Deb Fuller writes

         " Speaking of religious artifacts, how come it is okay to display
mainstream religious artifacts like crosses, Stars of David or Korans but
not anything that's "Aboriginal"?  I can see removing something if a culture
does not want it to be displayed but should we not display any of these
artifacts in the first place?  I think that is a little extreme.

        Different cultures give their own meaning to their own objects than
people from outside that culture.


         " To me, it depends on how old these things are and how they were
acquired.  After several hundred or even thousand years, I don't think any
tribe or people has claim over artifacts"
          I would be laughed at if I went back to my family's ancestral
lands in England (if I knew where they were in the first place) and demanded
that "my people" be returned to me.  The relation between me and my
"ancestors" that lived hundreds of years ago is like 1/1000th or less.  Why
are we trying to go to great lengths for native peoples who have a 1/1000th
connection or less to their ancestors?  "

        Different cultures give their own meaning to their own objects than
people from outside that culture. Example, Aboriginal Australian culture is
now estimated at least around 50,000 years  and todays links and meaning to
that past are not decreased or seen as invalid because another culture
detemines that Western notions of time is revelant to cultural significance.

> Case in point, a man came in on archaeology day to my school's archaeology
> lab with a box of Southwestern native american artifacts that he had
> bought off an Indian in Nevada.  A local Indian woman looked at the
> artifacts with great reverance and wanted him to give them to local tribe
> to be reburried.  I wanted to say, "What claim do you have on the
> artifacts of a tribe all the way across the US, especially when they were
> freely sold by another Native American?"  That's like a Frenchman making a
> claim on an Irish artifact because they're both European.  It's that kind
> of blanket treatment to anything native or aboriginal that really irks me
> and makes me think that museums have now swung the other way in the realms
> of "PC".
>
        Different cultures give their own meaning to their own objects than
people from outside that culture. Links and meaning are not invalid because
another culture detemines HOW OR WHY OR WHAT is revelant and culturally
significant.

> There are tons of artifacts that were freely given by native peoples to
> other people who then donated them to museums, many were given over a
> hundred years ago.  Why do tribes today have claims on those artifacts?
> Again, I think they have a right to ask that they not be displayed because
> of religious reasons, but not to be returned if the artifact was freely
> given up or donated.
>
        Different cultures give their own meaning to their own objects and
history than people from outside that culture.

        It aint nothing to do with PC - Just being sensitive to other
cultures and mindful of your own yardsticks.

        Melissa Neidorf
        Associate Coordinator of Exhibitions
        Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
        New York, NY

        (These are my opinions only)

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