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BISMARCK, N.D. — The College of North Dakota’s president apologized Wednesday for the varsity’s possession of Native American artifacts and human stays that ought to have been returned to tribes many years in the past below federal regulation.
The Grand Forks-based college is working to repatriate the artifacts and stays to a number of tribal nations, although the method might take a number of years, UND President Andrew Armacost mentioned.
“I sincerely specific my apologies and heartfelt regrets that UND has not already repatriated these ancestors and sacred objects as they need to have been years in the past,” he mentioned in an announcement.
College and workers first raised the problem months in the past, and the college has been engaged on it since.
Armacost, in a video information convention, mentioned partial skeletal stays from dozens of people, in addition to about 250 containers of sacred artifacts, had been present in March. The method of trying to find artifacts the college might need in its possession started late final 12 months.
Laine Lyons, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and director of growth on the the varsity’s School of Arts and Sciences, was in tears describing her feelings when she was on the lookout for artifacts however discovered a field with human stays.
“I felt betrayed, offended and unhappy,” she mentioned in the course of the information convention Wednesday. On the time, she felt UND was “one other establishment that did not do the correct factor.”
Lyons is a member of the college’s repatriation committee that’s working to return the artifacts and stays.
College officers imagine the human stays and artifacts had been taken from sacred burial mounds “over the course of many years” from the Forties to the Nineteen Eighties, Armacost mentioned.
The college was to have returned the stays years in the past below the federal Native American Graves Safety and Repatriation Act that was accepted in 1990.
“We imagine that repatriation actions did beforehand occur at UND however how and why ancestors and sacred objects stay on our campus is a thriller that we must reply in the middle of our work,” he mentioned.
Some 870,000 Native American artifacts — together with almost 110,000 human stays — that ought to be returned to tribes below federal regulation are nonetheless within the possession of faculties, museums and different establishments throughout the nation, in response to an Related Press assessment of knowledge maintained by the Nationwide Park Service.
The college instantly contacted a number of tribal nations of the invention however initially made no public statements, primarily based on session with tribal representatives, he mentioned.
The college will rent cultural useful resource consultants to assist with repatriation, Armacost mentioned. The college is also providing counseling providers to Native American college students, school and workers.
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