NYC Museum of Natural History under fire for shuttering Native American exhibit — then abandoning it to gather dust
NY Post
The American Museum of Natural History’s shuttered Native American exhibits are simply gathering dust four months after being shut — and tribal groups say it is “stonewalling” over repatriating precious objects.
In January, the Manhattan museum’s new director, Sean Decatur, shuttered the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains exhibit halls that displayed artifacts from its Native American collections.
At the time, the museum said it acted to comply with new federal regulations giving museums five years to comply with a 1990 law that ordered institutions to return human remains, sacred objects and cultural items to native groups.
The displays, which stretched over 10,000 square feet and included spears, tools and mannequins sporting headdresses and traditional garments, had been a fixture for 57 years.
Decatur said they did not “respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples.”
The new rules from the US Department of the Interior tell museum directors to provide inventories of their artifacts and consult with native groups to either return the objects or seek permission to display them.
