Author: jeff

What’s pushing 2,000-plus athletes from over 50 countries to San Francisco for the 40th annual Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon (EFAT) on Aug. 15—one of the most unique and grueling swim-bike-run races on the pro triathlon tour?

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Osage Nation Representatives review collections during a NAGPRA consultation. Photo courtesy of The Osage Nation

Nearly $2 million has been disbursed by the National Park Service in the form of grants to nine Indian Tribes, one Native Hawaiian organization, and 22 museums to assist in the consultation, documentation and repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural items as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

“The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act grants help ensure the longevity of Native American cultural heritage and the National Park Service is committed to supporting the critical work of Tribal consultations, documentation and repatriation,” said Park Service Deputy Director Shawn Benge.

Eleven grants will fund the transportation and return of 11 cultural items, more than 4,000 funerary objects, and human remains comprising 82 ancestors.

One recipient, the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, will repatriate the remains of individuals and burial objects removed from the Abbott Farm Historic District, a National Historic Landmark archaeological site in Mercer County, New Jersey. The Delaware Tribal Historic Preservation Officer was to travel to the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts, to reunite the remains of 35 ancestors with over 600 funerary objects and prepare them for the journey to their final resting place. Additional representatives from the Delaware Tribe of Indians, Delaware Nation, Oklahoma, and Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin, will travel to Morrisville, Pennsylvania, to respectfully reinter the ancestors at a designated site on the banks of the Delaware River near the Abbot Farm site.

Twenty-two consultation and documentation grants will fund museum and tribal staff travel, consultation meetings and research, all in support of the repatriation process.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will conduct a collections review and host a consultation event to address NAGPRA-eligible cultural materials and ancestral remains recovered from Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Located near East St. Louis, Illinois, Cahokia Mounds is the largest pre-contact site in North…

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The Pawnee Nation has hosted a children’s summer camp as long as Mike Ortiz can remember. He decided last week to cancel the camp for the second straight year amid a resurgence of COVID-19 infections in Pawnee County and across Oklahoma.

“We don’t want to be a hindrance health-wise,” said Ortiz, who noted the back-to-school camp is for children between the ages of 6 and 18, meaning half cannot yet receive COVID-19 vaccines.

Medical experts say the disease is spreading quickly across the U.S. because of a highly contagious variant that now accounts for most new cases. The rapid return of COVID-19 prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reinstate its face mask recommendation for all people in crowded settings. 

Leaders of many Oklahoma tribes are reupping safety measures and redoubling vaccination efforts to stem the spread within Indigenous communities, which suffered outsized losses during earlier waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent steps include closing some tribal headquarters to the public and canceling annual events that organizers had hoped to bring back this year. 

“We are hearing from the experts and epidemiologists that the infection is spreading so rapidly that it’s more important now than ever that people are taking personal protection measures,” said Mark Rogers, executive director of the Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health System. The tribe has clinics in Shawnee and Norman, as well as a 24-hour coronavirus hotline that is answering more and more calls.

Rogers said COVID-19 cases are increasing among the health care system’s more than 22,000 patients. Most who have tested positive in recent weeks had not received a COVID-19 vaccine. Many are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Some have been hospitalized. 

“It is a second pandemic of the unvaccinated,” said Rogers, who is Cherokee. 

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