Nikkie,
This is definitely a touchy subject and you're right in being concerned
about accepting any human remains with ambiguous provenience.

I think you're on the right track with the comments you've already
provided him. We get around NAGPRA-type donations here by explaining to
potential donors that we have a strict policy of not accepting anything
that could potentially be considered under NAGPRA (unless there are
arrangements made with the local Native groups to remove something
culturally significant from the private collecting circuit). For us
this usually includes objects knowingly owned/used by shamans, things
with clan symbols (for Tlingit & Haida) that could be construed at
potlatch regalia (and thus potentially objects of cultural patrimony),
or unassociated funerary objects (typically things that were removed
from the tops of graves by past collectors). For this type of thing, we
usually don't have to explain any more than that.

If they  insist on more info, explain to them the amount of work you
would have to go to and (more relevant for their board member friends)
the expense of having the skulls identified (you could inform him that
when it comes to human remains, heresay is not enough evidence for
NAGPRA) by physical anthropologists. Then there are all the
notifications that you are required to do if they do turn out to be
Native American... perhaps by this point he'll understand where you're
coming from.

Besides, are human remains within the mission of your museum? If not,
that's the quick and easy answer.

Hope that helps a bit-
Angela Linn

Angela J. Linn
Collections Manager, Ethnology & History
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Drive
P.O. Box 756960
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960
TEL: (907) 474-1828
FAX: (907) 474-5469

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