By EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer

Hundreds of items, including some ancient human remains considered sacred by American Indian people, are waiting to be recovered.

The collection, stored in a museum near Escondido, also includes quartz crystals, pipe fragments, raptor talons and stone tubes believed to be used by native peoples hundreds and thousands of years ago in religious ceremonies.

Archeologists with the San Diego Archeological Center near the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park say they are working with local tribes to return the objects to their rightful owners, as required by law.

“When we discover the items, they are segregated and we do document them, but we don’t allow any scientific work to be done on them,” said Cindy Stankowski, director of the San Diego Archeological Center.

The center is a repository and museum for archeological artifacts that are discovered in the area.

Before Europeans arrived in the region, San Diego County was the home of native people whose tools, crafts and remains can still be found without much effort. Many of the objects that are stored in the museum were unearthed by developers during construction and collected by local archeologists.

State law requires developers to notify authorities if an archeological site or ancient human remains are found. Federal law requires that human remains and sacred objects be returned, or “repatriated,” to American Indian tribes.

In 1990, the federal government enacted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The law requires that collections held or acquired by federally funded museums or institutions be examined to determine if they have sacred objects that should be returned to tribes.

The federal law also prohibits archeologists from studying the sacred objects, except to inventory and catalogue them.

Stankowski said the center recently received two grants from the National Park Service that allowed them to examine hundreds of boxes filled with artifacts for cultural items. The artifacts had been collected at archeological sites throughout the county over the last several decades.

Of the more than 200,000 objects that were examined, 1,395 were repatriated, Stankowski said.

Earlier this month, the center identified more than 200 additional sacred items in a notice published in the Federal Register. Most of the items were discovered in North County and were identified as belonging to Kumeyaay Indians.

The Kumeyaay were the people who inhabited San Diego County and northern Baja California for thousands of years.

Their descendants are now members of several Indian bands, including the San Pasqual, Santa Ysabel and Mesa Grande bands in North County and the Barona, Viejas and Sycuan bands in East County.

Other items belong to Luiseno Indians, who lived in North County and Riverside County, roughly north of the San Luis Rey River. Their descendants are now members of the Pauma, Pala, Rincon, La Jolla and Pechanga bands.

The human remains that were listed among the items are one Luiseno and two Kumeyaay individuals. The Kumeyaay remains were found at an archeological site in Carlsbad in 1983 and another in Sorrento Valley in 1987-88, according to the notice.

The Luiseno remains were discovered at an archeological site in San Marcos in 1989.

The discovery of American Indian remains has been a controversial topic in recent years, because scientists would like to study the remains, but American Indian people consider them sacred and prefer to bury the remains.

For years, Kumeyaay Indians have been trying to recover several human remains discovered at an excavation near the University House at UC San Diego.

The human remains are nearly 10,000 years old. However, a university committee said earlier this year they have been unable to determine if the remains are Kumeyaay.

On the other hand, representatives of Kumeyaay tribes say the remains cannot be anyone else’s.

Stankowski said it is up to individual tribes to decide what to do with the 200 objects being held at the center.

Leo Calac, a member of the Rincon band’s cultural committee, said the remains of tribal ancestors are not meant to be studied, displayed or commercialized.

“They shouldn’t be disturbed,” Calac said.

Rincon does not repatriate sacred items, Calac and another member of the cultural committee said. The tribe prefers the objects remain buried where they are found, he said.

Calac added that it would be up to the committee to decide what to do with the Luiseno items that the center has.

Kumeyaay tribes have a cultural repatriation committee, which represents the member bands in matters of recovering cultural objects. The committee’s chairman could not be reached for comment.

After decades of dire poverty, several tribes are beginning to collect cultural objects and display them in museums. Casino revenues are allowing tribes such as Rincon to study and preserve their cultural heritage.

The Rincon tribe recently opened a museum to display baskets, crafts and tools created by tribal members and their ancestors. Many of the ancient artifacts at the museum, called the Wasxayam Pomki Museum (or the People’s House Museum in English) are on loan from other institutions.

There are some ceremonial items, such as quartz crystals and stone tubes, but most are artifacts that ancient Luisenos used in everyday life, such as scraping tools, cooking stones and grinding rocks. The museum also has computer touch screens that allow visitors and researchers to see pictures of additional material.

Soon the museum will have a printer allowing visitors to print archival pictures to take home.

“It’s something that we’ve always wanted,” Calac said of the museum. “I think it’s wonderful that we have this equipment. We didn’t even have the money to buy a typewriter back in the old days.”

The Wasxayam Pomki Museum is open to the public 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. It is located on the Rincon reservation at 1 W. Tribal Road, Valley Center. The San Diego Archeological Center is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. It is at 16666 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido.

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com
(c) North County Times

Posted on October 25th, 2008 by hunwut
Filed under: Museum, Reservations