CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — 

For 400 years, Indigenous North Americans flocked to a group of ceremonial sites in what is present-day Ohio to celebrate their culture and honor their dead. On Saturday, the sheer magnitude of the ancient Hopewell culture's reach was lifted up as enticement to a new set of visitors from around the world.

"We stand upon the shoulders of geniuses, uncommon geniuses who have gone before us. That's what we are here about today," Chief Glenna Wallace, of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, told a crowd gathered at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park to dedicate eight sites there and elsewhere in southern Ohio that became UNESCO World Heritage sites last month.

She said the honor means that the world now knows of the genius of the Native Americans, whom the 84-year-old grew up seeing histories, textbooks and popular media call "savages."

Wallace commended the innumerable tribal figures, government officials and local advocates who made the designation possible, including late author, teacher and local park ranger Bruce Lombardo, who once said, "If Julius Caesar had brought a delegation to North America, they would have gone to Chillicothe."

"That means that this place was the center of North America, the center of culture, the center of happenings, the center for Native Americans, the center for religion, the center for spirituality, the center for love, the center for peace," Wallace said. "Here, in Chillicothe. And that is what Chillicothe represents today."

The massive Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks — described as "part cathedral, part cemetery and part astronomical observatory" — comprise ancient sites spread across 150 kilometers south and east of Columbus, including one located on the grounds of a private golf course and country club. The designation puts the network of mounds and earthen structures in the same category as wonders of the world including Greece's Acropolis, Peru's Machu Picchu and the Great Wall of China.

The presence of materials such as obsidian, mica, seashells and shark teeth made clear to archaeologists that ceremonies held at the sites some 2,000 to 1,600 years ago attracted Indigenous peoples from across the continent.

The inscription ceremony took place against the backdrop of Mound City, a sacred gathering place and burial ground that sits just steps from the Scioto River. Four other sites within the historical park — Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, Highbank Park Earthworks and Hopeton Earthworks — join Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve in Oregonia and Great Circle Earthworks in Heath to comprise the network.

"My wish on this day is that the people who come here from all over the world, and from Ross County, all over Ohio, all the United States — wherever they come from — my wish is that they will be inspired, inspired by the genius that created these, and the perseverance and the long, long work that it took to create them," Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said. "They're awe-inspiring."

Nita Battise, tribal council vice chair of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, said she worked at the Hopewell historical park 36 years ago — when they had to beg people to come visit. She said many battles have been won since then.

"Now is the time, and to have our traditional, our ancestral sites acknowledged on a world scale is phenomenal," she said. "We always have to remember where we came from, because if you don't remember, it reminds you."

Kathy Hoagland, whose family has lived in nearby Frankfort, Ohio, since the 1950s, said the local community "needs this," too.

"We need it culturally, we need it economically, we need it socially," she said. "We need it in every way."

Hoagland said having the eyes of the world on them will help local residents "make friends with our past," boost their businesses and smooth over political divisions.

"It's here. You can't take this away, and so, therefore, it draws us all together in a very unique way," she said. "So, that's the beauty of it. Everyone lays all of that aside, and we come together."

National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, the first Native American to hold that job, said holding up the accomplishments of the ancient Hopewells for a world audience will "help us tell the world the whole story of America and the remarkable diversity of our cultural heritage."

WASHINGTON — 

GAO: Federal agencies not living up to NAGPRA requirements

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) became law more than three decades ago, banning the removal of Native American cultural items from federal and tribal lands and calling on all federal and federally funded institutions to repatriate Native American human remains and funerary items.

A new Government Accountability Office report shows that 617 institutions across the United States continue to hold the remains of 104,539 Native Americans and nearly 2,620,000 funerary objects and have failed to meet their obligations under NAGPRA.

Read more:

California to crack down on NAGPRA noncompliance

In a related story, California Governor Gavin Newsom this week signed two bills to ensure the state’s public universities make NAGPRA a priority.

The California state auditor estimates that the California University system’s 21 campuses hold more than 698,000 items. Half of those campuses have not yet inventoried their holdings. More than half have not repatriated any items to tribes. Two campuses which have repatriated items failed to follow NAGPRA guidelines. Most cite a lack of funding and oversight.

Assembly bill (AB) 226 “strongly” urges the University of California to fund repatriation efforts in all its campuses and report on their progress. It also “strongly” urges a ban on using Native American remains and cultural items in teaching or research.

AB 389 requires the university to adopt and implement a systemwide NAGPRA policy and to create a NAGPRA oversight committee made up of “at least a majority” of tribe members.

Assemblymember James C. Ramos authored both bills. He is a lifelong resident of the San Manuel Indian Reservation and a member of the Serrano-Cahuilla tribe. In 2018, Ramos became the first California Native American to serve in the state assembly.

Feds agree to rebuild destroyed site in Oregon

In 2008, while adding a turn lane to an Oregon highway, the federal government bulldozed a site sacred to local Native American tribes, against the tribes’ objections.

The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde then sued the government, alleging that the destruction of their sacred site violated federal laws protecting religious freedom.

The case wound its way through federal courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 5, federal authorities reached a landmark settlement agreement to replant and maintain trees it destroyed, help tribes rebuild a ceremonial stone altar and guarantee access to the site.

In the video (above), produced in 2015 by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty which represented the tribes, tribe members explain the site's spiritual significance.

Read more:

Maine tribes: Undo edits of original constitution

On Indigenous Peoples Day, a coalition of Wabanaki tribes in the state of Maine rallied at the statehouse, calling on Maine voters to say “yes” to a proposal to restore language that has been missing from printed versions of the state’s constitution since 1876.

“It’s just about transparency, truth and restoration of our history,” Maulian Bryant, Penobscot Nation ambassador and president of the Wabanaki Alliance, told participants.

Maine was originally part of the then-Commonwealth of Massachusetts and did not achieve statehood until 1820. Article X section 7 of the original Maine constitution required Maine to “assume and perform all the duties and obligations of this Commonwealth towards the Indians.”

In other words, Maine would honor any treaties and agreements Wabanaki tribes had previously negotiated with Massachusetts.

But in 1875, possibly to hide its obligations to tribes, Maine lawmakers amended the constitution, striking that language from all printed copies. It should be noted, however, that the obligations remain in full force.

On November 7, voters will be asked whether they support restoring that section to print.

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Researchers: Mental health profession must rethink treatment of Native Americans

A new report from the American Psychological Association calls on the mental health profession to develop treatment approaches based on Native American and Native Alaskan values and worldviews.

It quotes Harvard University’s Joseph Gone, an expert in global health and social medicine, who says it’s time for researchers and mental health practitioners to drop mainstream approaches and embrace “cultural humility” to avoid misdiagnosing Native Americans.

“Our way of life was considered hopelessly backwards and savage, and we were expected to become farmers and ranchers and learn reading, writing, and arithmetic,” Gone said. “The deep damage from the loss of identity contributed to postcolonial disorders such as suicide, trauma, and addiction.”

Read more:

Indigenous communities work to revitalize languages

This week, the International Conference on Indigenous Language Documentation, Education, and Revitalization (ICILDER) convened in Bloomington, Indiana, to share experiences and best practices for revitalizing Indigenous languages.

Today, only about 20% of languages once spoken across the Americans remain. VOA’s Steve Herman reported this week on efforts by one group in South Dakota to ensure the Lakota language will survive for future generations.

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U.S. national park officials are planning to gather and reduce the bison herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the northern state of North Dakota, rehoming the animals to a number of Native American tribes.

The "bison capture" is scheduled to start on Saturday and continue through the week in the park's South Unit near Medora. The operation will be closed to the public for safety reasons.

The park plans to reduce its roughly 700 bison to 400. The park will remove bison of differing ages.

Bison removed from the park will be rehomed and come under tribal management, InterTribal Buffalo Council Executive Director Troy Heinert told The Associated Press.

The bison will provide genetic diversity and increase numbers of existing tribal herds, he said. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will receive bison; more bison could go to other tribes, depending on demographics, said Heinert, who is Sicangu Lakota.

A helicopter will herd bison into a holding area, following a survey of the landscape and a population count of the animals.

The park alternates captures every year between its North Unit and South Unit to maintain the numbers of the herd due to limited space and grazing and for herd health reasons, Deputy Superintendent Maureen McGee-Ballinger told the AP.

sells, arizona — 

The Tohono O'odham Nation in the southern U.S. state of Arizona on Friday blasted the decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office not to prosecute Border Patrol agents who shot and killed a member of the tribe after they were summoned by tribal police.

Body camera footage released in June by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that the agents who fatally shot Raymond Mattia were concerned the 58-year-old may have been carrying a handgun. But no firearm was found.

The tribe's executive office called the decision not to file charges “a travesty of justice.”

“There are countless questions left unanswered by this decision. As a result, we cannot and will not accept the U.S. Attorney’s decision,” said a statement signed by Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose and Vice Chairwoman Carla L. Johnson.

The statement said the tribe may request Congressional inquiries into Mattia's death. Mattia was killed the night of May 18 outside a home in the reservation’s Menagers Dam community near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement this week that its employees met with Mattia's family and their attorneys in Sells on September 19 to explain the decision.

“The agents' use of force under the facts and circumstances presented in this case does not rise to the level of a federal criminal civil rights violation or a criminal violation assimilated under Arizona law,” the office concluded.

“We stand by our conclusion, and we hear the Chairman’s frustration,” the statement added.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond Friday to emails requesting comment.

The shooting occurred after Border Patrol agents were called to the area by the Tohono O’odham Nation Police Department for help responding to a report of shots fired.

Body camera footage shows Mattia throwing a sheathed machete at the foot of a tribal officer and then holding out his arm. After Mattia was shot and on the ground, an agent declares: “He’s still got a gun in his hand.”

CBP said earlier that the three Border Patrol agents who opened fire and at least seven others at the scene were wearing body cameras and activated them during the shooting.

The Pima County Medical Examiner's Office reported that Mattia had nine gunshot wounds.

SACRAMENTO, California — 

Governor Gavin Newsom signed two laws Tuesday intended to compel California's public university systems to make progress in their review and return of Native American remains and artifacts.

Decades-old state and federal legislation, known as repatriation laws, require government entities to return these items to tribes. Those artifacts could include prayer sticks or wolves' skins that have been used for ceremonies. But the state auditor found in recent years that many campuses have not done so due to a lack of funding or of clear protocols from chancellors' offices.

Democratic Assembly member James C. Ramos, the first Native American in the California Legislature, said campuses' failure to return remains to tribes has denied "the Indian people the right to bring closure to family issues and historical trauma."

"We're still dealing with a state that has not come to terms with its history — deplorable history and treatment towards California's first people," Ramos said.

The laws require the California State University system and urge the University of California system to annually report their progress to review and return Native American remains and artifacts to tribes.

In 2019, Newsom issued a state apology for California's mistreatment of and violence against Native Americans throughout history. The repatriation proposals were among the hundreds of bills lawmakers sent to the Democratic governor's desk this year.

A report published by the state auditor in 2020 found that the University of California system did not have adequate policies for returning these remains and artifacts. The Los Angeles campus, for example, returned nearly all of these items while the Berkeley campus returned only about 20% of them. The auditor's office has since found that the system has made some progress.

For years, the University of California, Berkeley, failed to return remains to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. It was not until 2018 that the university returned 1,400 remains to the tribe, according to the state's Native American Heritage Commission.

Kenneth Kahn, the tribe's chairman, said it is "appalling" that campuses have held onto Native American remains for so long and disappointing that "it's taking law" to get many universities to work to return these items.

"There certainly has been progress, but they've been under duress," Kahn said. "We've been asking for years."

More than half of the 21 California State University campuses with collections of Native American remains or cultural artifacts on campus have not returned any of the items to tribes, the state auditor's office said in a report released in June.

Some campuses have these items because they've been used in the past for archeological research, but these laws nudge the University of California and require California State University to ban them from being used for that purpose.

The University of California did not take a position on the legislation focused on its system but is committed to "appropriately and respectfully" returning Native American remains and artifacts to tribes, Ryan King, a spokesperson for the president's office, said in an email. The university system already bans these materials from being used for research "unless specifically approved" by tribes, he said. University of California released a systemwide policy in 2021 for complying with repatriation laws.

California State University supported the law setting requirements for its system and is working to teach employees about requirements to inventory and handle remains and artifacts, said Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson for the chancellor's office.