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NAGPRA defines cultural items, classifying them into five categories: human remains,
associated funerary objects (those found with a set of human remains), unassociated funerary
objects (burial items not found directly with human remains), sacred objects, and objects of
cultural patrimony. Here again, NAGPRA's specific wording provides potential caveats for
Native American tribes seeking to reclaim their heritage; the official definition of sacred objects
reads such that an item or object must be used by “religious leaders for the practice of traditional
Native American religions by their present day adherents.”25 Such language potentially excludes
claims made by modern American Indian groups who do not adhere to the same religious
customs of older, yet still culturally affiliated, populations.

This stipulation is troubling on many fronts, most notably because Native American
religions are a living cultural practice, and therefore are not fixed in time. As with any cultural
phenomenon small generational adaptations compound, making overarching changes in
traditions which often reflect necessity or societal variations. When discussing re-interment of
ancestral remains at Ocmulgee National Monument, Emman Spain, a member of the Muscogee
Nation recounts that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation does not know the exact burial practice of the
early Creek people. Instead of attempting to re-imagine a tradition that has been lost, when the
Muscogee Nation reburies human remains they do so solemnly, honoring the dignity of the
individual without tarnishing their original burial beliefs.26 Modifications, for any reason, do not
negate the authenticity of an Indigenous group's current or past religious customs, but under
NAGPRA such discrepancies could be used to legitimate the Smithsonian Institute's refusal to
repatriate certain items, further compounding centuries’ worth of artificially enforced rifts
between modern Native nations and their prehistoric past.

25 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 25 USC 3001–3013.
26 Spain, interview by author, Macon, February 2, 2018.

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