Notice2025-04606
Notice of Intended Repatriation: Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Primary source
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Published
March 19, 2025
Issuing agencies
Interior DepartmentNational Park Service
Abstract
In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the Denver Art Museum intends to repatriate a certain cultural item that meets the definition of an object of cultural patrimony and that has a cultural affiliation with the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations in this notice.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 52 (Wednesday, March 19, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 52 (Wednesday, March 19, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12757-12758]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-04606]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
National Park Service
[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-NPS0039555; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]
Notice of Intended Repatriation: Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the Denver Art Museum intends to repatriate
a certain cultural item that meets the definition of an object of
cultural patrimony and that has a cultural affiliation with the Indian
Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations in this notice.
DATES: Repatriation of the cultural item in this notice may occur on or
after April 18, 2025.
ADDRESSES: Dakota Hoska, Associate Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art
Museum, 100 W. 14th Avenue Pkwy, Denver, CO 80201, telephone (720) 913-
0161, email <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#c8aca0a7bba3a988acada6beadbaa9babca5bdbbadbda5e6a7baaf"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="3c5854534f575d7c5859524a594e5d4e4851494f59495112534e5b">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This notice is published as part of the
National Park Service's administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA.
The determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the
Denver Art Museum, and additional information on the determinations in
this notice, including the results of consultation, can be found in the
summary or related records. The National Park Service is not
responsible for the determinations in this notice.
Abstract of Information Available
A total of one cultural item with two distinct pieces has been
requested for repatriation. The object of cultural patrimony is a
screen with two sections, both sections are made of wood and the
culturally significant motifs of ravens are painted on them. The raven
motif signals a clan house within the Tlingit community of Sitka
Alaska. Because of the motif, we will refer to these two screens, which
together form one object, as the Raven Screen throughout this notice.
The Raven Screen was obtained by the Denver Art Museum's curator of
Native Arts, Mr. Frederick Douglas from Mr. Henry Moses in 1939 through
intermediary George Emmons with the intention of exhibiting the screen
at the San Francisco World's Fair. Henry Moses was a fur trader living
in Hoonah, Alaska who collected other items from this community as
well. To our knowledge, Moses was not Indigenous, nor was he a member
of a clan or moiety affiliated with these screens and thus would have
had no right to possess or sell these items, which were normally passed
down generationally within the community through systems of inheritance
under Tlingit customary law. It is documented, through photography,
that these screens were once positioned on a clan house in Sitka,
Alaska and were important to the shared cultural heritage of the
Tlingit community living there. As a matrilineal society, screens such
as these should pass down to a nephew of the family's matriarch.
However, the heritage rights of Alaskan Native communities came into
conflict with the Western legal system, which forced many families to
relinquish their inherited rights of possession and lose
[[Page 12758]]
ownership of their properties and any items associated with them. Henry
Moses acquired these items from yet another person who is not specified
in our records, but it is clear that at the time these screens were
separated from the original knowledge keepers and rightful owners of
this property, and at the time they fell into the hands of the
unidentified person, the United States Government had so undermined the
traditional inheritance systems and enacted measures of such extreme
assimilation as to guarantee that these screens were relinquished or
abandoned under a situation of extreme duress.
Determinations
The Denver Art Museum has determined that:
<bullet> The Raven Screen is an object of cultural patrimony and as
described in this notice has ongoing historical, traditional, or
cultural importance central to the Native American group, including any
constituent sub-group (such as a band, clan, lineage, ceremonial
society, or other subdivision), according to the Native American
traditional knowledge of an Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian
organization.
<bullet> There is a reasonable connection between the cultural item
described in this notice and the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida
Indian Tribe who have upon multiple consultations alerted the DAM to
the screen's ongoing cultural significance and their importance in
ensuring cultural knowledge persists into the future.
Requests for Repatriation
Additional, written requests for repatriation of the cultural item
in this notice must be sent to the authorized representative identified
in this notice under ADDRESSES. Requests for repatriation may be
submitted by any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian
organization not identified in this notice who shows, by a
preponderance of the evidence, that the requestor is a lineal
descendant or a culturally affiliated Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian
organization.
Repatriation of the cultural item in this notice to a requestor may
occur on or after April 18, 2025. If competing requests for
repatriation are received, the Denver Art Museum must determine the
most appropriate requestor prior to repatriation. Requests for joint
repatriation of the cultural item are considered a single request and
not competing requests. The Denver Art Museum is responsible for
sending a copy of this notice to the Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian
organizations identified in this notice and to any other consulting
parties.
Authority: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,
25 U.S.C. 3004 and the implementing regulations, 43 CFR 10.9.
Dated: February 19, 2025.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2025-04606 Filed 3-18-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-52-P
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