The Repatriation of a Southern Cheyenne Burial and the Contingencies of Authenticity

Bibliographic Data

ID2390925
AuthorsAbby Clouse (Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA,, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume14
Issue2
Pages169-188
Publication date2009-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183509103059
OpenAlexW2113568931
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited12

Focusing upon an assemblage of Southern Cheyenne burial objects, the author narrates their trajectory through cultural, temporal, and geographic spaces, tracing contingencies of meaning and use. Collected by a US Army medical officer during the 1860s campaigns against the Cheyenne, this assemblage went from the Army Medical Museum to the Smithsonian Institution, and finally, in the 1990s, was successfully repatriated from the National Museum of Natural History to the Southern Cheyenne. Through the combined use of archival records, historical analysis, and consultation with the Southern Cheyenne repatriation delegate, the author analyzes the continuance and re-negotiation of colonial configurations of culture, race, and scientific authority as manifested in shifting formulations of authenticity. She contends that Southern Cheyenne re-interpretations of these objects provide productive reformulations of authenticity, which take into account cultural hybridity, change, and the politics of survival

Archaeology · Assemblage (archaeology · Cheyenne · National Museum of Natural History · Natural history · Political science · Politics · Repatriation · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Ecology

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