to volunteer to be on the show as a guest or even a co-host, reach out to me as well, Jessica at livingheritageanthropology.org.
00:52:32
Speaker
You can also follow more of what I'm doing on Facebook at Living Heritage Anthropology and the non-profit Living Heritage Research Council or on Twitter at LivingHeritageA. As always, huge thank you to Liable Enqua and Jason Nez for their collaboration on our incredible logo.
00:52:57
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. 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.