Chip Colwell

I really, really want to like and admire anthropologists. Anthropology was my undergraduate major and I considered graduate school in the subject. But when I read about the selfish, inhumane acts of some anthropologists I remember why I gave up the discipline. This book tells of the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the long struggle by Native American tribes to reclaim items essential to their religious practices and culture, and the actual remains of their kin. What can you say of collectors who take advantage of starving people to buy their art and religious artifacts for literally "five cents, the smallest coin"? What can you say about museums who don't even have an accurate inventory of the human remains in their possession, yet arrogantly claim that the needs of science over rule the desire of the tribes to rebury their dead? In the case of the Calusa remains, the argument was that no living tribe was related to the Calusa. The hubris! Anthropologists can build their careers on collections of oral lore, legends and history, but as soon as that history provides evidence that inconveniences them suddenly it is just rumor and not reliable at all. So Seminole claims to have absorbed the dying Calusa tribe were dismissed and argued over for years. The book does provide encouragement that in many cases the right thing has been done, even though it took years to accomplish.… (mere)