Response to Paul Spickard and Kendall Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors: On Repatriating American Indian Remains,” California History 100, no. 4 (Winter 2023)

In the Forum article titled “Respecting the Ancestors: On Repatriating American Indian Remains” published in the Winter 2023 issue of California History, Paul Spickard and Kendall Lovely focus on the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as a case study of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) process. Unfortunately, many of their claims are poorly documented, if documented at all, and the paper is filled with innuendos, accusations, and inflammatory language. In this response, I address some inaccuracies, especially those pertaining to legal accusations. I also speak about the UCSB administration’s role in NAGPRA, including CalNAGPRA, today and in the past.

Before I continue, I want to state that I respect the ancestors and the living Chumash as well as other Indigenous groups.

Spickard and Lovely state that a team of UCSB faculty, administration members, and leaders of several bands of Chumash Indians have recently worked together on major decisions related to NAGPRA, CalNAGPRA, and UC NAGPRA, noting it has been an arduous process. The authors state the following:

Although this is a coauthored paper, I presume that the pronoun “I” refers to Professor Spickard. A couple of the phrases are worth noting. The first, and perhaps most important, is that Spickard was requested to conduct research into issues of repatriation and Native American ancestors’ remains on the UCSB campus. This implies that he worked closely with the administration, among others, in the development of this paper. In doing so, Spickard states that he interviewed several anthropology faculty, both past and present. However, he does not indicate who was interviewed, how individuals were chosen, or what he learned from these interviews. After asking several anthropology faculty members (including all the archaeologists) if they were interviewed, I found only one person who said they were. Spickard did not reach out to any of the last three directors of the Repository for Archaeological and Ethnographic Collections, UCSB, despite their obvious knowledge about the background of NAGPRA in the repository. I was director of the repository from fall 2009 to spring 2018 and know Paul Spickard, yet he did not reach out to interview me despite many opportunities to do so.

Even more problematic from a legal perspective is the authors’ claim that requests by Chumash leaders for the return of “remains and objects” in the repository were ignored:

The authors are correct in stating that UCSB avoided criticism from ProPublica,³ but what they fail to say is that it is probably because they did not find issues that warranted criticism. The narrative that there were “repeated requests from Chumash leaders”⁴ since 2012 to repatriate ancestors and items is neither documented nor correct, and no reference is provided to support this statement.

During the period that I was director of the repository (2009–2018), there were no requests from the Chumash for the return of any items or remains, despite numerous communications and visits between the Chumash and the repository, when there were many opportunities to request repatriation. As director, I maintained notebooks of phone calls and meetings, which I reviewed in writing this comment.⁵ The assistant curators also maintained phone logs. In addition, progress reports about the repository, emails, and other documents were reviewed for content.⁶ The result of the review of these documents confirmed that no one ever requested repatriation or the return of anything. Instead, loans of artifacts were provided to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians (SYIR) and other Chumash groups for exhibits. Approximately 100 communications between Indigenous peoples, primarily from Chumash tribes, and the repository were documented. At least 38 communications occurred between the SYIR, including 14 meetings during the nine-year period I was in charge. On some occasions, ceremonies were conducted in the repository. The repository had an open-door policy and had made arrangements with UCSB facilities to turn off smoke detectors so that sage could be burned during visits. Other interactions were with representatives of the Barbareño Band of Chumash Indians, the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Chumash Indians, the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, the Northern Tribal Chumash Council, the Quabajai, and the Barbareño Chumash Tribal Council, as well as Chumash individuals and other North American Indian groups and people. Some of the contacts were questions about NAGPRA, visits to the repository, and requests for meetings or loans, while others had to do with concerns over ancestral sites that were under threat from development projects external to UCSB. The Chumash (and others) requested information and trusted me to provide accurate advice and documents.

I also spent countless hours, with the help of the UCSB dean’s office and other administrators, addressing and resolving structural issues (water intrusion events) associated with the repository and the structurally flawed building that houses it (the Humanities and Social Sciences building). This included increased security, meeting federal standards of curation,⁷ and most importantly, keeping the ancestors and their belongings safe and secure. Based on my records, the amount of time spent just on infrastructure far exceeded the scope of my part-time role as director of the repository.

I spoke with all the assistant curators who served with me in the repository, as well as with professors who preceded and followed me as repository directors, to determine if they had received any requests for repatriation. None had received a request for repatriation during this period, either verbally or in writing, despite the claim by Spickard and Lovely that there were “repeated requests” since 2012. However, I did not ask the chancellor’s office, nor other administrative representatives at UCSB, if they received such requests, but surely they would have contacted me and this would have been part of Spickard and Lovely’s research. At the University of California, the process begins through formal requests and is between the chancellor’s office and the sovereign Tribes and Bands of the United States. Indeed, the Regents of the University of California signed a cooperative agreement with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in March and April of 1994.⁸ Signatories include Barbara Ueling, the chancellor of UCSB at the time, and the chairman, vice chairperson, treasurer, and member of the business council for the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians. Chancellor Ueling signed on behalf of the Regents of the University of California. In this 1994 document, the university recognizes that the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians owns the Chumash collections in the repository. This means that, since 1994, the Chumash Band could request their ancestors be returned at any time. The issue of noncompliance with federal law is a serious legal matter, and Spickard and Lovely’s accusations, in writing, are libelous and require documentation. Where is that documentation? At present, it appears that the authors have created a narrative that suits their own agenda and perceived place in history, rather than doing due diligence to fully research what actually occurred.

One might wonder why there were not more interactions than documented here, and why the repository did not finish sorting the unsorted archaeological collections to insure there were no ancestral remains present. The answer to this is directly related to a lack of funding from the University of California or UCSB campus, which did not seriously financially support or recognize their responsibility. Prior to my appointment at UCSB in 2009, I was professor of anthropology at San Diego State University (SDSU) and the director of the Archaeology Collections Management Program, and I oversaw NAGPRA. There was considerable funding for NAGPRA at SDSU, as can be seen in the 2007 calendar year. As director, I was provided one semester course release per year. This was insufficient, but I had approximately one hundred hours per week of graduate student help (about seven to eight students each semester) in 2007.⁹

In contrast, when I was hired as the repository director at UCSB in 2009, major NAGPRA issues were pending, a Notice of Inventory Completion (NIC) had not been filed, and there was effectively no funding to complete the endeavor.¹⁰ At UCSB, I received one quarter-course release per year, and twenty hours per week of graduate student help (one graduate student per quarter) with no support in the summer, except a few hours per week to handle monitoring of the environment and facility. I repeatedly requested additional funding, as well as a NAGPRA coordinator and collections manager. The university provided neither and gave very little money over the nine years I was in charge.¹¹ The lack of adequate support on behalf of the University of California is hard to fathom, especially as the National Park Service within the Department of the Interior sent a letter dated July 15, 2010, to the executive vice president and provost of the University of California about the lack of NAGPRA compliance at UCSB.¹² Once I was informed of this notice, I started working on the Notice of Inventory Completion immediately, even though it was during the summer when I was not financially compensated to work, the repository was closed, and I had no staff. I completed a draft Notice of Inventory Completion and sent the first draft to the National Park Service on October 26, 2010, just over three months after the notification from the DOI. This was followed by additional consultation with the Chumash tribes, slight changes in drafts, then approval by UCSB in 2011; in 2012 it was approved by the University of California NAGPRA Oversight Committee and officially published in the Federal Register on June 12, 2012.¹³

Despite this history and the well-recognized issues with NAGPRA funding nationwide, Spickard and Lovely claim that scholars overseeing NAGPRA at UCSB used the lack of money as an excuse:

Again, this claim is untrue. After several requests for funding, I was asked to find out the amount and type of support provided at the other UC campuses with collections subject to NAGPRA. I discovered that UCLA and UC Berkeley, in addition to UC Davis, received considerable funds. Some of these findings were documented in the UCSB Department of Anthropology’s response to the 2012 academic program review of the Department of Anthropology:

Unfortunately, the University of California and UCSB did not provide adequate financial support for the repository before 2021. The repository was removed from the Department of Anthropology only after the anthropology professor who followed me as director of the repository realized the funding was grossly inadequate and, after repeated requests for appropriate funding that was never realized, stepped down as director. Adequate funding was finally granted in 2021, probably due to political pressure on behalf of the California Indian community and the California legislature. In the fiscal year 2021–2022, the UCSB Repository received $295,664 to support the campus efforts. Effective July 1, 2022, UCOP and campus sources of funding will be $350,000 annually.¹⁶ Spickard came on board after this funding became available. “These years have been arduous, [he notes] but we finally seem to be having some success.”¹⁷ I would certainly hope so, with more than half a million dollars to date finally devoted to the task. Funding is the core of the problem here. Instead, Spickard and his colleague tried to make the UCSB anthropologists the core of the problem.

The authors make several additional claims about the anthropologists at UCSB. At one point they state: “Like most White Americans, UCSB anthropologists were deeply imbued with the myth that American Indians were primitive peoples destined to die out in short order.”¹⁸ In response to these comments, I provide a brief background here of my interactions with California Indians. I have striven, as have other anthropologists at UCSB,¹⁹ to be ethical and transparent. In part I decided to undertake the study of archaeology in California because of the deep involvement of the California Indians in the process. I started in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked with California Indian monitors in the 1970s, well before many archaeologists were doing so. When I was a graduate student at UCSB, I initiated a training program in laboratory techniques from 1987 to 1989 in conjunction with the Elders Council at SYIR. This took place in the tribal hall before the casino opened. In 2000, when I was president of the Society for California Archaeology, I initiated an annual award to honor the efforts of California Indian cultural preservation, the California Indian Heritage Preservation Award. Twenty years later, the society continues to honor Indigenous tribes and people at an annual celebratory banquet. When I was at SDSU, I jointly submitted a NAGPRA grant to the National Park Service with the Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee. We were awarded $72,511 in 2002 to review the collections with the Kumeyaay at SDSU.²⁰ Also in 2002, I coauthored an article with a Luiseno tribal member titled “Hate Crimes on Sacred Sites in Southern California: An American Indian Experience” after a site was desecrated by archaeologists. At the request of the California Native American Heritage Commission in 2008, I wrote about the meaning of a sanctified cemetery to help in the effort to preserve a cemetery at the UC San Diego chancellor’s house. In 2011, I invited a member of the SYIR Elders Council to speak to my graduate seminar on ethical issues in archaeology. I have taught this subject since the 1980s, and an important component is respect for those whose sites we impact. In 2008, I coauthored A Teacher’s Guide to Historical and Contemporary Kumeyaay Culture: A Supplemental Resource for Third and Fourth Grade Teachers that was provided to teachers without a charge in the San Diego Unified School District and is available online today.²¹ This was a cooperative project completed with the Kumeyaay and partly funded by them. These are just a few of the activities that I have undertaken working with California Indians. I do not think I have been a perfect archaeologist, but I continue to strive to conduct the practice of archaeology in an ethical manner and teach students how to proceed in a discipline with a difficult and troubling background.

Spickard and Lovely are correct about many aspects of the history of the archaeological discipline. A crucial aspect of history, however, is change—and attitudes and concerns have changed among the Chumash over the years, as they have for the university and among anthropologists. Spickard and Lovely never mention change—the very nature of history. Instead, they describe a static world of grave robbing and disrespect; one where anthropologists, as “most White Americans” view Native Americans as primitive.

Since the UC NAGPRA policy was enacted in 2022 following my retirement, I have been criticized, publicly disgraced, humiliated, and treated with suspicion. I attended the University of California for my undergraduate and graduate education and am now an Emerita Professor at the University of California. I cherished my education and believed in the integrity and academic quality of the University of California, but after observing UC’s behavior, first shirking their professional and legal responsibilities and then pillorying those who tried to adhere to the law, I have lost faith. Of course the Chumash and other California Indian tribes are upset about the slow progress of NAGPRA, CalNAGPRA, and repatriation. I understand why they are upset with those associated with the UCSB Repository.²²

It is deeply troubling that the administration’s request that Spickard investigate the Department of Anthropology’s history has resulted in an unfounded, inflammatory, libelous, and divisive article. It appears that the university, and by logical extension its administrators, are attempting to shift the blame from themselves to faculty and students who sacrificed many hours trying to do their best with grossly inadequate support from the administration.