After a decades-long journey across continents, the remains of an American Indian woman are finally returning to their homeland.
In an event held at the Student Activities Center on Wednesday, UCLA celebrated the return of the ancestral remains of the woman to the Wiyot tribe, a people located around Eureka, Calif.
The ancestral remains, which consist of a young woman’s jawbone, had been part of a UCLA biology professor’s collection. When he died more than a half-century ago, the remains were given to UCLA’s Fowler Museum.
At the event, Cheryl Seidner, the former tribal chairwoman of the Wiyot tribe, said bringing back the remains is important to the culture and history of the Wiyot people.
“You see only me standing up here, but I want you to know it’s pretty crowded,” Seidner said, holding back tears. “I bring my ancestors with me wherever I go.”
Since the enactment of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, an act which requires museums to publish details of their inventories, UCLA has been working to discover the origins of the mysterious jawbone ““ a process that Carole Goldberg, vice chancellor of academic personnel, referred to as a “saga” because of the time, effort and number of individuals involved.
While examining the jawbone in accordance to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, workers at Fowler found it difficult to determine the origins of the remains.
The inscriptions of the words “Eureka, California” and “Wellcome Historical Medical Museum” on the bone were the only pieces of known information associated with the jawbone. Using this information and the fact that the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum was based in the United Kingdom, UCLA hired an anthropology researcher to further investigate the origins of the remains.
After making inquires in England, the researcher found that the bone was part of a collection made by a dentist in the 19th century. The dentist was collecting specimens in the Eureka area, specifically at the site of an 1860 massacre of the Wiyot people by white settlers.
How the bones arrived in the hands of the UCLA biology professor remains unknown, Goldberg said.
After extensive research, the UCLA Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Advisory Committee agreed that evidence suggested the remains were affiliated with the Wiyot tribe.
But the UC Office of the President, which makes all final decisions about repatriations, disagreed, saying that the evidence was not sufficient proof.
Then in March 2010, after UCLA had spent years arguing against the decision denying the repatriation of the bones, a federal advisory committee on the issue released regulations allowing culturally unidentifiable human remains to be returned to the tribe that occupies the geographical location in which they were found. At that point, the Wiyot tribe was finally able to claim the remains.
“There were many moments of discouragement, but it was because of the determination of the Wiyot people that we are here today,” Goldberg said at Wednesday’s event.
During a Q-and-A period, Tudy Tisnado, a third-year American Indian studies student, thanked Seidner for her words.
“My heart is in protecting sacred sites, especially since I have an American Indian background,” Tisnado said.
Angela Riley, the current director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and chair of the UCLA Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Advisory Committee, said she believes this is just one step toward correcting the past.
“Laws like (this act) are important because it’s undoing the colonization of North America and allowing these tribes to reclaim their identity and culture,” Riley said.
Wendy Teeter, curator of archaeology at Fowler, was intimately involved in the repatriation process. She said she was elated that it was finally able to succeed, despite the claim that there was a lack of cultural affiliation.
“There were so many roadblocks, which is just so harmful from a human rights point of view,” Teeter said. “When these tribes are not acknowledged, there is a disrespect there.”
To conclude the event, Seidner invited the audience to stand and sing a song from her tribe, filling the room with the soft Wiyot melody.
“Seeing this (jawbone) today was bittersweet,” Seidner said. “Maybe she had succumbed to her injuries from that massacre, but now, she’s going home.”