Listeros (and conservators in particular):

An question has arisen in regard to a tribal museum for which tribe I am a sometime historical/cultural/NAGPRA consultant.

The museum building [which has no secure storage, only exhibition and office space] also houses the tribal NAGPRA offices. When they (the latter) receive repatriated artifacts (not burials), they often "smudge" them, smoke them as a blessing (and to fumigate them, if you will) with cedar or sage smoke. [An off-site secure storage for the NAGPRA items is available.]

The museum director, a tribal member and trained archaeologist, but not a long-time community resident, has issued a "burn ban" on any smudging in the building. This has upset the NAGPRA committee.

What say ye:

Is the occasional exposure [e.g., perhaps once every twenty years per artifact] of artifacts to cedar/sage smoke necessarily harmful? One of the tribe's NAGPRA board, a trained ornithologist, and the source of the above "fumigation" comment, suggests that it might be beneficial for items that have not been kept in ideal collections conditions. [I am also told that an examination of the building's blue prints shows that the exhibition space and the office space [i.e., museum and NAGPRA spaces] are on separate and distinct HVAC circuits.]

Thomas Kavanagh, PhD