US Museum Returning 2,700 Native American Hair Samples

The American Museum of Natural History is returning 2,700 Native American hair clippings to various tribes ^[1].

This repatriation effort addresses a long-standing failure to comply with federal mandates regarding the treatment of indigenous remains. The move highlights the ongoing tension between scientific preservation and the sovereign rights of Native American tribes to reclaim their ancestors.

The museum, located in New York City, is acting under the requirements of a federal law passed in 1990 ^[1]. This legislation mandates that museums return Native American human remains, and associated funerary objects, to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated tribes ^[1].

The remains in this specific instance consist of 2,700 hair clippings ^[1]. While these samples may seem small compared to skeletal remains, they represent human remains under the legal definition of the 1990 law ^[1].

The process of repatriation involves identifying the specific tribal affiliations of the remains to ensure they are returned to the correct descendants ^[1]. This effort comes decades after the original federal mandate was established to prevent the unauthorized holding of indigenous remains by academic and cultural institutions ^[1].

Institutions across the U.S. have faced increasing pressure to audit their collections for such items. The return of these samples is part of a broader movement to rectify historical wrongs in the collection of anthropological data, a practice that often occurred without the consent of the individuals or their communities ^[1].