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Zuni speaks on repatriation of artifacts (MNICKEL )
Distributed Oct. 7, 1991 News Bureau Contact
For Immediate Release Christine Gannon
Zuni Councilman To Discuss Repatriation of Tribal Artifacts
Joseph Dishta, head councilman of the Zuni Nation, will deliver a lecture
titled "Repatriating the Zuni War Gods" at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, at the
Haffenreffer Museum in Bristol, R.I. The talk, which is free and open to
the public, is sponsored by the Friends of the Haffenreffer Museum.
For years, persons outside the Zuni tribe--students, curio collectors, art
dealers, anthropologists and tourists--stole, bought and traded sacred
objects belonging to the Zuni people. In his lecture, Dishta will tell the
story of the 13-year quest to restore the artifacts to the Zuni.
Efforts of the United States' native peoples to recover tokens of their
ancestry received an additional measure of governmental support in 1990,
when President Bush signed the Native American Grave Protection and
Repatriation Act. The accompanying legislation gives Native American tribes
legal jurisdiction over objects relating to their heritage. The act
requires that museums receiving federal funding--the Haffenreffer Museum
among them--itemize and report Native American human remains and cultural
items in their collections.
The Zuni have been particularly successful in repatriating sacred icons
representing the tribe's war gods. Many of the icons, which Zuni beliefs
mandate cannot be displayed or photographed, were stolen from Zuni shrines
by passers-by who were unaware of their importance. "These items are
considered sacred in the sense that they are protectors of the Zuni land as
a whole," Dishta said. The Zuni believe that the gods' mischievous powers
are unleashed when the gods are removed from their shrines, resulting in
earthquakes, wars, hurricanes and other calamities.
Dishta's talk is relevant to several Rhode Island institutions. In addition
to the Haffenreffer Museum's collection of Native American artifacts, the
Rhode Island Historical Society, the Jamestown Library and Museum, the
George Hail Free Library, the Roger Williams Park Museum of Natural
History, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the Tomaquag Museum and
the Museum of Primitive Art and Culture all hold ethnographic and
archaeological collections.
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