University returning 1,500 artifacts to Oneida Indian Nation
Source: AP
By MICHAEL HILL
Colgate University is returning to the Oneida Indian Nation more than 1,500 items once buried with ancestral remains — a collection of culturally significant items that includes pendants, pots, bells and turtle shell rattles, some dating back 400 years.
The “funerary objects” were purchased in 1959 from the family of an amateur archaeologist who collected them from sites in upstate New York and have been housed at the university’s Longyear Museum of Anthropology. Their repatriation ceremony will be held Wednesday at Colgate, which is located on the Oneida’s ancestral territory.
“It’s making things right again. It’s correcting a wrong,” Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said in an interview. “The acquisition of these items, it’s quite an indefensible practice. They’ve been absent. They’re not where they should be ... on the land back with our people.”
Halbritter said this is one of the largest single repatriations in the state and praised the cooperation from Colgate, which began a series of transfers in 1995 with the return of seven sets of remains and funerary objects.
A 17th century Oneida Indian Nation ceramic pot sits on display for photographs, Monday, Nov. 7, 2022 in Hamilton, N.Y. Colgate University is returning to the Oneida Indian Nation more than 1,500 items once buried with ancestral remains — a collection of culturally significant items that includes pendants, pots, bells and turtle shell rattles, some dating back 400 years. (Courtesy of the Oneida Indian Nation via AP)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/science-new-york-oneida-colgate-university-0b3c3f434d9fd4f5e71066a347ef9c1b
= new reply since forum marked as read
