A Day in the Life - Collections Manager and NAGPRA Coordinator

A Day in the Life: Collections Manager and NAGPRA Coordinator

By Jan Bernstein and Isabel Tovar

Jan Bernstein
President of Bernstein & Associates: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Consultants

What does a day in the life of a NAGPRA consultant entail? Well, let me recall some events from the last few days. I drove from Denver to Colorado Springs to reconcile an archaeological catalog written in the 1800s with funerary objects that have been on loan to an art center from a private college. This was my first opportunity to see the collection in more than four years of working with the client. The college first wanted to verify the legal status of the objects; then the borrower underwent a major renovation, making the objects inaccessible. Finally, after one more trip down there next week, I will have enough information to write a notice of inventory completion correction, which will allow an Indian tribe to unite the funerary objects with the human remains so that they may be reburied together. I’ve already successfully negotiated approval for reburial on the jointly controlled federal/tribal land from which the burials were removed.

I also synthesized notes from a NAGPRA consultation, summarizing a meeting that I facilitated for a museum client in Boulder. It was the 45th Indian tribe that the museum consulted with under the FY 2007 NAGPRA consultation/documentation grant that I wrote. Next week we’ll meet with the 46th tribe and begin to close out the sixth grant that I’ve written for them.

In a couple of days, I’m flying to San Diego to attend the NAGPRA Review Committee meeting. I have an appointment to meet with the program director and designated federal officer to discuss a presentation that I will make to the committee in six months. Under that client's FY 2008 NAGPRA grant, I will work on behalf of the museum with more than 90 Indian tribes to facilitate the repatriation of between 140 and 149 culturally unidentifiable human remains.

The fruits of my labors are often best expressed on those days when I journey out to remote areas to attend reburials, which are usually presided over by tribal spiritual leaders. I’ve now worked with Indian tribes and museums to rebury nearly 400 individuals and their funerary objects. NAGPRA compliance is human rights work and I can’t think of anything else in the museum world that I would rather do than implement not only the letter of the law but the spirit of the law. I can’t imagine a more fulfilling career.

Isabel Tovar
Collections manager and NAGPRA coordinator, Denver Museum of Nature and Science

The material that we take care of in museums is part of our human legacy. The collections and conversations surrounding these items allow us to learn about ourselves, about each other, about cultural history and political history and about the history of museum collections and anthropology. Mistakes have been made, and it is our responsibility to rectify them. That is what gets me out of bed in the morning: The possibility that today you can do something to make a difference in someone's life, whether it's via education, repatriation or just being kind and respectful.

Isabel Tovar shows collections to the public during a member's night at the Field Museum, Chicago.

One of my driving forces is serving as a NAGPRA coordinator, a job that is woven into my responsibilities as collections manager at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS). The DMNS anthropology department's vision statement is to curate the best understood and most ethically held anthropology collection in North America. To achieve this, we actively collaborate with communities regarding the curation, exhibition and education of our collections.

I was recently involved in a lengthy consultation process that included visits, research and discussion between the Lukaax.ádi Clan in Haines, Alaska, the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and the museum, through which we determined that two items of cultural patrimony should be deaccessioned from the DMNS collection and returned to the clan. In November 2007 I packed and hand-carried the objects, a beaded tunic and a basketry hat, back to the clan's Raven House in Haines. I traveled a day and a half to personally present the items to the clan housemaster, Ray Dennis Jr. A couple of days later, during a memorial party, I had the absolute pleasure of seeing the tunic and hat danced for the first time since being sold into the DMNS collection. Listening to individuals welcome these items as relatives and ancestors back into the community brought tears to my eyes. I still receive photographs of the tunic and hat as they have been brought out for different occasions. It is always a powerful reminder of the role they serve out in the community.

The cliché is that collections managers are jack-of-all-trades, and it is quite true. At any given time, I'm working on volunteer, intern and support staff management and training; database clean-up; collections inventory and problem solving; pest management; exhibit upkeep and cleaning; budget development and tracking; education outreach and teaching; behind-the-scenes tours; donor dinners; grant project management; traveling to partner communities; facilitating repatriations and consultations; building shelving units; re-housing of collections; access to collections and documentation by researchers, and tribal visitors; storeroom facility care; and development of culturally appropriate collections care procedures, including housing sacred collections in a separate storage area with specific handling guidelines. It is rare to find me working quietly in my office.

As for the job, you should not do it for the money—remember, this is a nonprofit world—but for the passion and responsibility you feel for it. Yes, there are the nuts and bolts—sometimes literally—of the job, but one thing I always keep in mind is my career goal: to ethically care for and educate about the collections and to be fully aware of the legacy within which we are working. The only way to move forward is with an understanding of our past. And how do we effect change? We take responsibility for it, one step at a time. Gandhi said it best: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Photo (c) 2003 The Field Museum, GN90585_058D. Photographer Mark Widhalm.