museum anthropology
commentary
my adventures in zuniFand
kykotsmovi and window rock
and . . .
Stephen H. Lekson
university of colorado museum
abstract
Over the last three decades, museums and archaeologys
engagement with Indians has changed dramatically, most
notably with NAGPRA. I review my personal experiences in
the U.S. Southwest, drawing tentative conclusions about
the present and future of museumIndian relations. [Key-
words: NAGPRA, museums]
The Native American Graves Protection and Repa-
triation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 has been my central
focus since 2002 as curator of anthropology at the
University of Colorado (CU) Museum of Natural
History. It is not my full-time or even most-time
focusFlike all museum people, I do many different
thingsFbut NAGPRA has been the constant thing.
Courses and students come and go; research gets
published; new projects begin; exhibits open and
close. Over the last six-plus years, NAGPRA has been
the single activity Ive spent the most time on, think-
ing and doing. For me, its coming to an end (or, at
least, winding down) with repatriation of the last
human remains in the museums control. (We also
hold federal collections, and not every agency has
stepped up to the plate.) The CU Museums com-
mitment to NAGPRA continues, with consultations
on cultural objects already planned, but my role will
be much diminished.
The laws 20th anniversary seemed like a good
time to write something about NAGPRA at the CU
Museum of Natural History. I began to write a short
summary, but that essay expanded and, I fear, became
more and more personal. As an archaeologist,
NAGPRA has affected me deeply. Ive come to ques-
tion my career, and by extension the careers of my
colleagues. But my conclusions, presented at the end
of this article, may surprise you: after a fair amount of
NAGPRA-induced angst, I still think archaeology is a
good thing.
Museum Anthropology, Vol. 33, Iss. 2, pp. 180193 & 2010 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1379.2010.01095.x
This essay is personal but Ill avoid using names
unless theres a good reason to do so. To make points
and move the story along, I use terms like white
and archaeology and Indian, but of course the
latter, in particular, does not specify: each tribe or
nation has its history, each clan has its history, and
each native person Ive known has his/her own his-
tory, ideas, opinions, etc. Still, I use Indian here
collectively, to generalize when I think generalization
is warranted.
NAGPRA was a tipping point, a change in my in-
teractions with Native America. I worked with
Indians long before the bill became law, beginning
in 1976F14 years before NAGPRA. Those pre-
NAGPRA years had a big effect on how I viewed the
law. My experiences with Indian people came in three
stages: as coworkers in the field at Chaco Canyon and
around Tucson (19761990); as colleagues at the
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and at Crow
Canyon Archaeological Center (19901997); and, fi-
nally, with NAGPRA at the CU Museum (2002
2010). From 1976 to 2010, hardly a year passed that
did not include work alongside or across the table
from Indians. There are larger lessons, perhaps, from
those three different circumstances.
Ive been a professional archaeologist for almost
35 years (professional 5 paycheck). I began my ca-
reer at sites in southwestern New Mexico, far from
any southwestern tribes. Indians registered only as
local, sometimes lurid stories about Apaches who
once roamed the region. Id seen Apaches in the
movies (or actors pretending to be Apaches). But that
was as far as it went: Indians werent a big part of the
picture around Silver City. Then I went to the Uni-
versity of Tennessee, running Tennessee Valley
Authority projects; again, no Indians. Returning to
the Southwest, I split my time between Portales and
Bloomfield, two small towns inhabited, respectively,
by West Texas Baptists and oil field ruffiansFamong
others, of course; but again, few Indians. In Bloom-
field I worked, very briefly, alongside Navajo men at
Salmon Ruin, but my experiences with Indians really
began in the Bicentennial year 1976, when I joined
the National Park Services Chaco Project, in the
Eastern District of the Navajo (Dine) Nation of
northwestern New Mexico.
The Chaco Project hired local men to work on
excavations. The local men were Navajo. They were

mostly traditional men. Some did not speak English.
They werent comfortable excavating ruins, but Cha-
co was the only paycheck for 50 miles. We tried not to
put them in compromising situations but occasion-
ally a deer bone, mistaken for human, sent a man
home for daysFpresumably for some form of curing
ceremony (for which management above my level
tried to get them workers comp, unsuccessfully). Its
important to note that while we were paying Navajo
men to do something that they would not ordinarily
do, that work was happening on their turf. Their
families came from around Chaco Canyon; a few men
shared stories of historical happenings at the very
ruins we were excavatingFstories they had heard
from their mothers, uncles, and grandparents. They
worked for us, but we were on their land.
For several years, I spent three or four months each
year working with Navajos. By working with I mean
working alongside: taking turns with picks, shovels,
wheelbarrowsFreal work, with blood, toil, tears, and
sweat. They tolerated me (they didnt bean me with a
shovel) and we got along well enough that I called a
few friends. We bantered about basketball or even,
sometimes, politics. They were good guys, most of
themFprimarily, however, they were men working
for a wage. Cultural and language differences were
secondary to the jobs that needed to be done, usually
physical and often puzzling or challenging. We moved
tons of rubble out of the ground; we jury-rigged de-
vices for one-off tasks; we covered the pits, quickly,
before thunderstorms hit. Tasks crossed cultures.
Twenty years later I published an article that in-
cluded a posed picture of one years Chaco Project
crew. One Pueblo officially complained about my ar-
ticles lack of Indian insightsFlook: there are no
Indians in the picture! I informed them that every
person (but two) in the back row was Navajo. The
Pueblos complaint was fair, I suppose: the Navajo
were in the back row, and in fact they played no lead-
ing roles in formulating or interpreting our research.
The Chaco Project was a product of the late 1960s
and very early 1970s and reflected the customs and
mores of those times.
After several years in Tucson (working intermit-
tently with Indians), I left for Santa Fe and the
Laboratory of Anthropology/Museum of Indian Arts
and Culture (LA/MIAC). LA and MIAC were two
antithetical parts of a single unstable entity, which
my adventures in zuni
itself was part of the larger Museum of New Mexico.
LA was an old, honored institution in a Santa Fe-style
buildingFa holy place for archaeologists, with leg-
endary collections. MIAC was an awkward new
structure (to the left of LA) with an edgy new mis-
sion, shifting from an archaeology laboratory to an
Indian cultural centerFin a way, a precursor to the
National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
Steve Becker was the directorFhis background was
folkloreFwhile programmatic direction came from
the second-in-command, cultural anthropologist
Bruce Bernstein (who went on to a similar, successful
role at the NMAI, some years later). The leadership
were not archaeologists.
I began three busy years as curator of archaeology
in August 1990. Archaeological research took a back
seat: I gave two volumes I was editing to other editors
because I had no time to do them justice (an Apache
conference, described below, and an earlier confer-
ence on the Pueblo III time period). I didnt mind,
much: what we were doing at MIAC was extraordi-
narily interesting. Four experiences were particularly
relevant to my professional engagement with Indians:
(1) the Apache Archaeology and Ethnohistory Con-
ference; (2) designing the permanent exhibit; (3)
installing the permanent exhibit (after I left
MIAC); and (4) returning Ahayu:da.
Shortly after arriving, I took a week off from my
new job at MIAC to host an already planned confer-
ence in Truth-or-Consequences, New Mexico. I had
been working in that area around a huge warm spring
at Canada Alamosa, about twenty miles northwest of
T-or-C. That spring was so important to the Eastern
Chiricahua Apache that whites called them the Warm
Springs Apache. The importance of the area was
brought to the attention of a New Mexico senator,
who requested a National Park Service study. A col-
league and I prepared sections of that study. I wrote
the ethnohistory and soon realized that NPS staff had
never actually spoken to the Apaches. To rectify that, I
organized a meeting of archaeologists, anthropolo-
gists, historians, NPS staff, and Apaches from Fort Sill
and Mescalero. Most of the active scholars were there
and a dozen Apaches presented, formally or infor-
mally. To drop a few names (here, names matter):
Mildred Cleghorn from Oklahoma and Wendell
Chino from Mescalero gave presentations; Alan Ho-
user attended every session. In the end, it came to
181
my adventures in zuni
naught: the warm springs remain in private owner-
ship and the conference volume never appeared in
print. I later worked with many of the Apache people
I met at their warm spring, on a brisk fall New
Mexico day.
After that brief interlude, I went to work on my
real job at MIAC. I was hired primarily to help design
a new permanent exhibit. As noted above, the Lab-
oratory of Anthropology had amassed a remarkable
collection of Indian objects, archaeological and ethno-
graphic. But LA had no place to display them. The
State of New Mexico built MIAC adjacent to LA to
display those treasures. From the beginning, MIAC
was to be differentFmore than a museum, incorpo-
rating living Indians and Indian communities
alongside artifacts and objects from LAs collections.
MIAC has a large central space to be populated by
Native Americans doing things, which was a nice idea
that didnt work. Visitors edged warily into MIACs
cavernous, arena-sized central hall, and saw a Navajo
lady far off in a corner, quietly working her loom.
And the original concept didnt get collections out
there to be seen by New Mexicans and tourists. How
to fix a broken museum? MIAC assembled a team to
craft a permanent exhibit: Bruce Bernstein (whose
dissertation was on the Santa Fe Indian Market, later
Assistant Director at the NMAI), Ed Ladd (M.A.
from University of New Mexico [UNM] and already a
curator at LA), Rina Swenztell (also Ph.D. from
UNM), Ted Jojola (also a Ph.D., at that time running
the Native American program at UNM), and me.
Ladd was Zuni/Kiowa; Swentzell was from Santa
Clara Pueblo; Jojola was Isleta Pueblo. Bernstein and I
were the white boys. The institutional vision came
from Bernstein and Ladd; the rest of us were new to
MIAC and feeling our ways through its politics,
agendas, and goals.
Working with that core team was a privilege: I got
to spend a great deal of time with Ladd and Swentzell;
slightly less time with Jojola, who commuted from
Albuquerque; and with Bernstein, who was at the
cutting edge of Native American museology. We ar-
gued and contended and compromised as much as
any other group of five intelligent, strong-minded
people. Perhaps more so, because I thought archae-
ology had something useful to bring to the table,
which might add to traditional histories or contradict
the Santa Fe style and its mythic Southwest. (I still do.)
182
For me, this new cast of characters represented a
new sector of Indian society. The Indians I knew were
workingmen, out in the country. Indians at MIAC
wereFin a wordFintellectuals: cosmopolitan, well
travelled, well educated, often financially successful.
(The guys at Chaco were smart, but they would have
been highly amused to be called intellectuals.) My
colleagues at MIAC were creative in various media
and were formidable intellects. It was grand to follow
how they thought, as artists and writers and movers
and shakers.
Hanging out with artists was another important
personal experience associated with the permanent
exhibit: working with those people softened me up
for postprocessual aesthetic/humanistic approaches
then oozing into American archaeology from Britain.
Id been trained to be a standard-issue 1970s Ameri-
can archaeologist: that is, scientist (or scientist
manque). Id worked with several remarkable scien-
tists: in my education and at the Santa Fe
InstituteFthe same year I started at MIAC, I also
began an on-again-off-again relationship with the
Santa Fe Institute and its stable of certified geniuses.
At MIAC, I worked with equally remarkable artists
and writers and humanistsFall with an intriguing
tribal twist. The SFI scientists were interesting; the
MIAC artists were fascinating. Im open to ideas, and
the MIAC crew had plenty of those.
The MIAC permanent exhibit had a title: Here,
Now, Always. That was Ed Ladds, as was the central
theme: continuity. No Vanishing Red Men need ap-
ply. I suggested that perhaps continuity wasnt
needed in Santa Fe, where its all Indians all the time;
but I lost that argument. OK: continuity. My contri-
bution as curator of archaeology was to present the
distant past as archaeologists understood it, and then
integrate that past with the present. The visual trick
was juxtaposition: an ancient flute from a cave in the
Jemez Mountains alongside an electric guitar from a
country-western band from Window Rock. The team
and our consultants thought that was dandy, and we
rolled ahead with a big NEH implementation grant
proposal. The proposal was accepted, and I left for
another institution. I thought my job was done.
When the exhibit plan was taken out to the com-
munities, a gap opened between the cosmopolitan
artists/writers/thinkers we had been working with
and the traditional people of the countryside. Several

tribes did not want the ancient artifacts on display at
all; and if they must be displayed, the artifacts should
be cordoned off from the rest of the exhibit. There
were multiple reasons, all based on traditional beliefs.
And so it was done: Sarah Schlanger (who followed
me as curator) had to completely reconceptualize ar-
chaeologys contribution. Here, Now, Always, as it was
installed, has archaeologyFin a ghetto, walled off
with warning signs (and sounds) at its entrance. An-
cient objects are in one area; modern and historic
objects in another. We saw at MIAC (and, later, at
NMAI) that cutting edge museology might not go search: lay people, in effect, took learning vacations
down well with traditional communities. New times
require new museologiesFbeyond the cutting edge?
Before I left MIAC, I had my first experiences with
repatriation. Recall that I arrived in 1990; NAGPRA
had just become law. There were no regulations to
guide its implementation, but repatriations were al-
ready happening. Several years before NAGPRA, Ed
Ladd made MIAC a player in the return of Zuni
war gods or Ahayu:da. Each year at Zuni, two bers at Crow Canyon had friendships and working
Ahayu:daFrough, powerful wood sculpturesFwere
placed in an outdoor shrine. There they disintegrated
in wind and rain, doing their good for the com-
munity. Art collectors discovered Ahayu:da and
thereafter dozens of Ahayu:da were stolen from the
shrine, ending in rich peoples houses or in art mu-
seums. Ladd and a network of coconspirators
convinced collectors and museums to return the
Ahayu:da. Before NAGPRA, it was not administra-
tively easy for museums to give objects back to tribes.
Most museums couldnt do that, forbidden by poli-
cies and bylaws. MIAC stepped in. Other museums
deaccessioned Ahayu:da to MIACFkeeping their
lawyers happy. We then deaccessioned them to Zuni
Four Board was fine with that. I played minor roles
in several repatriations. Ahayu:da arrived at MIAC,
and Ladd notified his Pueblo. A few days later, a del-
egation from Zuni came to Santa Fe and reclaimed
the Ahayu:da.
In 1990, NAGPRA was new and scary. No one
could say, with any certainty, what it meant. Almost
all the archaeologists I knew (and I knew many ar-
chaeologists) were dubious. Most were negative. I
read and reread the law and I was as mystified as my
colleagues; but, based on my thin experience with
Ahayu:da, I defended NAGPRA to other archaeolo-
gists. The Zunis were not jerking around the
my adventures in zuni
scientists; those Ahayu:da meant a lot to them. I had
no idea what they meant, exactly, but Ahayu:da were
clearly and presently important.
In 1992, I was hired away from MIAC to become
president of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
Crow Canyon was a private, nonprofit archaeological
research center near Mesa Verde, the brainchild of
Stuart Struever. Its salient characteristic was its busi-
ness plan: civilians paid to participate in excavations
supervised by professional archaeologists. Crow
Canyon was an experiment in funding long-term re-
assisting staff archaeologists digging sites, analyzing
artifacts, and so on. Struever brought the model from
Kampsville in Illinois, where he had created some-
thing similar to Crow Canyon in the 1960s.
Fast-forward to the 1990s. After MIAC, and with
NAGPRA hovering overhead like an ominous cloud, I
thought Crow Canyon should probably pay formal
attention to native concerns. Individual staff mem-
relationships with several Indians. That was great!
But Crow Canyon had yet to engage tribal govern-
ments, and we had yet to ask Indians for advice and
consent on programs and products.
Struever came to me one day with happy news. He
had a sure thing with an old pal at some founda-
tion, good for tens of thousands of dollars. What did
I want to do with the money? Crow Canyon was
bleeding money from a dozen fiscal wounds; there
was no lack of needs. But after conferring with Rich
Wilshusen (then Director of Research) we proposed
something new, one more thing: a Native American
Advisory Board. Wilshusen was concerned that we
might be shut down with an injunction under
NAGPRAFno one knew what the law meant, or how
it would work. I agreed that his concerns were well
grounded. We needed Indians on board, pronto. Our
trustees were not thrilled, but Rich and I argued that
unless we got Indians involved Crow Canyon might
not be around in a few years. And so it was done (but
not by me): Bruce Bradley, Rich Wilshusen, and other
Crow Canyon staff created a Native Advisory Board,
building from existing relationships. Those friend-
ships were with artists and creative people and tribal
officialsFmuch like the people I worked with at
MIAC (in some cases, the same people)Fwho mixed
easily with Crow Canyons clientele and supporters.
183
my adventures in zuni
I left Crow Canyon after three years, exhausted by
non-stop financial crises and a bad case of tick fever
acquired on a fundraising trail-ride. The Native
American Advisory Board remained and became a
model for other institutions. Crow Canyons gover-
nance board began recruiting Native Americans
board membersFa breakthrough! Today, Crow
Canyon (Im told) has a good reputation in Indian
Country.
In 1997 the CU hired me to run the Museum
Studies graduate program. While I lectured to Mu-
seum Studies students about NAGPRA (from my
textbook perspective), the Anthropology Section at
the museum was actually doing NAGPRA. A clock
started with NAGPRAs passage in 1990: six years to
complete inventories of human remains and to de-
cide which tribes were culturally affiliated. We knew
that our museum held many human remains. How
many? From where? With funding from the univer-
sity (US$75,000), the Anthropology Section, under
then curator Fred Lange, compiled summaries and
inventories, working from catalogue records (per ad-
vice from the federal agency that became National
NAGPRA: use existing paper records). The CU Mu-
seum came in just under the wire, sending inventories
to National NAGPRA and tribes we considered affili-
ated on May 16, 1996, just before the legal deadline.
National NAGPRA of course was inundated with last-
second submissions, as were tribes. So, for a while,
there it sat. We were legal, as far as we knew.
The shoe dropped a few years later when our in-
ventories were returned from National NAGPRA.
They told us to try again. Our rows and columns
didnt add up. Working solely from the museums
paper records, it had not been possible for Lange and
his staff to determine the actual number of people in
the museums collections. It couldnt be done: a skull
had one catalogue number while the postcranial
skeleton had another; multiple people were some-
times listed as a single catalogue number; and so
forth. While National NAGPRA was crunching our
numbers, Lange retired and I was offered his position
as curator of anthropologyFas soon as we found a
replacement for Museum Studies. That hire took a
couple of years and Richard Wilshusen (my old col-
league from Crow Canyon) stepped in as acting
curator of anthropology. The NAGPRA bombshell
fell on Wilshusen as an unpleasant surprise; his
184
tenure as curator consisted primarily of conducting a
careful shelf-inventory to establish with certainty how
many sets of human remains we really had and to
begin the long process of cultural affiliation.
When I was finally able to assume the role of cu-
rator of anthropology in 2002, I had several other
major projects to finish. As far as NAGPRA was con-
cerned, we were technically legal: wed gotten our
paperwork in before the original deadline. There was
nothing in the regulations about mulligans, do-overs,
revisions. So I let NAGPRA sit for a while, while
squeakier wheels got greased.
The noisiest wheel was a synthesis of Chaco Can-
yon archaeology. In 1996 (the year before I joined
CU), I had been commissioned by the National Park
Service to pull together the work of the Chaco Pro-
ject; the strategy I proposed was a series of small,
thematically focused working conferences. As noted
above, the Chaco Project engaged Indians only as day
labor (although many became friends). I wanted to
do something about that, long after the fact, by in-
cluding Indians in the Chaco synthesis project, but an
enormous NAGPRA tiff between and among the Na-
tional Park Service, the Navajo, and the Hopi made
that impossible. (I will not recount details here, but
difficulties were real and really difficult.) I proposed
to engage a Native American writer who would attend
and participate in every working conference and then
report out from his/her perspective. Every candi-
date was shot down for tribal affiliation: if I suggested
a Pueblo writer, Navajos objected; if I suggested a
Navajo, the Pueblos objected; if I went outside the
Southwest (which I did), both were unhappy. Then I
suggested a separate working conference of Native
American intellectuals (thinking of the people Id
worked with at MIAC and Crow Canyon). Tribal
officials did not object to that kind of meeting but
insisted that tribal officials also participate in official
capacities. That scared off my artists, writers, and
poets. They didnt want to get cross-wise with tribal
governments.
Nor did I: in 1998 I was dragged into a NPS-
sponsored Four Corners Affiliation Conference at
Fort Lewis College in Durango. The conferenceFto
resolve, if possible, the sticky issue of cultural
affiliation of AnasaziFincluded NAGPRA repre-
sentatives from every tribe with ties to Chaco and
Mesa Verde. They (and the National Park Service) sat

behind a ring of tables around the open center of a
large room. There were only a couple of archaeolo-
gists at the meeting and, because I have a reputation
for big picture thinking, I was the main focus (not a
good thing). One afternoon, I sat in the middle of the
room with Hopis to the right of me and Navajos to
the left of me, both highly annoyed. I was queried and
cross-examined. Voices were raised; it was unpleas-
ant. To my front were other tribes, watching the
show. Behind me was the National Park Service,
staying out of the fray. I slumped lower and lower in
my chair, wondering how long Id last. That after-
noon brought home to me just how important and
intractable cultural affiliation could be.
For the Chaco synthesis, I kept trying to involve
Native Americans. Several native scholars partici-
pated in individual working conferences, as scholars
and not as tribal representatives. I made several pre-
sentations (in 1998 and 1999) to Chaco Canyons
Native American Advisory Committee asking for
guidance. We reached no workable solution, so I
finally gave up.
I was also fairly busy at this time with excavations
at the Bluff Great House, a site on private land in
Bluff, UT. With Dr. Catherine Cameron, I was a co-
principal investigator at the site from 1995 to 1998.
The site was on private land (owned by a local non-
profit) so NAGPRA did not apply. Dr. Cameron and
I, however, determined to communicate with Indian
communities, to let them know what we intended to
doFto the discomfort of board members from the
nonprofit. I began in 1996 with a tour of several
Pueblos, arranging meetings with their cultural pres-
ervation and NAGPRA staff. The tribes were
perplexed: Bluff did not fall under NAGPRA. Why
was I there? Simply to let the tribes know what we
were doing. After we sorted that out, the trip was
unremarkable except for the admonition from several
Pueblos not to dig kivas. (I am on record as ques-
tioning whether rooms archaeologists conventionally
call kivas at sites like the Bluff Great House have
any real parallels with modern kivas; but I let that
pass.) I countered that we needed to see the style of
masonry and the manner of roofing in kivas to de-
termine the cultural affiliation of the site, Chaco or
Mesa Verde: could we excavate that far and no farther,
staying above the kiva floor? (Explaining that strategy
would take us on a long, unnecessary detour.) That
my adventures in zuni
compromise was not accepted, exactly, but passed
without comment. Consequently, initial excavations
at Bluff avoided floors of kivas, a policy for which I
was roundly criticized by archaeologists (and board
members) associated with the project. In retrospect,
the compromise succeeded only in fooling me; it
was unsatisfactory to all other parties. For the Indi-
ans, we shouldnt be digging at all and definitely not
in kivas. For the archaeologists, after mucking around
in the upper fill, we should have completed at least
tests to floor to see whatever was to be seen. My
temporizing served no useful purpose, save to salve
my conscience.
Dr. Cameron arranged funding to bring tribes to
visit the site, one or two tribes each season (excava-
tions ended in 2004; my involvement ended in
1998)Fthe Utes and Navajos of course, as nearest
neighbors, but also several Pueblos. The purposes of
these visits were informational and educational: we
wanted to inform tribes about what we were doing,
and we wanted our students to understand that ar-
chaeology had social consequences far beyond the
world of the university. The visits were a high point of
each season, due largely to the patience and grace of
the Indians. Once they understood this was not a
NAGPRA matter, they undertook to educate the stu-
dents (and us) both about their communities and our
obligations above and beyond the law.
Some tribes sent official representatives, essen-
tially NAGPRA delegations on non-NAGPRA
business. That was my first experience with a new cast
of characters, very different from Chacos workers
and Santa Fes poets. NAGPRA officials were tribally
appointed representatives, typically younger or mid-
dle-aged men (sometimes women). They often wore
other hats in tribal government: real estate, natural
resources, and other duties that involved federal and
state agencies. A few larger tribes had full-time
NAGPRA officials in permanent agencies or divi-
sions, but most tribes couldnt afford that. So a
NAGPRA team typically consisted of an official or
two, and often one or more Elders or cultural spe-
cialists with knowledge particular to the area. Bluff
was my first real experience with tribal officials,
whom I initially met on my preliminary trip to the
Pueblos and later on-site. (I had met tribal represen-
tatives briefly and unhappily at the Durango Cultural
Affiliation Conference but that was a highly peculiar
185
my adventures in zuni
and unpleasant situation.) I was impressed with the
tribal representatives: we might disagree but we could
work together. And Bluff was, effectively, my first ex-
perience with Elders (I had met Elders, briefly, at
Ahayu:da repatriationsFvery briefly!). It was im-
possible not to be impressed and respectful: the
Elders were uniformly gracious and patient with stu-
dents and with me but carried the quiet authority of
wisdom and well-defined notions of right and
wrongFwhich owed nothing to legal clauses and
tricky definitions in NAGPRA.
One summer when I was in charge of the site, a
contingent arrived from one of the larger Pueblos:
four Elders and one younger man, an official from the
Pueblo. It was a classic good cop/bad cop situation.
The Elders joked and chatted with the students and
thanked them for their interest in Pueblo history,
while the younger man glowered in the background. I
took the Pueblo team to a nearby rock-art site for
lunch. The Elders sat nodding in agreement while the
younger man read me the riot act, angrily objecting to
our discretionary excavations at an ancestral site. I
replied as best I could, mostly apologizing but insist-
ing that the show would go on. (This, of course, was
not the first time I had tense conversations with In-
dian officials: some of the same people had been at
Durango.) When things calmed down, I thanked the
Pueblo team for their thoughtfulness in saving
the unpleasantness for a private moment. But, I said,
the students back at the Bluff Great House would
have learned a lot by hearing that exchange. Think of
it as education: I might be beyond redemption but
those students were archaeologists of the next gener-
ation. I would be comfortable being an educational
punching bag the next time they visited (over the
years Ive developed a thick hide). The young man
considered the idea and agreed that could happen
and would probably be a useful thing. But we never
found the opportunity for that teachable moment.
By the fall of 2003, NAGPRA returned to the front
burner. Richard Wilshusen had developed a more
accurate inventory, and he made great strides in re-
searching provenience, origins, and possible cultural
affiliations. Wilshusens inventory was later refined,
corrected, amended; in the end we had 635 individual
sets of human remains (most were not complete
skeletons, of course) and 615 associated funerary
objects. (There were other remains and objects at the
186
museum, held for federal agencies; those were not
our responsibility under NAGPRA.) About 60 per-
cent of the remains under our legal control were,
ultimately, culturally affiliated, and repatriated to
various tribes (a small number of repatriations are
still pending). About 40 percent of the collection was
eventually determined to be culturally unidentifiable;
those too should soon be repatriated.
But that was the final outcome, as of 2010. In
2003, we were just starting: hundreds of human re-
mains from all over the map, no working familiarity
with NAGPRA andFmore importantlyFno bud-
get. The small budget for Anthropology Section
activities was already allocated to basic collections
management, not a new NAGPRA programFwhat-
ever that might mean. I knew NAGPRA would be
complicated and time-consuming and expensive:
most museums of our size had full-time or part-time
NAGPRA specialists or maybe even a NAGPRA office.
The university had already invested as much as it
cared to, with US$75,000 going into the original
NAGPRA inventories. Wed just have to figure it out
ourselves.
Funds were available through National NAGPRAs
grant program, but that required proposal writing (a
big job, especially with university bureaucracies!).
Who was going to do that? The Museums Anthro-
pology Section was small: me, Collections Manager
Debbie Confer, and a graduate student. My contract
with the CU specifies that I spend 20 percent of my
time on curatorial duties, including NAGPRA. Taken
literally, that means one day of each five-day week. Of
course such contracts are not taken literally, but 20
percent actually reflected about how my weeks went:
three or four times more things to do than museum
curation! So I was busy. Confer, too, had a lot going
on: she was responsible for a large, diverse, active
collectionFlots of loans, researchers, exhibits. We
were both booked. So we brought in Jan Bernstein, a
NAGPRA consultant in Denver who Confer knew.
Bernstein had a great track record with NAGPRA
grants (100 percent!). We hired Jan to write the first
proposal, including funds in the first grant for her to
write the proposal for the second, and so forth. That
worked well.
Jan Bernstein, Debbie Confer, and I strategized.
We couldnt drop everything else and just do
NAGPRA: the Anthropology Section had many other

duties and constituencies. Wed have to sequence our
actions. What did we have? What did we need to do?
Who did we need to consult with?
What did we have? Thanks to Wilshusen, we knew
the holdings fell out into five big collections:
Southwest Colorado (the Mesa Verde area); Eastern
Colorado/Plains; Western Slope (west of the Conti-
nental Divide, aka Fremont); Hohokam/Salado
from southern Arizona; and a large collection (about
40 percent) with no useful geographic informa-
tion, which would eventually become Culturally
Unidentifiable. There were several much smaller
collections of one or two individuals each, from
Montana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, West Virginia, and
several individuals from Crow, Cheyenne, Arikara,
Ute, and Pecos Pueblo lands (the latter no longer
a recognized tribe, but with descendents at Jemez
Pueblo). So thats what we had.
What did we need to do? We needed to review and
revise cultural affiliations, and to arrive at those
affiliations as NAGPRA specified: after systematic
consultations with tribes. Indians had visited the
museum in the past. We tried to reconstruct which
tribes the museum had talked to over the decade
since the passage of NAGPRA. The record was spotty,
particularly for the earlier years of NAGPRA: before
2003, we had formal and informal meetings with
about eight tribesFmore than many museums, but
less than seemed required by regulations and prac-
tices developed by National NAGPRA, and certainly
not enough given the geographic range of our collec-
tions. So we should consult, again, before submitting
our revised inventories with revised cultural affilia-
tions. Thats what we needed to do.
Who did we need to consult with? I decided to
cast our net wide in all directions: for our Mesa Verde
region collections from southwestern Colorado, we
would consult 24 tribes from the Southwest (north-
ern Arizona and northern New Mexico); for the
Eastern Colorado/Plains, 19 tribes with traditional
territories in the Plains to the northeast, east, and
southeast of Colorado; for the Western Colorado
(Fremont), 42 tribal groups from the west and north.
For Hohokam/Salado, four tribes from southern Ar-
izona plus two Pueblos that had indicated interest in
that area. Colorados two Ute tribes were also in-
cluded in each series of consultations. So thats who
we consulted with: tribes from the four directions.
my adventures in zuni
We began with the Mesa Verde area, bringing
Pueblo NAGPRA representatives to Boulder, and
communicating closely with two other Pueblos that
chose not to travel. For each of the 18 Pueblos who
visited, we reviewed ethnographic objects from
their Pueblo and region and discussed a broad range
of NAGPRA issues, but the core of the consultation
was human remains and associated objects. (Our
museum has two parallel collections: archaeologi-
cal and ethnographicFobjects collected from
living peoples.) Each consultation took two days,
with a couple of days in advance getting our inven-
tories and objects ready, and a day after to debrief
(and decompress!)Fbasically, a week. (Many more
hours, of course, went into scheduling visits and ar-
ranging travel before each consultation and writing
reports after each consultation!) As part of the Mesa
Verde area consultations, I visited the two Colorado
Ute tribes to let them know what we were doing, and
I travelled to Window Rock for a lively day with offi-
cers from the Navajo Tribal Cultural Preservation
Program. The Navajo officials were well versed in the
law (they knew NAGPRA far better than I did) and
presented their information professionally and per-
suasively. They argued that they were culturally
affiliated with native peoples from the Mesa Verde
regionFnot to the exclusion of Pueblos, but in ad-
dition to the Pueblos. It was the NavajoHopi dispute
from Chaco and the Durango Cultural Affiliation
Conference, redux. I heard them out; I am convinced
that several Navajo clans have historical knowledge of
the sites in question. (The transmission of that
knowledge is a contentious issue beyond the goals of
this essay.) I determined, based on NAGPRAs pre-
ponderance of evidence, that Navajo as a tribe or
nation was not affiliated. The officials at Window
Rock were, understandably, not happy with that
decision.
After those consultations with tribes and after
checking with other museums and agencies, I deter-
mined that all of the Pueblos shared a cultural
identity with the human remains from southwestern
Colorado. We did not include Ute and Navajo tribes.
At the request of several Pueblos, on May 1718,
2006, (funded by a National NAGPRA grant) we
hosted a two-day meeting in Albuquerque with rep-
resentatives from almost all of the Pueblos to facili-
tate their discussions on how to proceed: repatriation
187
my adventures in zuni
requests, disposition, etc. Those decisions were theirs,
not ours, to make. Word got out, and the Navajo in-
sisted that they, too, should attend. That wasnt going
to work, so I spent a rough morning arguing with
officials from Window Rock in the lobby of the con-
ference hotel, while the conference proceeded
without me. Navajo representatives joined the meet-
ing on the second half of the last day, when the
conference turned to other matters. Several people at
the meeting later assured me that I did the right
thing, but I got no joy from annoying the Navajo
officials (again), who I respect very much as individ-
uals and as skilled representatives of their Nation.
The second largest collection of human remains
with provenience information came from the Plains
of Eastern Colorado. The tribes historically most
closely associated with that area had already visited
the museum during the tenure of Lange and Wilshu-
sen, to view ethnographic collections, so we
adopted a different strategy: on May 1617, 2007, we
hosted a joint meeting in Colorado but off campus
(again, funded by a National NAGPRA grant). Every
tribe we knew that had historical and traditional in-
terests in Eastern Colorado was invitedFjust under
23 representatives from 12 tribes participated. We
determined that 19 tribes with traditional territories
in Colorados Plains shared a cultural identity with
the remains from Eastern Colorado, many of which
had only minimal context (farmers brought them in),
and others of which had excellent archaeological in-
formation. The conference was efficient (two days)
and to the point: several tribes decided, on the spot,
to request repatriation of the remains, on behalf of all
the tribes. Leading tribes drafted the request. The
other tribes had one month to consider that request,
and one tribe decided to claim, specifically, a subset
of the Eastern Colorado collection. And so it was
done: the subset to the tribe requesting, and the rest
to all tribes who signed on to the original repatria-
tion request.
During the meetings, we also met privately with
several tribes about a small number of remains that
clearly pertained to those tribes: remains from tribal
lands or remains identified in museum records as
being, specifically, from those tribes. Those separate
discussions also resulted in repatriation claims.
We wanted to make a clean sweep of Colorado,
so our next project, in 2007, focused on a smaller
188
collection from Western Colorado, nominally Fre-
mont. We looked west and north, consulting with
Ute, Paiute, Shoshone, and Bannock groups as well as
two Pueblos known to have interests in Fremont
(from high-profile Fremont NAGPRA cases in
Utah the previous year). We consulted with 23 tribes
by letter and phone. Fourteen tribes came to Boulder
for consultations, including tribal representatives
who also served on multitribal or multireservation
councilsFthey offered to report out on our face-
to-face consultations. We also contacted southern
Plains groups who had Fremont interests. We
travelled to several tribes: the Southern Ute tribe,
Navajo, Zuni, and Hopi. Ute Mountain Ute came to
Boulder, some time after. Each of those meetings was
extraordinary, in different ways. The Ute tribes were
deeply interested, of course, and one emerged later as
the leader in the repatriation. The Navajo at Window
RockFthe same people I annoyed in my earlier visit
to Window Rock and at the Albuquerque meet-
ingFwere remarkably gracious and helpful, asking
sharp questions about Fremont affiliations. At
Zuni, we met with the new governor and almost all
members of the tribal council, including the Zuni
NAGPRA representativeFan intimidating group!
But a gracious and welcoming group. It was a useful
meeting, I think, for all involved. The governor wan-
ted to see (and wanted the council to see) how a
consultation worked, and we were very impressed
with how he and the council members understood
the process. There was incisive discussion about pro-
tocols and proceduresFand what was actually at
stake. Hopi was in the midst of a crisis with San
Francisco Peaks (a compelling cultural preservation
issue), but their Cultural Preservation staff really
clarified the issues with Western Colorado Fre-
mont. I went to Kykotsmovi thinking that a broad,
shared-identity cultural affiliation with all the tribes
might be appropriate; I left convinced (by the Hopi
officials) that the remains we formally called Fre-
mont should become Culturally Unidentifiable. I
think everyone involved in NAGPRA acknowledges
that Hopi knows and understands the law.
Our final major collection with sufficient infor-
mation for cultural affiliation came from southern
Arizona: Hohokam/Salado. NAGPRA in Arizona has
become something of a well-oiled machine. The
explosive growth of Phoenix and Tucson demands

a smoothly working process, which centers on
four tribes: Ak Chin, Gila River, Salt River Pima-
Maricopa, and Tohono Oodham. NAGPRA repre-
sentatives from these tribes meet regularly as a group.
We requested a spot on their agenda and then trav-
elled to Phoenix. We also contacted Hopi (in person)
and Zuni (by telephone), two Pueblos with affilia-
tions to Salado.
Throughout all these consultationsFMesa Verde,
Eastern Colorado, Western Colorado, and Ari-
zonaFwe were thinking about human remains that
would probably become Culturally Unidentifiable:
about 40 percent of the 635 human remains at the
museum. We knew almost nothing about them, but
there was a high likelihood that they were Native
American. When we began our consultations, Cul-
turally Unidentifiable Individuals (or CUI) was a
category lacking definitions, regulations, and proce-
dures. Several museums used CUI as a dodge, assigning
as unidentifiable remains with good provenience in-
formation, which other museums might affiliate with
modern tribes. This postponed possible repatriation
because there were no regulations for dealing with
CUIs. (Regulations remained unpublished throughout
our consultations. They were published after the
NAGPRA Advisory Committee had recommended
disposition and repatriation of these remains.)
We believed our CUI remains were probably Na-
tive American (based on osteology and, in a few cases,
fragmentary documents), but we had no other infor-
mation. Where did we get these remains? Farmers
and ranchers brought in many. Others came from the
Anthropology Department, which, with the passage
of NAGPRA, divested itself of Native American re-
mains in its teaching collections. Given the history of
the museum, these remains most likely came from the
Plains, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, or the Great
Basin. Those were tribes we consulted about Mesa
Verde, Eastern Colorado, and Western Colorado. And
at each of those consultations, we reviewed our un-
identifiable remains. Despite the lack of published
regulations, a mechanism existed for repatriation:
any tribe could make a claim at any time. But I urged
the tribal representatives to wait until we had com-
pleted consultations with tribes from all directions.
Our unidentifiable remains were not all equally
unknown. A few had information. For example, we
had good geographic and even archaeological infor-
my adventures in zuni
mation on several remains from Western Colorado
(previously Fremont). Other individuals had hints
of locational data. I also included as CUIs several re-
mains from two Paleoindian sites for which we had
precise geographic dataFmy solution to the Kenne-
wick problem. In all, there were a half dozen small
collections for which we had very limited informa-
tion; but the vast majority of our CUIs had,
effectively, no information at all, beyond osteological
determinationsFand even that was often carefully,
scientifically ambiguous.
A mechanism existed for repatriation (officially:
disposition): obtaining a recommendation for dis-
position to requesting tribes from the NAGPRA
Review Committee. We discussed this with all the
tribes, and several tribes agreed to make claims. We
brought those claims to the review committees
quarterly meeting in October 2009 at Sarasota,
FLFthe last meeting (it was rumored) before final
CUI regulations would be issued. On Halloween, we
presented disposition requests and agreements for
CUI from several tribes. The committee approved the
requests (actually, the committee recommended that
the Secretary of Interior approve the tribes requests).
In the end, we consulted with 82 federally recog-
nized tribes and nations. Over half of those
consultations were face-to-face, at their place or at
ours; the rest combined letters and phone calls. With
a dozen tribes, we met multiple times because they
had interests in multiple collections.
There are still a few individuals from well outside
our region that remain to be dealt with: Wisconsin,
Kentucky, and West Virginia. (The fact that we had
clear information on these remains suggested that our
CUI really were localFthat is, from within the
museums historic collecting area.) Consultations on
those distant areas are currently underway. But with
the repatriation of the CUI, the CU Museum of Natu-
ral History has reached a milestone of sorts: in six years
(with no NAGPRA staff and no budget) we repatriated
360 culturally affiliated individuals from a wide range
of places, times, and histories. Seventeen more cultur-
ally affiliated remains await claims, which should be
forthcoming. After final approval by the Secretary of
the Interior (expected daily), 248 CUI will also be re-
patriated. Some of these remains are still on our
shelves, awaiting tribal direction for the next step.
Most are back in the ground or soon will be.
189
my adventures in zuni
All this required much hard work by Richard Wi-
lshusen, Debbie Confer, and Christie Cain of CU and
by Jan Bernstein of Bernstein Associates. That work
was possible only because of financial support from
National NAGPRAs grant program. And that work
was successful because of the time, advice, and wis-
dom of many tribal representatives and Elders.
What have I, as a practicing archaeologist, learned
from all this? A quick review: for me, from 1976 to
1990, Indians were laborers I worked with; from 1990
to 1997, Indians were intellectuals and artists who
lived lives more cosmopolitan than mine and who
tolerated my gaucheries; from 2002 to 2010, Indians
were tribal officialsFsometimes angry, often ed-
gyFwho told me how to do my job; and, of course,
Elders. Through three decades, I collaborated and
worked with many other Indians in other non-
NAGPRA capacitiesFmostly cheerful, sometimes
not. But my principal professional engagements
evolved in progression: workers, poets, NAGPRA
reps, and Elders. chaeology of the 1920s and 1930sFa credulous,
NAGPRA has changed me, professionally. And, I
suppose, personally. I am not now, nor have I ever
been overly alarmed by different people or different
cultures. I grew up moving every year or two, living in
many parts of the country and several parts of the
world, but all I knew about Indians, in 1976, came
from Hollywood and college classes. Whatever my
preconceptions, working with Chaco Navajos de-
mystified Indians. Work is a great equalizer. There
were cultural frictions, but those frictions were a
condition of work, like the weather or schedule con-
flicts or unstable wallsFhow to get this task done
while dealing with that guys issues? And, remember:
the Indians sat in the back row, with the other labor-
ers. The Santa Fe crowd turned that around. Indians
at MIAC moved on higher levels than me. Professors,
poets, artists, writers, leaders; I was just a journeyman
archaeologist. They had layers, of course, dealing with
Santa Fe while living traditional lives. At the museum,
tensions between traditional life and the outside
world became tactical arguments. Those tensions and
frictions were not merely a condition of work: they
were the focus of all our efforts. How to represent yet
respect traditional sensibilities in 20th-century insti-
tutions with 20th-century expectations? Our work at
MIAC was exploratory: uncertain, unsettled, and
(from the perspective of archaeology) ultimately
190
unsuccessful. In 2003, NAGPRA returned things to a
formal order: sometimes adversarial, seldom com-
fortable, but a process with rules and roles and
expected outcomes. Reaching those outcomes was
never straightforward, but there was a shared confi-
dence of an eventual conclusion. With NAGPRA, the
question was simple: how to get it done?
In the end, my engagement with NAGPRA was
almost entirely pragmatic. Indeed: how to get it done?
My principal role in the process was to determine
cultural affiliation of ancient remains and thus enable
affiliated tribes to request repatriation (or unaffiliated
tribes to object to their exclusion). I did my work in
consultations with tribes, considering a range of evi-
dence, of which archaeology was only one category.
But the remains were mostly obtained through ar-
chaeology, so my particular field of study shaped how
affiliations were reached. And that was a problem.
The archaeology evidently required for cultural
affiliation as spelled out in NAGPRA was the ar-
naive, quasihistorical style of archaeology that my
field had long since passed by. Pots, I was taught, do
not equal people. And I was taught correctly, I think;
yet NAGPRA required me to equate pots (and other
funerary objects) with people, indeed with specific
tribes! I was caught up in arguments over tribal affil-
iations of seventh-century pithousesFa topic that
would have flunked me out of grad school. Archaeo-
logical data were brought to bear, but NAGPRA
interpretations built on those data would not, could
not survive serious archaeological review. At least for
museum collections, NAGPRA seems to demand that
archaeology regress from 21st-century methods to
early 20th-century archaeological frameworks. This
misfit has inspired interesting theoretical discussions
of identity and ethnicity, but in practical terms a
museum deals with pots, objects, and remains (and,
sometimes, site data). The inescapable focus on pots,
ruins, and remains returns us to a time when pots and
ruins were the coin of the archaeological realm,
sometime around the early 20th centuryFdecades
before I got into this business! Consequently,
NAGPRA inspired interesting theoretical discussions
exploring new thinking about affiliation. Alas,
emerging theory does not help us meet mandated
deadlines. As a curator, I was routinely faced with an
undertheorized, insufficiently nuanced question: to

whom does this potFor personF belong? It was
that simple, times 635.
Even with modern techniques (DNA, for
exampleFall but forbidden, of course), there seldom
is certainty on these kinds of questions. NAGPRA
does not ask for certainty: the law required only a
preponderance of the evidenceFthats a legal, not
scholarly or scientific, criterion. As an archaeologist, I
firmly believe that archaeology in 1990 or 2010 can-
not, with any certainty, culturally affiliate remains
from the distant past with specific modern tribes. As
a curator, I did exactly thatFbut I turned off the
archaeology side of my brain. NAGPRA admits a
broad range of epistemologies: traditional histories,
among other lines of evidence. We turned to those
other epistemologies. Archaeology, in the end, played
a role. Archaeological culture areas (which I ques-
tion, critically, in my non-NAGPRA research)
narrowed down the tribes we should consult: Ana-
sazi directed us to the Pueblos (and a few other
tribes); Hohokam routed us to Oodham groups;
and so forth. Within those frameworks, we consulted,
considered, and affiliated.
NAGPRA isnt archaeological law. (And no one
would claim that it is!) NAGPRA is human rights law,
or property law, or Indian law. Whatever: its the law,
so we did it. I assigned cultural affiliations that were
not contradicted by the evidence but, more impor-
tantly, that allowed the process to move forward. For
example, I culturally affiliated human remains from
13th-century ruins in southwestern Colorado with all
Pueblos, but not with Navajo. There were repercus-
sions. But had I done otherwise, I believe those
remains would still be in boxes on shelves in store-
rooms in my museum. We got it done.
Doing NAGPRA was rough on my archaeologi-
cal psyche. Apologizing to tribe after tribe for a
century of archaeology; receiving more than a few
dressing-downs, very specifically about archaeologys
sins; but, more than those discomforts, wondering if
perhaps the Indians were right. Maybe archaeology
was not worth the hurt it caused native peoples. That,
more than the scolding, wore me down. I tried to
describe NAGPRA to a natural science curator at my
museum: imagine a law that requires you to contact
every creationist group in the country, and to en-
courage those groups to edit your collections,
eliminating specimens that best demonstrate evolu-
my adventures in zuni
tion; and, then, to wonder if maybe they were right. A
flawed analogy, to be sure, but a fair representation of
what NAGPRA did to me. Not much, perhaps, com-
pared with what archaeology did to Indians, but still a
matter of considerable personal interest. The years
between 2002 and 2010 were grimFperhaps the
most interesting years of my career, but years of per-
sonal and professional doubt.
When NAGPRA first became law, I was vocal in
my support; today, I am skepticalFnot about the
justice of the law but about its unfinished business
with archaeology. I am a Southwestern archaeologist,
so my thinking revolves around the Southwest. Ar-
chaeology is important in the region. Or, rather, ruins
are important: for much of the world, the Southwest
is Mesa Verde. Archaeology, until NAGPRA, told the
ruins story; Indians did not approve. I learned that
first while sparring at MIAC. Then I took a few
(mostly friendly) punches from Vine Deloria Jr. at
CU. After those warm-ups came many tough rounds
with NAGPRA representativesFme, hanging on the
ropes and covering up. The knockout landed with fi-
nal remarks at the Columbus Day 2007 opening of
the Chaco collections facility at the UNM. After a day
of celebratory presentations of state-of-the-art cabi-
nets and tidy archives, a respected Pueblo leader
ended the program thus: we should save a thousand
sherds for educational purposes and put everything
else back in the ground. Everything. All of it. Thank
you very much.
The message was not subtle: Southwestern Indi-
ans are down on archaeology. They dont need it; they
dont want it. There are, to be sure, many Indians
who are interested in archaeology (I know several)
but most Southwestern Indians I know would
preferFif somehow the possibility aroseFthat
archaeology end. Put it all back in the ground was
not just one gentlemans opinion; we hear it more
and more from Indians in the Southwest.
Thats local politics. Is there a bigger picture?
There is: a broader field of archaeology, beyond local
politics and national laws, which encompasses all the
worlds histories and prehistories. I work in the
Southwest because I like the climate and love the land
and because the ancient Southwest might add useful
things to the larger field of archaeology. Does South-
western archaeology produce ideas, information,
insights that outweigh the damage it does (or did) to
191
my adventures in zuni
natives? In the face of Indian anger, its hard to dem-
onstrate any Larger Truths revealed by my field. Most
of what we do seems trivial: fine-tuning chronologies,
digging redundant ruins, answering questions of in-
terest only to a graduate student and that students
advisor. (I exempt Cultural Resource Management
from this discussion.) Yellow Jacket, for example, was
a huge Mesa Verde village excavated long ago by my
museum, producing our single biggest NAGPRA
collection. Rina Swentzell (with whom I worked at
MIAC) reviewed a 1986 book on Yellow Jacket. The
book concluded, The Anasazi must have felt very at
home here. Why, Swentzell asked, did the land, tellectual program often gets lost in the regions
the place, the spirit of the people have to be subjected
to digging and disturbance to arrive at such a mean-
ingless conclusion?
A good question but bad for me in 2003. Our
NAGPRA consultations began the same year I got se-
rious about writing a book, A History of the Ancient
Southwest, looking critically at my field. Reviews and
edits and revisions continued through January 2008,
when the final draft went to SAR Press (which pub-
lished the book in July 2009). I wrote that book at
the same time I was up to my neck in NAGPRA.
NAGPRA was robustly political and discouraging.
A History of the Ancient Southwest was ivory-tower
intellectual and discouraging.
The book told, in parallel narratives, the develop-
ment of Southwestern archaeology and the histories of
the ancient peoples of the SouthwestFas known
through archaeology. I picked apart the history of my
field to evaluate the conventional histories we told
about the ancient people. That led to a new, uncon-
ventional ancient history and to serious questions
about my field. There were unpleasant skeletons in our
closet. Our basic premises were established in the late
19th century. They were racist and colonial. Through
constant repetition and rote learning, those premises
passed from generation to generation of archaeolo-
gists. Washed clean of their original sins, they still color
our views of the ancient SouthwestFwhat was possi-
ble, what was likelyFeven though archaeologists
today are absolutely NOT racist and strive hard to get
past colonialism. Those premises are still in force,
limiting contributions that Southwestern archaeology
could make to the larger world of archaeology and to a
broader understanding of human history. The terrible
thing is this: the inherited premises make the ancient
192
Southwest boring when, in fact, it wasnt. (Details
would make this essay twice as long.)
I finished the book and more-or-less finished with
NAGPRA at about the same time. Ive learned a lot
from both. My views have changedFbut not about
archaeology. Archaeology, I think, is a legitimate field
of study, informed and refreshed by ideas and infor-
mation from many directionsFincluding but not
limited to collaborations with Native Americans.
Southwestern archaeology shares the same promise as
Aegean archaeology or Maya archaeology or Shang
archaeology. The Southwests place in that larger in-
specific social, historical, and legal complexi-
tiesFand in our practices: Southwestern archaeology
has, for over a century, been inward focused. We sel-
dom take our data to larger questions or even to
larger regions. NAGPRA doesnt help archaeology;
the law promotes or intensifies Southwestern pro-
vincialism by zooming down to the most local of
issues, cultural affiliation.
Politics are local, but knowledgeFideally, at
leastFshould be universal. Thats my ideal; many
traditional communities feel (justifiably) that tradi-
tions are not necessarily public. NAGPRA did not
drive me toward inclusive epistemologiesFthe evi-
dence categories in NAGPRA are stubbornly distinct,
all but unmixable. I remain a largely undeconstructed
archaeologistFbut not unrepentant or irresponsible.
Archaeology has responsibilities: legal responsibilities
under NAGPRA and ethical responsibilities to the
modern descendants of the ancient people we study.
But we also have responsibilities to those ancient peo-
ple: to tell their story as best we can, even if that story
(as we tell it) might sometimes conflict with modern
images of the past or with the traditions of descendent
communities.
NAGPRA made me hard on myselfFand on my
field. (My colleagues have noticed.) If what we do is
in fact trivial, then we should hang up our trowels
and find something else to do. Of course much of
archaeology appears trivial or uninteresting: any field
of scholarship involves a great deal of detail work and
minutia. But out of that vast body of facts and
data, Southwestern archaeology should sometimes
demonstrateFindeed, must demonstrateFthat its
learning really interesting things. What do I mean
by really interesting things? Interesting to other

archaeologists is not enough. (A fair criticism from
many Indians: archaeologists write only for each
other.) Really interesting things would be new ideas,
new insights, new information that inform scholars in
other disciplines, engage the thinking public,
andFperhapsFintrigue Indians. Its important to
note that really interesting things can be learned
from museum collections, including human remains.
Really interesting things: every archaeologist I
know tries to do that or acknowledges that it should
be done, with occasional success. But, as a field,
Southwestern archaeology isnt getting it done. We do
not demonstrate that what we do is worth doing.
(Again, I exclude CRM.) Most agencies, much of the
public, and many scholars favor Indians undeniable
human rights agendas over archaeologys esoteric,
often inchoate goalsFIm pretty sure thats an accu-
rate read. To use an antiquated term, we must
reestablish our scholarly authority in a post-NAGPRA
world, by placing our work in a global contextFby
getting our heads OUT of the SouthwestFor some-
day soon it may all go back into the ground.
Perhaps thats where it belongs.
my adventures in zuni
note
After this article was accepted for publication, the
Secretary of the Interior approved 150 of our Cultu-
rally Unidentified human remains for disposition,
but determined that 78 were not proven to be Native
American.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Debbie Confer, Christie Cain, and Jan Bern-
stein for vetting this article for dates, places, etc. Rich
Wilshusen and Jen Shannon also corrected factual and
grammatical errors. Three reviewers offered cogent and
useful comments, as did the editors of Museum Anthro-
pology. Thanks! These people improved the prose, but
none should be blamed for my ideas. Thanks, also, to Na-
tional NAGPRA for financial support and guidance to the
University of Colorado Museum. National NAGPRA, of
course, is not implicated in any way for the contents or
opinions in this article! And my profound thanks to the
many Native Americans who, with amazing grace and as-
tonishing patience, suffered through my ignorance and
(unintended) boorishness. I dont mean to be a cultural
klutz; its just something my people do.
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