The Denver Art Museum has followed NAGPRA since its launch in the 1990s and the Native Arts team is committed to ensuring the museum remains in compliance. Even beyond repatriation as legally mandated by NAGPRA, the DAM is proactively exploring its own policies and protocols that formalize the process for voluntarily returning cultural materials that sit outside the legal requirements of NAGPRA. If you would like more information about NAGPRA, please visit their website.
Specifically related to the artworks that are the focus of the Native Arts team’s interactions with the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (CCTHITA), the DAM contacted Tlingit officials as recently as 2023, well prior to recent reporting, to determine if the tribe was planning to submit claims under NAGPRA and offer its support in the submission process. We have also been in touch on numerous occasions since that time expressing our willingness to work with them on claims, and our work together is moving forward.
Today, our NAGPRA work is ongoing in partnership with Indigenous communities. Our approach and processes have evolved over the years as we have learned from cultural advisors and acquired more knowledge. This is largely attributed to our collaborative work with originating communities who have graciously shared their knowledge, histories, and protocols with our teams.
The main goal for NAGPRA legislation is repatriation, but there are many additional outcomes that start with the NAGPRA consultation process. Even if objects aren't eligible for repatriation or if a community is not seeking repatriation, there are still many benefits to coming to a consultation, such as establishing long-term and reciprocal relationships and developing partnerships and projects between the museum and the community. In all consultations we host at DAM, regardless of their purpose, our goal is to end the day with a stronger relationship than where it began. Also, making collections available to community members is a top priority, so to support our communities, museum teams arrange access to the information and materials they request, sharing provenance information freely and openly. Native community members are consulted and engaged in the museum’s research and planning of the presentation of Native American, First Nations, Inuit, Alaska Native, and Metis objects, and these consultations guide what we do.
This spring, museum staff has hosted and consulted representatives from three Indigenous Nations and wrote a letter of support for a grant application to underwrite costs for a tribal delegation to travel to Denver for a NAGPRA consultation in the future.
The DAM has a long history of working closely with Indigenous communities in our ongoing work collecting, conserving, and presenting important artworks by Native artists. Up until now, our actions and policies have been shaped and guided by an internal Policy on Collections Use and Repatriation of Culturally Sensitive Materials, written in collaboration with Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee) and Jhon Goes in Center (Oglala Lakota), and formally adopted by DAM’s board, in 1994. However, with the release of the new NAGPRA regulations, and in light of the recently recounted experiences of the CCTHITA, we are reviewing and updating our guidelines to ensure they align not only with the new regulations, but with the wishes and long-term well-being of Native communities. We support the spirit and the ongoing efforts of NAGPRA, which afford us a wonderful opportunity to connect and be in dialogue with Native communities.
We acknowledge that consultations with museums can be challenging. They are often emotional experiences and can be traumatizing for community members based on hundreds of years of colonialism and distrust of colonial institutions. Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and NAGPRA representatives have incredibly difficult and demanding jobs as they navigate these spaces. Due to this, we at DAM aim to work in good faith with care, respect, and a shared goal of doing the right thing to support the communities with whom we build these relationships.
