October 30, 2023
Jennifer Gebhardt, a December 2022 Mayville State graduate, presented an abbreviated version of her social sciences capstone research paper, “A Grave Situation: The Contested Possession of Indigenous Remains and the Struggle for Repatriation in North Dakota,” at the Northern Great Plains History Conference in Sioux Falls, S.D., Sept. 29, 2023. At the conference, she participated in a panel discussion entitled “Respecting Native American Identities and Cultures.”
“I chose this topic (for my capstone research) because many people are unaware of the atrocities that are still committed by institutions to this day,” said Gebhardt. “When I began my research, the news about findings at the University of North Dakota just broke, so it really brought it close to home.”
Dr. Thomas Craig, Mayville State Assistant Professor of Geography, was Gebhardt’s faculty advisor for the capstone project.
Gebhardt’s goal with the research is to bring added awareness to the matter of the remains of indigenous individuals whose remains are in the custody of colleges, museums, and other government institutions. She puts forth the question, “Where do we draw the line when it comes to what is acceptable in the name of science?”
The first documented excavation of indigenous bodies for the sake of curiosity was performed by Thomas Jefferson. Before people began donating their bodies to science postmortem, stealing bodies of newly deceased right from their graves became a way to meet the demand for bodies for use as human cadavers. Generally, the bodies were those of poor and marginalized, including the indigenous. Bodies were stolen for not only the purpose of medical science, but also for purposes of anthropology and archaeology. In her research, Gebhardt pointed out many examples of such activities.
She describes the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) which was passed by Congress in 1990. NAGPRA provides a framework to follow if indigenous remains or funerary items are found on tribal or federal land. Compliance includes mandatory inventories, federal notices, and cooperation with repatriation requests from tribes affiliated with the remains and/or funerary objects. The U.S. Department of the Interior is in the process of taking further steps to update NAGPRA.
Summarizing her findings, Gebhardt says, “Harmful ideologies, combined with skewed historical narratives and themes, have created a systematic issue that leaves us in a society that values things more than people, a society that views even people as objects of discovery and specimens to be studies. Western institutions should not have the foremost right to determine whether an item - or a human - is related closely enough to be returned to specific indigenous peoples. We need to move past this savage mindset of collecting humans and navigate these spaces in a way that is accessible, respectful, and compassionate towards all.”
“Speaking at the conference was a fantastic experience,” said Jennifer Gebhardt. “This was the first time I presented at an event of this magnitude, and presenting on such an important and controversial topic was a bit daunting. The audience was captivated while our panel spoke and asked very engaging questions at the end. My goal was to provide a space to have difficult conversations, and I believe that was achieved that day. Indigenous audience members provided firsthand accounts and thanked our panel for covering this topic.”
The Northern Great Plains History Conference is a professional gathering of scholars, affiliated and independent, public historians, history students, graduate and undergraduate, and other practitioners of history, who live and work in the area of the Northern Great Plains of the United States and on the Canadian prairies. They present papers and roundtables on historical subjects from around the globe and throughout time. The conference began 57 years ago in Grand Forks, N.D., and continues to offer a forum for the latest historical scholarship. The Society for Military History and the Women's History Interest Group also offer panels at the Northern Great Plains History Conference annually.