Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

#36 - The Problem with Repatriation and Tribal Death Norms: The evolution of Indigenous epistemologies

• Aaron Brien, Shandin Pete • Season 2 • Episode 36

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Death is one of the final cultural expression in any society. The discussion of death and mourning can be a sensitive topic. The TRS team discuss current and modern beliefs related to human remains in relation to repatriation of objects from museums. This is contrasted with the what we understand about the beliefs of our ancestor. Importantly, where and how did current beliefs diverge from past traditions? Or, have they even diverged? The discussion centers on some protocols that may have evolved to fit into the changing social and cultural reality.

In the second half the TRS team furthers the discussion centered on current issues surrounding the perpetuation of internal romantic ideas and misconceptions. These issues can stifle progress within our indigenous traditions and can continue to spread belief that may not be contributing to addressing the reality of today. In the end the discussion wraps up by tackling how this concept also applies to current understanding of Indigenous research and knowledge production in Tribal communities.

Hosts: Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné)

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Shandin Pete:

Hello and welcome to tribal research specialist the podcast where we will be talking about important things Hello and welcome to tribal research specialist the podcast a podcast dedicated to chatting about Hello and welcome to cuz he gave me a recording of it once. I believe it solution I listened to it for a long time. And I was quoted but I don't remember who the did a bunch of impressions. That impression of bush. Yeah, he's like, you're telling me there's a dog that can talk?

Aaron Brien:

You're telling me that there's a dog that can talk? I believe it was that wasn't a real Pharaoh. I don't know. Did you ever see the video of Will Ferrell acting like George Bush interviewing George Bush? If there's one thing you could you would do over during your presidency? Or would be like in that flight suit I wore when I said mission accomplish more that every day. Yes. It says says commander in chief. So he does. Yes. What do you got, man? Are we started? Yeah. We're going for doing it. Okay. Doing it my thought today I had a pretty I had a pretty you what I would determine as a unique experience.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, unique as so

Aaron Brien:

outside of the norm. Okay. I must mostly 9.99% of the world will never have to do what I did today, which was called before the national Nagpur committee. Okay, which is, as I was told the equivalent of the Supreme Court for NAGPRA, so it's like for claims, human remains items of patrimony, things like that. It's all based on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Yeah. But while I was in there, just kind of I did our thing. And it went relatively smooth. There was some kind of hiccups that I would I would call hiccups. They didn't make any sense to me why those questions were asked but for the most part, and went and went smooth. So one of the things that it sparked the thought in my head is like no other generation. No other era, but once a generational set era of Native people have had to re intern or re curate director people. Huh? Least I don't think so. I mean, I don't typically someone in the ground or underground, I put them in the hills. And that's kind of it. But we're we're of the first people that have had to, like, mitigate that come up with stuff to like, individuals are in museums, so let's return them or whatever, whatever it is the belief people have different beliefs. So my question to you was, yeah. Do you think there's any bad luck associated with handling human remains?

Shandin Pete:

Go? Oh, man. Yeah, that's a good one. That reminds me of whenever I watch anything about Egypt, and the Egyptians, I always wonder what are those local people think, you know, I don't know how far removed they are from that culture that, you know, built those pyramids and built the tombs and all that stuff. But you know, they're in their health. But I don't know what they feel about all that is but I wonder if one day they're gonna say You know, this enough's enough. We're gonna we're gonna repatriate all those things, return them back, return them back to the pier imagine Can you imagine? Yeah, because in the world of archaeology, Egypt colleges, Egyptology has become its own thing because it was Oh yeah. Big, you know? Oh, yeah. And

Aaron Brien:

can you imagine? Yeah. There was an international heritage law that required the return of any items found in graves and in at the pyramids, man. Oh, I can't even imagine there'd be a quite the dustup pun intended.

Shandin Pete:

I got it even think of that. Yeah. Dust dust and desert desert, each land storm each I get it. I got. So I don't know. I think this is what I think when initially, if you when you say that, I think there is a there's a certain taboo. Currently, in the current culture that you if you handle human maroon remains that there's a there's a protocol or there's a, there's a way you have to go about to cleanse oneself, I suppose you could say whether or not if you don't do that. I'm not sure what the consequence is. I'm trying to go back into the index of things that I know. So it must be for some reason. But that leads me to believe or leads me to wonder about what's the duration of that, of that restriction? And I think that's you're talking about so remains that are 1000s of years old. Like if I if I handled the bones of someone that was 1000s of years old? Is it Is there still the attribute of this, whatever it is bad luck, or something bad's gonna happen if I don't take care of myself enough? In a certain way, I don't know. Because if you if you ascribe to the belief of what happens after you die, you know, the stories of what happens after you die right? After you die, there's many different tribes have different meanings about what happens. But at some point, the soul or the spirit of that person moves on somewhere else. And that the work is done. The body remains as this decomposed elements of the earth. So I don't know. What is the what is the big because Okay, so there's there's a, there's a sensitivity among people in your line of work about even exposing living indigenous people to human remains. You remember that time we went to Indiana, and they gave us a warning? When we went down into that,

Aaron Brien:

like, Mathers Museum, yeah, yeah. And

Shandin Pete:

they said, Okay, just a warning, we have this curtain here, because there's human remains behind here. Mm hmm. Just as they're trying to be sensitive to, I guess, certain cultures belief about even viewing human remains,

Aaron Brien:

in probably what they were consulted, because probably they brought in tribes and said, What shall should we conduct? Conduct our work or whatever? Yeah. So I'm assuming somebody, some representative of a tribe said, we don't even want to look in the taboo or something. But go ahead. Yep.

Shandin Pete:

No. So that that leads me to believe Well, what I mean, how much of I don't know, I'm wrestling with this. The same problem right now in the line of work? I do. How, how is things and traditions and ways from 100 years ago, trance for a bowl are translatable to today? And it's kind of the same issue. In a way I mean, in the past, I don't know if there was a lot of instances of exhuming people are happy none. I mean, that's kind of weird. A weird thought. So you never really encounter like, well, at least at least in my neck of the woods, maybe maybe somewhere else because I know there's other tribes that, you know, their tradition was that and I think there's a there's a tribal group up here that traditionally used to carry the remains of their loved ones for a year's time on their backs until that time that was over than they could bear Those remains, say what you're going to say, like pecha?

Aaron Brien:

Well, well, just so our casual listener knows, a lot of these remains are talking about aren't like stuff that like we're not talking about. caskets are not tight we're talking about for whatever reason, native North America has been studied quite a bit. And so there was an era where a lot of human remains, graves or rob graves were disrupted, or kids were died or passed away at boarding school. Yeah, or on trips and they would house these remains and curation facilities, museums, school archives, whatever. Yeah, so a NAGPRA Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation, a Repatriation Act was passed to require that all these institutions give a list to all the tribes of what they have that qualifies under this law. So the heavy hitters are items of patrimony, funerary objects, and human remains so any of those can if you can prove cultural affiliation or GEOG or our land cultural affiliation to land you can you can claim those remains and and do with what you see as culturally fit okay now that we're caught up

Shandin Pete:

patrimony what my items of patrimony,

Aaron Brien:

like handed down in medicine bundles? Yeah. I mean, it varies from tribe to try. So, so my question is, is really what this comes down to is, I like I like how I caught you. I caught you on something just now. What? I caught you, what is it, you inadvertently created a scenario that was so that was so distant that it was safe to talk about? Because this, this discussion is kind of touchy for a lot of tribes. You may have not even known you did it. But you said

Shandin Pete:

wait a minute. Let's have Let's start. Let's let's designate a safe word first. Going forward. Okay, so I get triggered. Okay, what's our safe word?

Aaron Brien:

femur, femur? Okay. Okay, keep going. So you said, you said something about human remains that were 1000s of years old? Yeah. Which is pretty safe, dude. Like that was a safe comment. Because, for one, like, there's only a handful of remains that have been found that are over a certain age. And secondly, the touchy emotional discussion would be like boarding school kids and mass graves. And yeah, and you're in BC, where a mass grave was found many of them here, many of them. So what you did, what you didn't realize you did is that you distanced yourself from the discussion by giving a most far out No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you were like, you know, this person was a thought. 1000s of years. I'm like, Oh, well. What we're doing,

Shandin Pete:

if we're talking about graves on the moon, then we have a different

Aaron Brien:

beautiful air and you bring up a good point, um, human remains that are found on the moon. No, man, I'm

Shandin Pete:

trying to say I'm trying to say, Okay, there's a difference between is there?

Aaron Brien:

I guess that's the question. I know. That's what I'm asking. That's the date if people believe that once you die, it is that time stop for that individual meaning, once they're dead, they're dead. And then so a whether it's yesterday, or 10,000 years ago? Yeah. Is there a difference in the designation of that individual? Because here's an example. Okay. We talk of respect for the dead we talk for the proper placement of human remains and disposition and all that. But Sam resurrection tells a story, who was a one of your tribesmen, where they killed, I believe he was a Blackfeet man and then they after he was dead, each of the world party struck a coup on him. Yeah. And he was dead already. Yeah. Among other things, among other things, and we

Shandin Pete:

wouldn't be stuck. Well, okay. Okay. Okay.

Aaron Brien:

So for the people. Okay. What does that give? Give me Give me Okay, so,

Shandin Pete:

so this is it. This is it. So that's recent death. Recently. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right, you're right. So we have to put it in a frame a what do they call it? I caught you a temporal scale. No, you didn't catch me. Catch me nothing. Okay, I'm putting it on a temporal scale timescale. Good. So death for what I understand from what I've been commenting on in the things that I do. Yeah, so there's a period of time that the body is, in the end, for lack of a better word, the spirit are still together. After death, there's a time period. Okay, how many days? That is? I don't know, how and what influence did the church have on that concept? I don't know. But the current belief is because of this, this is the traditional was the wake, you know, the wake that happens, the spirit and the body are still together for those days, and those are your last remaining days that you spend with that person. After that time, then they're they're off on their, their journey. And sometimes that journey can take a long time. If they have unresolved business, if they don't have unresolved business, then they're they off they're awful on on to the Milky Way to the Happy Hunting Grounds right away. So I can see so I can see in that scenario said were the torturing or counting the coup of the body of the dead. I could see that the infliction of the of you know, revenge or whatever that that's it seems to be an active thing on an existing manifestation of that enemy in the body and the spirit together. Almost started saying it like it's in like a Hail Mary there.

Aaron Brien:

You almost went into it. We almost went weak mode.

Shandin Pete:

The body in the spirit. Throw holy and then it well, would that have been a hammer?

Aaron Brien:

Yeah, then you would have been him mode. Okay, okay. So I've been wrestling with this because along with cultural protocols, which I think are appropriate to have have come to for me. Yeah. And what I'm experiencing in the last few years, yes. Sometimes I feel like a lot of these cultural things we've adopted are abnormal. Okay. Maybe that's not the word. Okay. Try again. unfounded,

Shandin Pete:

unfounded in, in what in? In for accustomed traditions?

Aaron Brien:

Yep. Yep. So for example, something we hear modern today is, you seen human remains. Don't touch them. Don't fiddle with them. Don't ever, ever ever mess with them? Yes. We could tell I don't buy it. Okay. Okay.

Shandin Pete:

I you know what I am, I'm partially with you. Because here's some here's it. Here's an example. The the hardcore gamblers back in the day. Now, this is like 1900 forward, I don't know, I'm sure it doesn't happen now. But if a if a prolific gambler had passed away, they might go find that grave, dig him up and say, you know, get get his bonds to make the hand game set on to get good luck

Aaron Brien:

in their inner gambling? Yeah, I mean, that that to me the way I understand native belief. Yeah. Especially in our region of the Rockies. Yeah, that fits what you said to me. It's not like, what they did want. Yes. Shocking. It may have been that 20 years ago for me or even 15 years ago, but for me, but of course, we're always learning and we're always getting into the deep end the deeper of our culture and start to actually become a practitioner. Yeah. Your understanding? I mean, gains right leaps and bounds. Yeah. And so that doesn't shock me because we know that. If we really were afraid of the dead and death, then would we keep scalps?

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I think you're right. And there's a clear difference between what the influence of the church versus what our traditions used to be prior to that. I believe that I believe that and I can see that it that goes along with the the story or town lesson, but the owl and our partner Mike said last, sometimes I will die. That's pretty practical thought and I think it's the same. It goes the same with the human. Yeah, sometimes people die. And in the belief, the belief from that was preserved from, you know, prior to the priests coming was was sort of preserved by the priests, when they were are investigating, like Chuck trying to get the old the older folks at that time to verbalize what a soul was, hmm, they wanted to work out, well, how would you describe this idea of the soul. And so they're from that time and 1830s, or whatever the word that come out was the description. It was the lining of the body. The lining of the body is how they described it. And it goes along with kind of the belief that, you know, you're you're this body you have is this something near your I don't know, if you say borrowing, but it's not permanent. I think there's always this idea that there's no permanency in, in the body you occupy that someday you're gonna leave it. And it's just this system as a mash up of elements, I guess, I don't know, that's a mash up of elements. Right on. So I believe that I believe what you're saying in the, the idea of I don't know what, like this fear, this magnified fear of, of body thinking deceased bodies, I think has probably been magnified by the church beliefs. Because you're right there. I mean, you can read accounts of like mutilation of the enemy, you don't hear a lot of them, but you hear it, like this disrespect of the body. And I can see that being I mean, you You always hear also that, you know, the, your enemies were, were respected in a certain manner, there was a manner of of warfare that there was a certain amount of respect. But I mean, if you have this belief that the body is this could be like a car. Well, yeah, I just beat the hell out of it. Because in a way, maybe you're not imparting the disrespect to that person. Because the, you know, their spirits gonna travel on or whatever. I don't know, I'm thinking crazy. Now. I'm talking crazy.

Aaron Brien:

Well, it makes me wonder, because even even you and I who are not Christian, right? It makes me wonder how much of this already is influenced by the church? Yeah, no, it has such a profound effect on Yeah. The way we think and the way we view the world that even people who say we're not Christian, or we don't do practice that way. I mean, it's not a disrespect to the church. It's just it's a fact. Right? Like this is yeah, we? Yeah, it makes me wonder how much of the death culture or what would you call that? What does that feel like senior funerary practices, or fumigation practices? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. What's Yeah, that works? Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

I mean, you would know more than I would, yeah, a few months

Aaron Brien:

ago would be how much would that how much of that is influenced by the church? Because that also, the practice of not, let's say, the mortician practices we'll call Yeah, yes, practice shape, our continuing thoughts. Right. So if we say, this is how we agreed this is how we put people they then that that is the foundation on which we base what happens after? Yeah, you know, that? Yeah. Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. You know, I just when you're talking like that, I realized that I'm, I'm, I constantly have to monitor kind of what I'm saying to see if it's something that might be influenced from, from other religion. Not not like you said, not to be disrespectful, but to say, Okay, what was if I'm, if I'm talking about 300 years ago, am I really talking about 300 years ago?

Aaron Brien:

In fact, this is the first time on the podcast where we're getting into a subject that I honest to god don't know. Yeah. Like, I'm really starting to be like, Wait a second. So this whole so as a preservation officer, my job is to make decisions on behalf of the tribe. So one of these is to take human remains while when I first kind of sculpt some elders and the initial reaction was, nope, we don't mess with the dad blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Well, that's because of the type of question I asked them. Yeah. Right. I went up to them and I said,

Shandin Pete:

didn't do your homework. Yeah, come in kind of blank slate.

Aaron Brien:

I come in blank slate. I really and I went against my my better judgment. And I asked them one of those general what, what do we do with the deadness? We don't mess with them. Yeah. Don't mess around with that stuff. Okay.

Shandin Pete:

Well, you could have honed in the question a bit, but yeah,

Aaron Brien:

and so then I did a round to later like six months later, because I kind of had to wrestle with this idea because we have like 12 outstanding NAGPRA cases right now. So I mean, they need resolved like it's on my desk. I can't. Yeah, I can't just say not, my elder said Yeah, I go back. And then I started, I just asked general questions about practice during death. What do we do? What's the cruel way of doing something? Yeah. In that I started to have to sift and filter and say, Okay, that's clearly a church thing. That's, that's a cruel thing. Yeah. From the best of your knowledge from the best of my knowledge, which, which I admit was limited in that sense, right. Yeah. So one of the practices when somebody dies, and is still practice amongst certain families is if an individual dies in the home. Yeah, you they can't you cannot take that person out the door. Oh, they have to go out a window. Oh, okay. So then I was talking to this older guy. While your wife's related to him. Yeah. And he said, he said, you know, if you know, the rules, you know that that rule can be bent and kind of moved. And really what it is, is we don't follow the dead. Yeah. So we don't take them out the door. Yeah. Because we that's the that's the same door our kids go through. Yes, sir. Okay, okay. So, yeah, then I just through a scenario, I said, Well, what if that individual and I didn't, I didn't say this to be crude or mean or disrespect for so what are the individuals big? And you can't get them to the window? Yeah. And he said, Yeah, that happens. You know? Yeah. You take them out the back door. The back door, the back door. Yeah. At least used door. Okay. Okay. Then he said, what you'll do is you view your smudge out your house, that door or whatever you're surrounded out. And you might not use it for a little while, you know? Yeah. And then yeah, so I saw Okay, so. So right there, I started having a discussion with a culturally knowledgeable person. And I realized then then that's the case for everything else, probably that there's, if you know, the, and then I realized I do this with everything else. Somebody says, Well, you don't whistle at night? Well, yeah, you're right. But do you know where that comes from in the story? Because once you know that stuff, foundation, have some, you know how to navigate within it?

Shandin Pete:

Right, right, right. Well, you know, where you can, where you can kind of shift the criteria a bit or your, you know, variants of that rule. Those kind of things.

Aaron Brien:

Well, and then, and then I started thinking about this famous story that you and I were talking about earlier with these twins, or these young brothers. Their mother was killed. Yeah, well, some time passes, and they bring their mother back to life. Okay, so then I thought, well, that means they didn't bury her then. Oh, yeah. Parent, a scaffold in our data. And they searched the new issues at me. They took her tools or wooden bowls, and they started playing with them. And that caused her to move around and kind of be like, hey, and she came back to life. They brought her back to life, you know? So then I thought, okay, so on that story, they're messing with the dead. Yeah. You know, what's up with that? Yeah. What's up with that? What's your wife? Sarah? Yeah. I got an answer. I'm not I'm not I'm not even hinting. Right. No, no, what I'm telling you is, it led to the, to my own inner discussion of okay. There's instances where people are being messed with after death. Yeah. Which is contrary, which seems contrary to what we're being told today, which is no mess around. Yeah. And I understand I'm speaking in general terms here. Like, there's tribes that probably have really strict protocols. Yeah. But then I started thinking about that. I said, you know, what? Yeah, I don't know. I'm just not. So go ahead and go,

Shandin Pete:

I'll put it in a category. Something that we have to combat a lot is and that's this romanticization. And I think it's even it goes beyond that. It's like this. I don't what are they called, like Pan Pan ism, or an

Aaron Brien:

Indian ism or so I

Shandin Pete:

mean, but not but specific to like this, like internally, where we apply a rule, and it's applied across everything. I think that I think we do that to ourselves. Because number one, we don't know. Because we're the people who did know died and it didn't get transmitted. So we have just one small piece of that. And we think that applies to everything. Like, like the phenomenon of this these. What do they come this positionality statements? That's kind of an example. So somebody did it and tell me that oh, that's what we need to do. The next thing all of Indian countries doing these his self location statements before they give a talk. My name is this, this is what I do. This is where I'm from. These are my people. This is the land I come from. And that's all right. But I don't think it is, you know, I try to break that mold and say now what would How would I converse with somebody, just naturally, I don't go up to him and say, Hello, I'm Dr. Shanti. And Pete, I got my doctorate in this, this and that I work at this place. This is my mom, this is my dad, this is where they come from, these are their people is I'm connected to this land. That's crazy. I mean, somebody would just walk away is this case of Google? Where what is he talking about? But that just the natural flow of like this human to human talk human to human things? I think that's true, might be true. In this case, where there's a little piece of information that got passed forward, people took it as the gospel, then they apply it forward. And then it gets lost about where that come from the instance in which it arrived, that happened, this happened back back home to me too. And it's very similar to what you said, the old belief, as far as I know, I mean, all the I don't know, you can qualify that. But to put the belief prior to now was that the same thing, you don't follow the body. So you, because in that way, that person is looking back, picking the people that they're going to take with them, like, I'm going to miss these people, I'm going to take them with me. But in the tradition of the funerals, today, it's this grand parade where the bodies in front and everybody's grieving and mourning behind it, when it when, in the what I was told was, it should, it should be the opposite. The people should be leading the body to the grave side, wherever it's going to be buried. So that that person can't look at who they're going to pick the take with them. Kind of the same concept. But to break that tradition is hard. It's hard, even though the attempts are made to describe it, and to say the purpose of it, why it's important that that the tradition to follow the body to the grave is so ingrained in people, even if you explain the logic and the danger of it. It's just not accepted. So it seems it seems to be that kind of case, what you're talking about, like, we don't mess with the so somebody like you went along and asked that question, what do we do? What about the body? Yeah, don't mess with it. And then, because maybe they didn't want to inquire further, they just got passed forward. And they asked that person that person says the same thing to whoever asked them? I don't know, that makes sense.

Aaron Brien:

Makes total sense. Yeah. Oh, that happened

Shandin Pete:

that happens with our, with, with indigenous people. We just we adopt these things that seem right. For the best purpose.

Aaron Brien:

I think the intention is good, because it's typically because you want to do the right thing, or you're trying to mitigate what you don't have in place there. So you have to do the next best thing or what you think is, so you might borrow something, or you might you might take an instance that you know of in the past and your resolve it through that, unknowingly. You could set the precedent for things that are not typical to your people.

Shandin Pete:

Right, right. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like you said, it's, that's I think that's okay. If we're, if we're filling a void with something, that's seems like a good tradition, or like, it seems to make sense. That's cool. But it's I think it's when we get stagnant. When we stop asking questions, we just blindly follow. I think that's where we kind of go wrong. And in a lot of sense, a lot of our traditions kind of kind of fell victim to that through like the 60s and 70s. When there is this revival of at least among among, among where I come from this revival of things, they they come in from other places from a movement, and then they just became tradition without really investigating it. Because we didn't have nothing. And we wouldn't we don't we didn't have access to archival material. For whatever reason, the all the old people who knew are dead and gone and we just got handed what we got handed, but I think now we have a little bit more power to, you know, to sift through all that crazy stuff that anthropologists collected and find out what some truths might have been experiment around with what might be more close to what seems to make sense. You know what?

Aaron Brien:

I do come in Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Now throughout, throughout throughout that safe word if you think I'm

Aaron Brien:

femur No, I think that's the problem is like that today, my my knowledge and my confidence was challenged. And so then it made me think, you know, instead of me locking myself in my office and, and doing and being like I'm gonna research this I'm gonna be like No, no, let's put it let's talk about well because the truth is is is my gut was telling me what to do and I'll say okay, based on the knowledge that I've collected over the entirety of my adult life yeah, you know and, and my professional career my hobby my my my my own culture a large part of my upbringing and my professional work have all geared towards the same goal of understanding native people but for sure cool people so then yeah, I part of me was like, you gotta trust what you've been doing. You know, like, well, if you if you're doubting yourself now and then I also thought every generation has to face questions and question their challenge their own beliefs. Should we selfishly just say well, because we have we have a pretty good ace card. Yeah. Which is non Indian people. So we can, that's pretty easy. Our challenge is saying, We're chat. We're always against the mainstream society, the colonizer. Oh, okay. I

Shandin Pete:

get what you're saying, You know what I'm saying? That's kind of our fallback. We could that's our fallback, we can raise our fist against a man,

Aaron Brien:

where in the old days, they were making hard decisions against their own people against other tribes against what? They were still making hard decisions. Ours is easy to say. Or we know that the trajectory of it, which is, that's the us versus them, which I don't think it necessarily shouldn't be, you know, like, yeah, people have to make hard decisions, they've always had to make hard decisions. So when people say, when I tell people, yeah, we're gonna rebury some human remains. What are you doing? I'm, like, I'm doing what every CRO has had to do, and for every generation is make decisions that are hard to make, but you make them culturally sound. And you make me take your steps appropriately. And, but it's more irresponsible to leave these human remains in limbo. Right? Or is it?

Shandin Pete:

Because I've been what you said at the beginning? Was it? Is it really that sensitive? Should we be that concerned? About 1000 year old bones?

Aaron Brien:

No. And the reason I'll say is because we don't run into that. We don't run into 1000 year old all My nag proclaims all this stuff. is all stuff within the last 150 years.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, so we worry about 150 year old bones. I mean, if if really there's no, no, I

Aaron Brien:

mean, that's a good question. I mean, that's a good question. Like if they're in a museum? Yeah. Do we say, You know what, they've been there for this long. Leave them there. That's a tough question. Or say, you know, we're not in like the great, most greatest place ever. Right now. Culturally? Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Socially? Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

Maybe it is because of the mistreatment of certain things. Yeah. Because you know, how a native people will connect. We try to connect the dots look for solutions. So I would say, whatever we've been doing for the last 125 years, let's stop doing that. Yeah. I mean, what do you mean? I mean, it's not working. Okay. So not working. I lost. I lost you. Oh, I mean, meaning what you were saying earlier, you were saying now, is it? Is it really that bad to just leave them where they are? Yeah. And I now I'm thinking, maybe it is because whatever we've been doing, which is just leaving them there. Oh, it's not working.

Shandin Pete:

Okay. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. So evolving, evolving. The thought of how to deal with human remains. Hey, that fits in today's your days reality. That makes a lot of sense. Because if you ascribe to what we were talking about before where Yeah, it does. The taboo of human remains was probably not that big a deal because The situation was far different, I think.

Aaron Brien:

I think so. But today culturally competent people read read read read at all. Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Today you got, you know, go to a museum and you see somebody is bones and that's a totally different thing. But is it? Is it different than seeing? Go back in time? 300 years seeing your old your grandpa scalp on somebody's shield?

Aaron Brien:

I want to say it's because of it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. To be that part of it. Yeah. I mean, granted, we we know, we're not going to parade around with fingers and things like that. We're not we don't do that anymore. We don't do that. But here, it triggered a thought when you're talking triggered. Okay. Um, we were talking about Holy items, medicine bundles, creating a creation facility to bring holy items that are in museums back to the Crow Reservation. Okay, we got a lot of kickback, right? We got a lot of kickback from people saying, we don't know how those were handled, leave them alone. Mess with them. Yeah. And I see this across. I see this across Indian country, especially in our region, right. Your planes, Rocky Mountains, I hear this a lot. But then what I noticed was who was telling me that? So I kind of had to, like, show people a little bit at a, what do they do? Yeah. What do they do? What do they do? Yeah, these are all people who are satellite participants of the culture. I started noticing this trend. They, they, they they're just like a satellite they orbit what's going on?

Shandin Pete:

Not necessarily immersed. Know what you mean? That's what I mean. Okay.

Aaron Brien:

So when I when I specifically started targeting people who are the practitioners, the owners of these REITs these ways that I started asking them questions, okay. One guy told me he said, he said, You know, I agreed in the 60s when they said, Let's not bring these bundles back. These only items he didn't. We don't know what he said, I no longer have that thought. Not because I'm I'm contradicting myself. It's because back then, that was the right decision to make

Shandin Pete:

back then. important, important learn.

Aaron Brien:

Now, we're in such dire straits. culturally, socially, economically. We're struggling with a lot of things that a lot of people don't like to talk about. Yeah. The Underworld, right. The underbelly? Yeah. You know, then we were all culturally strong people in the 60s. Now we're not, maybe it's time for them to come back those things. And maybe we'll restore something. So then I then I thought, yeah, why? Why are we so dogmatic? Like, nope, that's what our elders said in the 50s. That's the way we have to think a secondary making. Yeah, that they saw fit best for the time. Yeah, I can't we make the same decisions. Now. We still live in that. A guy named Roger stop said, US crows. We like to live in the old. He said, We don't have no new medicines. Nobody goes and fast and get new medicines. We still live off of the old. So I'm kind of thinking maybe that's that same concept was like, in here's passwords, always regeneration, regeneration, rejuvenation, something or something? Let's make a new decision. May, you know, let's revisit that topic. So I think I really believe call to action, call to action. Red alert. This question, this subject needs to be revisited.

Shandin Pete:

It does, man. And you know what it's happening. And I had a discussion about this today. Oddly, today. Oddly, and the thing you said about, about the about the, you know, maybe we need? Maybe we need this now, or, as it was said in the past, we don't need that anymore. I've seen that too. I've seen that happen recently, within the past year or so, that kind of shift where folks are saying, okay, maybe, maybe we were I wouldn't say we're wrong, but you're right, maybe maybe we need it now. But okay, so making this making this this hot, hot topic of indigenous research in Indigenous Knowledges. You know, I kind of challenged the idea of are we producing new knowledge now, and it's the same thing what you said are we that are that are young people, you know, fasting and getting these, these the rejuvenation of the songs and the medicine ways? And not really not really. And I think it follows suit with that same question that you see in academics about what is indigenous knowledge, what is indigenous research, all that stuff? In my same way Message I say, yeah, that that operates in, in functioning cultural communities. It's happening. There's new knowledge being created. It's probably not like, what are our old ones or the ancestors used to use to do. But I think the more we do it, the more the more we push, push the push the envelope and question things. I think that's a natural, that's a natural, human thing. And and I think that's what shifts that idea among the people who know, who really know, or who can see between the different generations of the the need that's out there. And so yeah, I mean, that in in that way that like a purpose is revealed, you know, we talk about knowledge should be there should be a purpose to it, there should be an intent to it. Those two things if that if it's not purposeful, and it's not having specific intention in the community, we don't really care, we don't really need it or use it. Like, we could care less if if there's, if there's another manned mission to the moon, we don't need to be included in that. We don't need to have, you know, be part of a equity, diversity and inclusion to be part of a manned mission to the moon, it doesn't matter to us. I don't think to me, it doesn't matter. There's far bigger problems in our community, that that are more practical. And I think it goes along with that what you're saying is, is noticing those trends and changes, that's the real research. That's the real research that happens in our communities that that could come really close to when somebody asks like a non native as well, what is indigenous research? What's this? You can't see it, you can't see it, because you're not living in a community. It's hard to it's hard to see. And that and might even be harder for indigenous scholars like us to illustrate to write down to show a flowchart of that. I don't know. It doesn't it just doesn't seem. I mean, we could I guess, I don't know. There's just no

Aaron Brien:

no amount of professionalism, our knowledge that can make a histogram fit us.

Shandin Pete:

I beg to differ.

Aaron Brien:

As you would more of a pie chart because

Shandin Pete:

we're circle circuits funny. Me. Yeah. Scatter, scatter. Radar Radar plot.

Aaron Brien:

Yeah. Radar plots, call my god. femur?

Shandin Pete:

No, I think you're hitting, you're hitting something that's really important. And like you said, this, this contradiction in idea of death. You always got to insert that, that scale of time in there. You know, and that's a weird one too, because time, time is linear in a way. But it's like for natives. Some people think nah, circuit, we think circular? And I don't know, not all the time, some people do. But I don't think so.

Aaron Brien:

I used to buy I used to wholeheartedly buy that concept. But again, it's like the same thing, the more and more I get involved with traditional people. Yeah, and language and ceremony and culture and, and utilize not just talking reading about it, or asking people about it, but doing it. And you and I have kids and so then that's that changes you quite a bit too, right? Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah.

Aaron Brien:

I'm realizing like some of these things. For one, I don't know if they matter. Well,

Shandin Pete:

what does like this like

Aaron Brien:

that the academic argument that has always been like, I know, we don't think linear we think like, Whatever dude.

Shandin Pete:

Like, yeah, you're what? And

Aaron Brien:

if that's what we're, if that's what we're gonna waste our time in academics talking about is D colonization and then visit indigenizing. And you've already missed the boat. You've already missed the boat. Yeah. Because for one, we spend more bandwidth trying to define these terms. Yeah, and what they mean to all of us. It's like, Come on, dude. We could be doing some badass. And just let just let the mind work. Later, if I said, I want you to research this topic. I'm not going to say what theory are you going to use? Or what? What's your method? No, I'm going to back off and I'm going to let you do your thing. And because I know your foundation, you're not in academics, but in culture, right. I know that what's going to be given to me is indigenous research. Yeah. Yeah. Does that mean that I can write a paper saying this is how it is. Man, I'm beginning to think I can't are I'm just not there yet. And obviously, you might be. Well, I know but I'm, you know what I mean? Like, you

Shandin Pete:

know, to me, and this is this kind of one of the messages I delivered today was that idea of, of, okay, so if you compare, and this is, it's really dumb, but you know, to say, okay, the Western traditions of research and indigenous races or traditions of research, he like he said, we already missed the boat, if we're trying to cross compare those because they're different, they're better than none is better than the other, they have a purpose, for a specific reason. And that's cool and everything. But when we talk about when we're talking about, like, indigenous scholars trying to get them tenure, or trying to get promotion in the university system, they have to produce or prove their scholarship. And generally, that means you got to produce papers. And I had a little brief discussion about this. And I said, you know, we do the we do the work. It doesn't come out in a paper. But the fact that I have to take, like, if you asked me a question, like you said, Tell me about this, I have to do research on a in my head, I go through the things that I know, I ask so and so I ask this other person about it. Maybe I'll read some all archive material about it. But then, then I'll also explain that maybe to my kids, maybe to another individual. And it's not it's not like it's too hard to compare, like, as what that would be as far as a Western system. But that's all the work that I do that all that and it takes a long time. Because you have to reframe that thought, to ask somebody, you know, to ask the right question at the right time at the right moment of the right thing, that takes a lot of work. That takes a lot of work. Because you're trying to elicit in some little nugget of information that might help you. And that's really that that seems that's the dissemination process, because then you might fire that person up about it. Oh, yeah. I remember that. Or maybe they didn't know nothing about it. So then they tell so and so about it, it spreads from their message might come back that that's wrong, or you know, you're crazy. Then there's this debate in the community about what it is and what it is isn't. And then that ultimately, something comes out of that. Whether people accept it, whether it morphs into something else, that's all part of this. It's the same thing as writing a peer review article, in a way not exactly. But that's the work some, a lot of native people do. And it's not something that it's a housing institution, but

Aaron Brien:

is it? Is it the work of a lot of native scholars?

Shandin Pete:

Okay, okay. Okay. It's the work of some, because

Aaron Brien:

yeah, attacking any anybody on and I know, we're kind of off the subject now of the NAGPRA stuff, but pretty much we pretty much talked about that. But yeah, I mean, we're a research podcast, so we should talk about research. But when we when we were doing the indigenous research center stuff, yeah. For that short time, I felt like we kind of immerse ourselves in what was out there. Yeah. And then we and we were very careful about who we wanted to invite to our colloquiums. Tour. Right. Right, which was all founded and stuff we were already kind of doing as, as, as a hobby. You know what I mean? Like, you and I, we've been friends for 22 years or 21 years now. And and or whatever. 2020 years probably right. femur, femur. And, and, in doing all that stuff, yeah. Researching the researchers. Yeah. I might say something a little controversial, but okay. I wasn't finding it, man.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, no, you're right. You're right in there's there's some who know some who get it. There's some who are on a path to reconnecting and understanding it. Yeah, you're right.

Aaron Brien:

You're one thing I noticed too, though, is when you would talk to that researcher, the individual. You're like, this guy gets it. Right. This lady, you just know this, you just, you just don't. But then sometimes they would translate that to their academic work. And you're like, what happened? What happened?

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, you know what

Aaron Brien:

I mean? And I know, you've run into this where you're like, when I talk to that person, and what versus what I'm reading. That's not That's not. And I think it's because of the institutions they come up in or something where they're, they're, they're unknowingly maybe fall into a certain groove of, of, of writing style, or Yeah, citation or whatever it is, and that can really affect the way a product is made, right? No,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. Oh, yeah. Not only that, but like the criteria where you and publish it, they might only accept certain subject matter written in a certain way. Yeah, that is your your work gets, it gets pretty narrow, and it might come out, it might not come out the way it needs to be. Yeah, it is out there. And there's some individuals who definitely understand it. There's probably, you know, not a lot who I don't I haven't seen a whole lot that can translate that into something that seems and feels authentic for today. I mean, there's some examples, I think, that are pretty good. Mm hmm. But it's an it's evolving, it's evolving. And it's hard to say what's right. So Young. It is, it's so young.

Aaron Brien:

I mean, the idea of taking indigenous authentic indigenous knowledge and putting it in an academic setting is so is so young. It is. And the fact is, is we can listen to these podcasts in 10 years and be like, what an idiot. I mean, in five years, probably, you know, we could

Shandin Pete:

listen to episode one and have a good chuckle.

Aaron Brien:

But, but what a shame, you know, like, we've had Michael fram boys on here before, but when we were doing the indigenous research center, he proposed this topic of research that was not approved. And we can talk about that now. Right. But it is not approved by our institutional review board and, yeah, and culture committees, but to me out of all the stuff we did for the IRC in those days. Yeah, that was the one thing I was like, this is going to be it. This is going to be the template if we guide him in the right direction. The question he's asking is a purely indigenous question. Right, Ron, I really only Native people can ask because of the diffusion of ceremony and what that subject matter was and Right, right. And it was so specific to what we what we deal with us. Like, I was excited for it. And it didn't happen. So I say, Yeah, you know,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. I know, these golden opportunities. People just don't get it. People get scared. You know, it's the whole idea what you're talking about, about death. And, and it was almost the same thing. It's almost the same thing. Well, no, we can't do that. Why not? Confusing fear

Aaron Brien:

and respect? Yeah, why not? Oh, that's what it is, I guess.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of it was misunderstanding about what, what that might have been what who it was for.

Aaron Brien:

But again, it's having an institutional review board. That is not practitioners. Right. Right. Importantly, importantly, so that question to them was so foreign. Yeah. It was such a foreign question. And we're here it is. Here's a good example, for our listeners, were Native people that were asking a question that native people normally ask when you talk amongst traditional people, these are topics they talk about? Yeah. And, and we had a researcher asked this question is, ultimately this research idea was denied. But, but it was so funny to me, because I'm like, you can't get any more indigenous than what we were proposing. And yeah, we were stopped. We were stopped. And I was like, Wait a second. This your handicapping the very, very mission of the Center. Right at that time. Now we're in positions where I think we could do that. And knowing what I know, now we don't we didn't need them. We don't need them. No, no, I can still do that. Yeah, you know, it'll manifest in other ways. Because now I'm now I'm a little more. Getting out of academics helped me because now I'm like, wait a second. We were even in academics. We were limited to academics.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah. In a sense, in that sense, yeah. Yeah. You know, we've we've built these these institutions, we've modeled them off their Western institutions. We've we've modeled community committees after just non non Indigenous types and ways of thinking. And that's, that's like, it's going to be one of the one of the horsemen, one of the four horsemen of the demise of Ark could be you know, where we're, like we said beginning with colonizing ourselves or I don't know, yeah, we're doing the work. We're doing the work of colonizing ourselves for the moment. We were talking about that earlier on the FOIA earlier, yeah. In assist, but how do you open people's eyes and say, Hey, man, what do we do I think people been burned so much like a did the generation prior test, they've been burned so much. For whatever whatever happened, but and I think it's just way too much for people to open their eyes and Say Walker, we got a whole generation of young people that are that are wanting to, to emulate the ideas of the past, which is really just tackling the the hard philosophical questions that are important to us. And not to write a paper not to write a book. Not to become famous and grandstand. But But because we have issues man we got issues and we're not we're not it's like we're not leaning on our our traditions to help those. We would we would, we were emulating an indigenous model of addiction after some somebody's research at a university before we try to emulate what we had in our own ways. And I think that's partly because we don't know that anymore. As suspects backwards, its backwards.

Aaron Brien:

Its backwards. In some cases, we do know it. But we're afraid of responsibility. Yes, yes. Yes. You're and that's that's a whole nother that's a whole nother maybe that's a whole nother podcast or a whole nother research topic. But I think it's time that like native people in my I'm guilty of it to men. Yeah, like we're afraid of responsibility or inconveniencing somebody or something, or are we use finances time? Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

well I can get because it's tight. It's really tied to that, like economics man, we got to live we got to work. And to say I'm going to commit my life to helping my people in a traditional way. Who can do that? Who can do that?

Aaron Brien:

Or it's also tied to, to lineage. Okay, a funny story. And you know, I'm not going to say no names but you you know, this I asked the question one time about when I was living at flathead and I said, Are you going to go are you going to go participate in that dance? Yes particular ceremony and he said no, that's not the way my dad taught me how to do it. So we're not going to do it. And then I thought in my mind well, we'll go and help out change it change it are just be there and then maybe they'll say hey, how about do you want to let's use your songs or your shoes you know and then right yeah, yeah. Instead no state no stay home just stay home. Stay home and let it die. Stay home and be the problem

Shandin Pete:

stay home complain on Facebook about it.

Aaron Brien:

complain that your family is the only one that does it right then you guys don't do it though. You know what I mean? Put on a dance no see see guys over there at flathead are a lot like a lot of tribes here where really it comes down to the sponsor right like you know some of that practices as died but really that's the root of the answer someone can go to that particular individual who owns the right to do these things and that rights determined by a lot of things but yeah, and you could say I want to put this on okay, that person tells you get this ABCB Baba Okay, yeah. So instead of being the solution and say well sponsor something then yeah go down sponsor some share so if I leave you with any message to our listeners sponsor some complaint and shut up or something's wrong sponsor something whether Yeah, boy, you're Sue. I mean, yeah, coda. Colville Utila? Yeah, sure. Sponsor something.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. What's the what's the block? What's the block doing that? Why do people not? I don't know that we can go another hour. Let's not do that.

Aaron Brien:

I know that that wasn't the point of the podcast today. For our listeners. I was fired up today because of the national NAGPRA meeting. And I was like, I called John Dean. And I said, dude, let's do podcasts. I want to I want to talk. I feel like talking. And he was like, Alright. Then it turned out to be man this. This is one of the most satisfying podcasts I've ever done this year. So

Shandin Pete:

it is I think we made progress. We've made some standing. I'm a we knew it. I kind of knew it already, like here and there. But to hear it echoed back to yours. Something's confirmed like okay, yeah, I get that. You're thinking the same as mine, or I wasn't thinking that but I was thinking this. Now I get it. We just got to keep carrying that forward, man. We got to keep crying out for all 50 of our listeners. Here at 450 is better than zero.

Aaron Brien:

Remember what I said to you if we're in a room and 50 people People are listening to us talk. That's a lot of people, man. There's

Shandin Pete:

a lot of people. There's a lot of people. It's actually

Aaron Brien:

uncomfortably a lot of people. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. And shout out. Shout out to our few sponsors. I gave them a little shout out on the last episode. We got a few people keeping us going helped pay for our website website and our podcasting service man, that really helps. We need more. No, that's my that's my. That's the best advertising pitch

Aaron Brien:

I can give. Cool, man, if you guys got something that you want to sponsor this podcast, we're happy to have it. I don't think I mean, if I'm being completely honest, we're not doing this to make money or selling time. So it's not like we don't need it. We don't need it. It's appreciated because it helps we're gonna we're gonna talk anyway man, so we're gonna

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, but man you need it. You need an Indian media news these some new gear they're new. Yeah, yeah, we need somebody to sponsor Aaron a boom arm for his mic because he's this pitiful over there. He can barely set up the mic. We bought him.

Aaron Brien:

They got they got the Nano going.

Shandin Pete:

It sounds good today. You must have did something.

Aaron Brien:

I just didn't mess with it.

Shandin Pete:

Cool, man. That's good Convo. Well, anyway, anyway, say

Aaron Brien:

bye to our listeners and we can stop recording but I didn't again, everybody. That was a fun one femur.

Shandin Pete:

That was lame. That was a lame bye bye. That's why I said femur.

Aaron Brien:

Stop recording.

Shandin Pete:

Alright, thank you for joining us on this episode. And if you want to learn more about what we're up to go ahead and search tribal research specialist tz in Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube and check out our other sites. And if you want to contribute to the show, go ahead and look us up on Patreon. We would appreciate your donation

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Aaron Brien

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Shandin Pete

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