Download Case of the Missing Brain Laura Bruns ANTHRO 4312 Dr. Michael

Case of the Missing Brain 1
Laura Bruns
ANTHRO 4312
Dr. Michael Ohnersorgen
11 December 2012
The Case of the Missing Brain: Ishi and the Flaws of the Repatriation Process
The repatriation process was created with the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This piece of legislature was enacted in 1989. It mostly deals
with the repatriation of Native American human remains and cultural items. The word
repatriation itself means “giving back.” (King, 2008: 381) This process, however, is not perfect
and has been amended twice since it was passed. Like any piece of legislature, there are
examples where the law has worked very well and others where it has not in creating a good faith
working relationship with the Native American tribes. This is the case for NAGPRA as well.
These “bad” cases usually involve a conflict of cultural values or ethics. One such case would be
that of Ishi, the last of the Yahi. In this case, his brain was taken after his death to the
Smithsonian Institute for study despite the fact that it was known Ishi would most likely not
approve. When NAGPRA was passed, the organ was overlooked when the anthropologists were
conducting their inventories and left in a warehouse in Maryland. This oversight and the actions
that followed it are examples of how good-faith interactions between archaeologists and Native
American tribes are essential for this process to work and if not carefully maintained could be
destroyed with thoughtless actions.
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The Repatriation Process
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act became law on November
16, 1990. It has since been amended twice since. The law not only deals with the treatment and
ownership of the Native American human remains and cultural items but also deals with the
intentional and unintentional excavations of and removal of Native American remains and
cultural items. Along with these two situations, the Act also deals with the illegal trafficking of
Native American human remains and cultural items. This Act only pertains to museums and
federal agencies with Native American collections that are federally funded, however. Sections
five and six of NAGPRA describe how museums and federal agencies are to create inventories
of their collections. It is section seven of the Act that deals with the repatriation process and
gives instructions on how the museums and federal agencies are supposed to proceed (“Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act”, 1990).
Section five of NAGPRA describes in detail how the museums and federal agencies are
to compile their inventories of Native American human remains and cultural items. The
inventories must include any information gathered on the items to determine the geographical
location and cultural affiliation for them. NAGPRA defines as the “relationship of shared group
identity which can be reasonably traced historically or prehistorically between a present day
Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization (NHO) and an identifiable earlier group.” These
inventories must be completed within five years, which means it was supposed to be completed
by 1995, and done in consultation with the tribal governments and leaders. They are also to be
made available to a review committee during and after the inventories are being conducted. The
museums and federal agencies are to provide more information and documentation on the
remains and cultural items when a Native American tribe or NHO requests. If the cultural items
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are found to have cultural affiliation, the museums or federal agencies are supposed to contact
the affiliated tribe or NHO within six months of completion of the inventory. A notice of the
Native American human remains or cultural item must also be sent to the Federal Register
(“Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” 1990: 172-74).
In Section Six of NAGPRA, each federal agency that has cultural items has to provide a
summary of each item based on the information available. These summaries should describe the
collection and the kinds of cultural items that are in it. The summary should also mention the
geographical location that the items were found, when it was found, and how they were acquired
along with the cultural affiliation. These summaries were supposed to be completed by 1993.
As with the inventories, access to the information and requests for more information is
welcomed from Native American tribes and NHOs and should be provided in a timely manner
(“Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” 1990: 174-75).
Section Seven deals with the actual repatriation process. Human remains and cultural
items will be returned within ninety days after they are requested for by a Native American tribe
or NHO if they are found to have a cultural affiliation. This means that a human remain must be
a lineal descendant of a tribe and the cultural items have to have cultural affiliation as well. If an
item is found to be unassociated with any tribes, then the tribes will have to show cultural
affiliation. All items and human remains will be returned to the lineal descendant tribe or
organization and it is the tribe or organization that will determine the place and manner of
delivery, not the museum. If cultural affiliation has not been determined or if the item has not
been included on an inventory and a tribe has requested it then the museum or federal agency
must return it unless they can prove that it does not have cultural affiliation with that tribe.
There could be multiple tribes claiming cultural affiliation with an item or remain. If this is the
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case, then the museum or agency has the right to keep the item until cultural affiliation can be
determined. If a tribe can prove that the museum or agency did not have the right of possession
to an item then the museum or agency must give it back. The museum or agency must share all
of its information for this claim to be made. Lastly, if a museum repatriates an item that is
requested then it will not be liable for claims that a party makes a breach of duty, public trust, or
violations of state law (“Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” 1990: 17577). Unfortunately, this Act does not always work the way it should.
Examples of Repatriation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
There have been several major cases that involved the repatriation process, some better
than others. The most well-known case would that of the Kennewick Man. This case is an
example of the situation in which multiple tribes and organizations have laid claim to the 9,000
year old man that was found in 1996. Since there has not been an identification of who is most
culturally affiliated, the federal government has been keeping the body (Thomas, 2000). There
are several other cases of repatriation that have ended well from even before NAGPRA was
enacted in 1990. The first case is that of Captain Jack, or Kintapush, of the Modoc tribe. He and
his three lieutenants were repatriated in 1985 from the Smithsonian Institution to their tribe in
Oregon (Starn, 2004:169). These four men were killed in the late nineteenth century. Their
heads were decapitated from their bodies which were then burned and taken to the Smithsonian
(Starn, 2004: 95). The other repatriation case is that of Shoshone Mike. Shoshone Mike was the
leader of a small group who killed four ranchers in 1911. Later, a posse went after the group and
killed three men, two women, two teenage boys, and three children. Their bodies were donated
to the Smithsonian. In 1994, they were repatriated to the Fort Hall Idaho Shoshone-Bannock
Tribe for reburial (Starn, 2004: 169). Both the case of Captain Jack and that of Shoshone Mike
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are examples of repatriations done in good-faith. Unfortunately, that was not the case of Qissuk,
an Inuit brought back by Robert Peary.
Qissuk was an Inuit that was brought to New York City in 1897 to be studied by
anthropologists at the American Museum of Natural History. Qissuk and five other individuals,
one of the others being his son, were brought back from Greenland to be used as living
specimen. Franz Boas, the father of modern anthropology, was the lead anthropologist to study
them. The Inuit group was not kept in decent living quarters. Instead they were forced to live in
the basement of the museum. The conditions were not good and eventually most of them
contracted an illness, assumed to be tuberculosis, and died. Qissuk was one of these men
(Carpenter, Katyal, and Riley, 2009: 1030). When his son, Minik, insisted on a proper Inuit
burial that involved burning the body, the anthropologists replaced it with a wooden dummy and
hid the body in the museum. Minik eventually found out about the body switch because he
stayed in the United States after his father’s death. He demanded that the museum give him his
father’s body back. Unfortunately, this repatriation did not happen until after Minik’s death.
After the passage of NAGPRA in 1990, Qissuk’s skeleton was quietly given back to the tribe
(Carpenter, Katyal, and Riley, 2009: 1031). This case is very similar to that of Ishi and the
repatriation of his brain.
The Case of Ishi: The Last Yahi
The case of Ishi is a very interesting one. He was a member of a small band of the Yahi
tribe hiding out in northern California. They were forced into hiding due to the Indian massacres
in the late nineteenth century. After all of his family died, Ishi wandered into the town of
Oroville, CA, and was found behind a slaughterhouse in 1911. The local sheriff put the poor guy
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in the town jail and called the Anthropological Museum in San Francisco. There he was put
under Alfred Kroeber’s care and he stayed there for five years. Ishi lived inside the museum,
like Qissuk and his Inuit tribesmen, and was studied by the anthropologists. In 1916, he died of
tuberculosis and, according to experts today, possibly Addison’s disease as well. It is now
believed that he contracted the disease from either the hospital or the museum (Starn, 2004: 23).
Unfortunately for Ishi, Kroeber was out of town when he died.
Ishi’s brain never made it to the crematory with his body but instead was sent to a brain
collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Alfred Kroeber did not want an autopsy performed due
to Ishi’s cultural practices but his letter arrived too late. Pope, a doctor who befriended Ishi,
wanted it done but because he did not want to perform it, one of his associates did. The doctors
performing it noted the weight of the brain and the state of the tissues and organs then they
cremated his body. Upon learning that the autopsy was done after his return, Kroeber wrote to
Hrdlicka, a prominent physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, to see if he would
like the brain to add to his collection. Hrdlicka replied that he would love to have the brain along
with some Egyptian artifacts that were recently brought back and Kroeber promptly sent them to
him (Starn, 2004: 159).
Nobody really knew what happened to Ishi’s brain until it was found again in the late
1990’s. The brain weight was noted in the autopsy report but the location of the actual brain was
not. Alfred Kroeber’s wife, Theodora Kroeber, hinted in her book that something had happened
to it but did not outright say what that was. Starn (2004) believes that she probably did not want
to say what it was out of wifely duty and love for her husband and also because it would make
the anthropologists look friendlier (p. 161). The Maidu Indians, the neighbors of the Yahi and
their enemies, had stories of it being in a museum warehouse somewhere. The elders claimed
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that it had been pickled after the dissection (Starn, 2004: 94). This prompted one of the
members, Art Angle, to begin searching for Ishi’s brain.
The Repatriation of Ishi’s Brain
Art Angle and the Butte County Native American Cultural Committee launched a
campaign to repatriate Ishi’s brain and his ashes for burial in 1997 (Rockafellar and Starn,
1999:413). Angle is a Maidu activist and his search for Ishi’s brain actually originated out of his
efforts to repatriate his ancestors’ bones in the 1960s (Starn, 2004: 88). He believed that the
organ had to be somewhere, he just did not know where yet. The University of California – San
Francisco was contacted by Angle in December 1998 and the officials claimed that the brain was
not in San Francisco. After an internal search that was started by Nancy Rockafellar it was
shown that the brain had come to the institution in 1917 but had since been moved (Rockafellar
and Starn, 1999: 413). Orin Starn became involved in the search around this time as well.
Rockafellar looked into Ishi’s medial record that was still on file at the institution. This is when
they discovered that the doctors had taken Ishi’s brain out because the measurements had been
noted in the file (Starn, 2004: 127-28). Starn followed the paper trail, or Kroeber’s letters, to the
Smithsonian Institution. The letters are housed in the Bancroft Library at the University of
California – Berkeley (Starn, 2004: 120). Starn then contacted the Smithsonian to see if the
brain was still there.
The Smithsonian offered the repatriation of Ishi’s brain as soon as they realized that a
Native American group was looking for it and that they, the Smithsonian, had it. The officials at
the Smithsonian claimed that they knew it was there (Starn, 2004: 163). They also say that the
paperwork was “muddled” so that it was not clear where it was stored at first (Bower, 2000: 25).
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There was a claim that the brain was incinerated but the official now denies that she said it after
Rockafellar called her and asked about it (Starn, 2004: 130). In the 1980’s, several brains had
been incinerated due to improper care. The brains had dried out and were not good for scientific
study anymore. Thomas Killion, the head of the Repatriation Office, confirmed that the brain
was not burned at that time because it was off-site and that most of the employees could not get
to it (Starn, 2004: 170). It was being stored at a warehouse in Maryland. Now that the location
of the brain had been determined, it was time to start the repatriation process.
The Smithsonian started the repatriation process as soon as they figured out what group
should receive the organ. The Repatriation Office had to figure out which northern California
tribe had the best link to Ishi since he was the last of the Yahi (Starn, 2004:201). The Office
decided that they would give the organ to the Redding Rancheria and the Pit River Tribe because
they had a linguistic link to the Yahi (Starn, 2004: 215). The Smithsonian Institution invited the
representatives of the tribe to come to Washington to figure out how and when to repatriate the
brain. A hearing was also held in Sacramento, California, on April 5, 1999, to figure out the
repatriation of Ishi’s ashes as well (Scheper-Hughes, 2001: 17). At this hearing, several people
talked. This included Art Angle, Thomas Killion, and Mickey Gemmill, a representative of the
Redding Rancheria and the Pit River Tribe (Starn, 2004: 212-14). Once these obstacles were
cleared it was time to bring Ishi back home.
Members of the Redding Rancheria and the Pit River Tribe took the brain back to
California on August 8, 2000. It took less than six months to retrieve the brain and the ashes for
reburial. A small ceremony was held at the Smithsonian Institution before leaving with the brain
(Starn, 2004: 263-265). Thomas Killion was allowed to come with the brain and observe the
funeral. He was the only white man allowed at the ceremony. When the urn holding Ishi’s ashes
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was unsealed a note was found inside. No one actually read it but placed it with the rest of the
remains. It is believed that the note could possibly be from the doctor who befriended Ishi, Pope
(Starn, 2004: 265-56). The brain was not cremated with the rest of the body. It turns out that
Kroeber was wrong about the Yahi funeral traditions (Starn, 2004: 266). While Ishi had been
alive he had told many of his Yahi tales in their original language and Kroeber had them
recorded. The linguist, Edward Sapir, had started translating them but had not been able to
finish. Linguists today have now finished translating those tales and it is clear from these new
translations that the Yahi buried their dead. Ishi’s brain and ashes were buried at Deer Creek
Valley in California (Starn, 2004: 262). Alfred Kroeber was forgiven at one of the talking circles
later on (Scheper-Hughes, 2001: 18). A final memorial was held for the public at the Mt. Lassen
National Park and around two hundred people showed up for the event (Starn, 2004: 271).
Bumps in the Repatriation Road
There are some problems that have come up along the way that have caused some
discussion and dispute among the anthropological and Native American communities still. A
couple of the problems are not something that we can readily answer due to the nature of them.
One example would be the question of why Alfred Kroeber sent Ishi’s brain off to the
Smithsonian Institution when he was so adamant that there should not be an autopsy. His actions
after the death of his friend and study subject were, of course, the beginning of this controversy.
Scheper-Hughes (2001) believes that this could have been an act of disordered mourning (p. 16).
He knew that the autopsy would be a violation of Ishi’s trust and had even stated in his letter that
science could go to hell (Starn, 2004: 28). So why did he send the brain to the Smithsonian
then? According to Scheper-Hughes (2001) because it was too late to respect Ishi’s wishes,
Kroeber might have felt that the science of anthropology would benefit from his friend’s death
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(p. 16). Kroeber refused to talk about his friend, however, so we may never know the reasons
behind these actions. The lie about Ishi’s brain being incinerated in the 1980’s is the second
problem. It could be construed as an action that was not of good faith. The official had said it to
a friend at the time and most likely she felt that it would not get spread around. Even if this were
the case, ethically it was wrong. Anthropologists are interested in discovering the truth and
spreading a myth, especially one about the remains of a well-known Native American, could ruin
the progress we have made with this Act. Even so, there are several other factors in the Ishi case
that need to be mentioned still.
There were a couple of actions taken by the Smithsonian Institution that could have been
avoided concerning the repatriation of Ishi’s brain. The main problem that jumps out is the fact
that the brain was not listed on the inventory that the Smithsonian created after NAGPRA had
passed. It seems a little strange that the officials over looked it while creating the inventory
especially when they told Art Angle and the others that helped him track down the brain that
they knew it was there the whole time. NAGPRA does have a paragraph in Section seven that
covers instances like this when the cultural item or human remains are not included on the
inventory, however. The other action that has ruffled some feathers is the decision to repatriate
the brain to the Redding Rancheria and the Pit River Tribe based on the linguistic tie they have
with the Yahi. These groups were not actually the ones to request the repatriation, however. It
was actually Art Angle and the Butte County Native American Cultural Committee who
requested it. This group is actually descendants of the Maidu, who were historical enemies of
the Yahi, and therefore have a geographical connection with them. Section seven did have
specifications that the cultural affiliation had to be based on several criteria and it happens to be
that one of them is geographical evidence. There is also evidence that Ishi may not have been
Case of the Missing Brain 11
full blooded Yahi as well (Starn, 2004: 107) Therefore, it seems that the Butte County Native
American Cultural Committee should have received the brain after all.
Is Repatriation Working?
The repatriation process is by no means perfect and clear. It is becoming more effective
with the two amendments that have been made, however. As of March 2012, one hundred and
seventy alleged counts against twenty-nine museums have been investigated. Twenty-two of the
counts have been substantiated and fifteen of the museums that have been investigated have
failed to comply on at least one count. The total minimum number of individuals that have been
reported in NAGPRA as of March 31, 2012, is 175,615 according to the National NAGPRA
Program Midyear Report. There are 54,834 culturally identifiable individuals while 126,496 of
these individuals are culturally unidentifiable. Only six repatriation grants have been awarded at
this point. The report states that this is because of a lack of funds which is causing a barrier in
the consultation and compliance process as well. Grants are available but the requests have risen
by three hundred percent over the last few years (Hutt, Coates, Chari, O’Brien, Soriano, Tarler,
2012: 2-5). To understand the situation, research has been started with the help of the tribes and
organizations involved.
The case of Ishi is a sad tale but does it mean that repatriation is not working?
According to Killion and Molloy (1999), it has actually made some unprecedented advances
when it comes to access of information and the collections for Native Americans and other
people (p. 21). We have also had to get more information from the collections that we have had
to give back than we would have if they were just sitting around and have fixed some mistakes
Case of the Missing Brain 12
that have been made while we were at it (Killion and Molloy, 1999: 22). So, yes, we have gotten
something out of the process and, while it is not perfect, it is working. Even if it is making us
rethink how we do some things.
Case of the Missing Brain 13
References Cited
Bower, Bruce
2000 Ishi’s long road home. Science News. 157(2):24-25.
Carpenter, Kristen A, Sonia K. Katyal and Angela R. Riley
2009 In defense of property. The Yale Law Journal. 1030-32.
Goldstein, Lynne, and Keith Kintigh
1990 Forum. Ethics and the reburial controversy. American Antiquity. 55(3): 585-591.
Hutt, Sherry, Robin Coates, Sangita Chari, Melanie O’Brien, Mariah Soriano, and David Tarler
2012 National NAGPRA program fy 2012 midyear report.
www.nps.gov/DOCUMENTS/INDEX
King, Thomas F.
2008 Cultural Resource Laws and Practice. AltaMira Press, New York.
U.S. Department of the Interior
1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Rockafellar, Nancy, and Orin Starn
1999 Ishi’s Brain. Current Anthropology. 40(4): 413-16.
Schepler-Hughes, Nancy
1999 Ishi’s brain, Ishi’s ashes: anthropology and genocide. Anthropology Today. 17(1): 12-18.
Starn, Orin
2004 Ishi’s Brain: In Search of America’s Last “Wild” Man. W.W. Norton and Co. Press, New
York.
Thomas, David Hurst.
2000 Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity.
Basic Press, New York.