Sacred Claims: Repatriation and Living Tradition (review)

Sacred Claims: Repatriaton and Living Tradition by Greg Johnson addresses the often contentious world of NAGPRA implementation. In specific, Johnson focuses on the manner in which "tradition," or more accurately "living tradition," is used to bolster repatriation claims. Johnson's primary argument is that "traditions" are neither static nor inherently embedded in material objects, but are lived and are "located in the contemporary dispute surrounding the objects" (153). The invocation of tradition is therefore utilized as a "discursive strategy" (154) in repatriation debates and as a result "tradition" is not really about truth, but about "truth claims" (2). Additionally, Johnson argues that repatriation debates are no longer about Native activism versus non-Native interests, but instead have shifted to an "ambiguous arena of identity contestation unfolding at many levels" (5). According to Johnson this shift is not only central to understanding repatriation claims, but also dramatically underanalyzed within the scholarly literature.

To help remedy this lack of analysis, Johnson provides a close read of documents and testimony relating to the history of NAGPRA along with a series of case studies of contentious repatriation disputes. Many of the case studies are located in a Hawaiian context, where Johnson has conducted much of his research. Other studies include contentious repatriations involving the Ute and "Anasazi" cultural sites, and the Smithsonian's repatriation of human remains to the Southern Cheyenne Nation from the site of the Sand Creek Massacre. Johnson's interest in the "sacred" is refl ected in his analysis of these cases, where he consistently argues that the invocation of religion and tradition by Indigenous groups is used to provide the claimants authority in repatriation disputes. Johnson is also clear to note, however, that "it is analytically useful to assume that all religious claims are human and only human, emerging from the present for the purposes of the present, and are therefore ideological in the fullest sense" (23). As a result of this analytical framework, much of Johnson's language in Sacred Claims reflects notions of agency, performance, and invention rather than truth or stasis. Furthermore, to emphasize his assertion that repatriation debates are no longer primarily about Native activism versus non-Native interests, Johnson's analysis of identity contestation focuses on disputes between and within Indigenous groups (rather than with non-Native groups), such as the disagreements that arose within the Cheyenne during the Sand Creek repatriations.

Sacred Claims is most useful in Chapters 3 and 4 when Johnson discusses the legislative history of NAGPRA from its 1987 beginnings as bill S. 187 in the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs (SSCIA) to its eventual passage in 1990. Those who have neither the time nor the inclination to read the thousands of pages of history, debates, and testimony that led to the passage of NAGPRA will find Johnson's summary very beneficial. Chapter 3 traces the early discussions around bill S. 187, focusing on the role that the discourse of human rights and religion eventually came to play in the formation of NAGPRA. Chapter 4 looks more specifically at the battles that ensued over the definition of "cultural affiliation," what Johnson notes as "the law's axial term" (65). Most notable in this chapter is discussion of the vigorous attempts by such groups as the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the American Association of Museums (AAM) to severely limit the scope of "cultural affiliation." The testimony from these groups that is included in Sacred Claims seems particularly relevant given that much of this language has reappeared in the SAA's comments regarding the recently proposed regulations on culturally unidentifiable human remains (CUHRs), demonstrating how little has changed in the past two decades.

The rest of the book, while providing interesting case studies and background, suffers from two primary problems. The first centers on Johnson's imprecise use of language. Johnson provides little discussion on what exactly he means by the terms sacred, religious, and tradition. The vagueness and nuance of these terms is not addressed and in fact Johnson seems...