Sacred Objects and Sacred Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions Paperback – July 15, 2000

Author has an impressive first hand knowledge of the problems that Native American face in the protection and in their use of their sacred places. One thing in particular that impressed me about the book is that the author presented both sides of arguments in a really open and what seemed to me a fair way: Kennwwick Man is a good example of that. The several narratives concerning the treatment of Native American remains is heart breaking and in places hard to read. Though the book was published 18 years ago I would think little has changed and thus it is well worth reading.

Very well written and understandable. Gulliford brought forth the need to preserve and protect the sacred in a clear and logical way. He addresses the fact that the native sites and objects are a sacred and valuable as the Europeans Christian churches, and icons.

This book is divided into five (5) equally important chapters. Chapter One deals with the Collecting, studying, and retaining human remains. Museums and the curation of sacred objects is the subject of Chapter Two. One of the hardest and most difficult subjects for the museum professional is the care of landscapes and sacred sites, the topic of Chapter Three. Chapter Four addresses the subject of tribal preservation offices while Chapter Five is about living tribal cultures. A widespread belief that the Indian was disappearing was widely help during the middle to late 1800s. To preserve the Indians, the white culture sought to display the bones, pottery, weapons, and othe ritems used in everyday life. The white man probably did this as a way of atoning for past injustices against the Indian. As time would bear out the Indian was anything but disappearing. With federal legislation such as the Antiquities Act passed in 1960 and most recently the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, there has been a concerted effort to recognize the right of the Native American to claim the human remains of their ancestors.Chapter One deals with the problems some of tribes have with the mountain of paperwork required by some museums for repatriation and that most tribes have inadequate staffs to properly receive and process the items.Chapter Two deals with how Native American tribes have requested and received many of the sacred objects that have been displayed. Medicine bundles, for example, have been carefully cleaned then x-rayed or CT-scanned to determine its contents. For sacred and trust reasons the bundles were not opened. The CT-scan was used only to determine the contents and therefore a determination on the proper curation methods could be utilized.Chapter Three deals with the sometimes overwhelming task of preserving sacred landscapes and the much more difficult individual sacred sites. Not only sites used by tribes and clans, such as Devils Tower, WY, Wallowa Lake, OR and King's Highway, HI, but also vision quest and other individual-use sites may need to be deemed as religious sites.Chapter Four ends with over fifty pages describing places sacred to Native Americans such as Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming and Mount Shasta in California.Chapter Five deals with the effort of tribes to survive intact. This chapter also deals with the invasion of religious ceremonies by curious site-seers and how tribes have had to close these ceremonies."Sacred Objects and Sacred Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions" would be a valuable addition to the library of any individual interested in Native American studies.