Blog Post #7

I can’t believe it is week 7 already. After doing research for my Four Views Project, I do believe that there is a difference between a physical object and its digitized version. When you have the physical object to look at you can really spot the details that the photo cannot. When it’s in person you can see the way the light reflects off of it, or how the texture of the object is. In a photo you can see the object, but you don’t get a sense for how it actually is. In my research process it was easy to find artifacts from indigenous tribes that used to live on these lands, but for some of the resources I used some of there were British museums. First off it was hard for me to describe the image I was seeing well because I had never felt of actually seen it with my own eyes. I wanted to write and research about something that I had actually felt and touched and seen with my own eyes. I remembered that when my mom opened her dental practice, we had native Duwamish clients give use actual artifacts. Second, because these were from British museums it got me thinking if they are actually consensually obtained these artifacts or if they pillaged them. From last week’s reading on Friday, I read about the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. I did not know that an organization like that existed, and I think it is great that it does. “By enacting NAGPRA, Congress recognized that human remains of any ancestry “must at all times be treated with dignity and respect.” Congress also acknowledged that human remains, and other cultural items removed from Federal or tribal lands belong, in the first instance, to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. With this law, Congress sought to encourage a continuing dialogue between museums and Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations and to promote a greater understanding between the groups while at the same time recognizing the important function museums serve in society by preserving the past.” When I read this, it made sense to me and how yea the government should not do anything of desecrating graves. However, it got me thinking about the British once again. What about their museums and what they took from the Native Americans in the past. So, I looked up if NAGPRA laws or anything like that applied to the British and it said not likely. So many precious artifacts that belonged to the natives are now forever put away in museums behind glass.