In the Smaller Scope of Conscience: The Struggle for National Repatriation Legislation, 1986–1990

7. The Biggest Thing We Have Ever Done

139 chapter seven The Biggest Thing We Have Ever Done The number of repatriation bills ostensibly under consideration when Congress reconvened after the August 1990 recess had grown from the single ill-fated effort introduced without a cosponsor by Montana Senator John Melcher in the waning days 99th Congress, to seven different measures sponsored by five different senators and representatives and cosponsored by fifty-eight of their colleagues. In the Senate, John McCain’s Native American Grave and Burial Protection Act, S. 1021, though still technically under consideration by the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, had been effectively superseded by Daniel Inouye’s S. 1980, the Native American Repatriation and Cultural Patrimony Act. In the House of Representatives, two bills under consideration by the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee—Charles Bennett’s Native American Burial Site Preservation Act, H.R. 1381, and Morris Udall’s Native American Grave and Burial Protection Act, H.R. 1646—had likewise been superseded by H.R. 5237, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), also introduced by Udall. Senator Wyche Fowler’s bill (S. 1579) to amend the National Historic Preservation Act, Historic Sites Act, Archaeological Resources Protection Act, and Abandoned Shipwrecks Act, which also included repatriation provisions, had been referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and Representative Bennett’s companion bill, H.R. 3412, had been referred to the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. With the end of the congressional session in sight, the Senate and House began to narrow 140 • In the Smaller Scope of Conscience their focus in the hope of passing some type of comprehensive repatriation legislation in the 101st Congress. Some in the Native American community also recognized that the multiple bills under consideration were beginning to stand in the way of any agreement among the Native American, archeological, and museum communities. On August 20, Walter Echo-Hawk took steps on behalf of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) to reduce the number of repatriation bills in play. “While we greatly appreciate the well intentioned effort of S. 1579,” Echo-Hawk wrote to Senator Fowler, “we respectfully recommend that the repatriation language of Section 112 be dropped in favor of, or in deference to, the more comprehensive treatment of these issues in S. 1980 and H.R. 5237 which are now moving through Congress .”1 As congressional focus began to narrow, subgroups of the No-Name Alliance of scientific and museum organizations and certain federal agency representatives began independent efforts to affect the proposed legislation . Jack Trope recalled that even though there was considerable momentum behind passage of a repatriation bill, there was a “window of opportunity ” of which the Native American representatives needed to take advantage . “There were some influential people in the museum and scientific communities that were very much opposed to a bill,” he recalled. “We were also aware of the old truism that it is far easier to block a bill, then to pass one. The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the American Association of Museumes (AAM) were feeling the pressure and were willing to negotiate. We decided that the best strategy was to negotiate modest changes to build consensus behind the bill to maximize its chances for passage.”2 SAA Negotiations The SAA began negotiating separately with Native American representatives in early August. “I talked with Walter Echo-Hawk about working together to change S. 1980,” reported the SAA’s Keith Kintigh. “He appreciated the initiative and said that if we could agree on ANYTHING, we should do it.”3 Kintigh faxed draft comments to the NARF.4 Echo-Hawk’s skepticism about working out an agreement with the SAA was reflected in his handwritten question on the fax coversheet forwarding the proposal to the Association for American Indian Affairs (AAIA). “Jack, Is there anything here we can agree to?”5 Trope identified a number of proposals on The Biggest Thing We Have Ever Done • 141 which the two sides agreed. He and Kintigh talked at length on August 30, with Kintigh reporting that “we both agreed that we would like to have a bill that our organizations could support and that we weren’t far away from that.”6 Representatives of the SAA, NARF, and AAIA met in Washington on September 6 to develop a joint set of recommended changes to Inouye ’s S. 1980. One of the principal proposals was...