Repatriation of human remains and burial materials:
Who owns cultural heritage and dignity?
Repatriation of human remains and burial materials:
Who owns cultural heritage and dignity?
Source: Ikeda, Mitsuho, 2020, Repatriation of human remains and burial materials of Indigenous peoples in Japan : Who owns their cultural heritages and dignity? CO*Design, 7:1-16. info:doi/10.18910/75574
Direct downlod from our internet cite: cod_07_001X.pdf without password
After ratification
of the UNDRIP, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples by Japanese government in 2007, the Ainu minority began to
promote repatriations of human remains and burial materials that had
been collected -- "pillaged" explaining by the Ainu activists -- and
maintained in Japanese universities, chiefly national ex-imperial
universities as "academic purposes" from collected tombs and
archaeological sites in Hokkaido.
Today the debate of translocation of US military base in southern Japan, Okinawa evokes the rising Ryukyuan nationalism and also similar with the Ainu repatriation thought and methodology with the among the Ryukyuan. The concepts of repatriation of human remains can challenge us to rethink modernist thought on collective property and ownership.
I will discuss the
ethical, legal, and social aspects of the
debates regarding the Rykyuan human remains between scholars, lawyers,
and civil activists (so called "plaintiff") and Japanese mainland
universities officials ("defendant"). These disputes come to a
deadlock. The plaintiffs want to establish the collective entitlement
of indigenous rights for the repatriation that has not been enacted on.
The defendants reject their demands legal conformity of "successors to
the rituals of the family" according to present Japanese civil laws.
From this actual debate, we, cultural anthropologist should ask a series of questions mentioned below;
1. What is the concept of property or repatriation of human remains and burial materials?
2. What is the collective human rights of Indigenous peoples?
3. Why do indigenous people ask to have both collective human rights and repatriation their "ancestral" heritage from universities?
4. What is the difference of property right among indigenous people from ordinary neighborhood citizen?
The speaker will relativize modern property rights and disposable rights and advocate what the repatriation rights of indigenous people in the anthropological point of view.
*Credit: the paper [will be] presented at Spring meeting of the Korean Society of Cultural Anthropology, April 26, 2019.
한국문화인류학회 2019년 춘계학술대회,
땅과 인간 : 소유와
공유, 죽임과 살림, 재생과 건설
2019. 4.26.(금) 09:30 | 서울대학교 아시아연구소 101동 210호 영원홀
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1 Repatriation of human remains and burial materials: Who owns cultural heritage and dignity? |
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2 • Following the ratification of UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the Japanese government in 2007, the Ainu, one of Japan’s ethnic minorities, began to promote the repatriation of human remains and burial materials. These had been collected, or “pillaged” according to Ainu activists, and maintained in Japanese universities, chiefly national ex-imperial universities for “academic purposes,” following their collection from tombs and archaeological sites in Hokkaido. • In this meeting of the Korean Society of Cultural Anthropology, the main subject is “Land and Tenure,” that explores the broad sense of property, entitlement, and ownership of an area, domain, space, and territory. During my presentation, I will focus on socio-cultural concepts of property in the context of the repatriation of indigenous people’s human remains. |
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3 • 1. what concept of property is involved in the repatriation of human remains and burial materials? • 2. what are the collective human rights of Indigenous people? • 3. why do Indigenous people ask to have both collective human rights and to repatriate their “ancestral” heritage from universities? • 4. how are Indigenous people’s property rights different from those of Non-Indigenous ordinary people? |
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4 • 1. Introduction • 2. Brief History of the Repatriation Claims • 3. Stories of Bones • 4. Quest for harmony between plaintiffs and defendants • 5. Concluding remarks • My conclusion will explain that Indigenous people’s desire for the repatriation of human remains refers to their need to reclaim objects to recover from violent colonial trauma, and to the need for a homecoming to their time and place of origin. This ideology is represented in their ritual of returning, a ceremony that they originally invented. |
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5 Dr. Yoshikiyo Koganei (1859–1944) Dr. Sakuzaemon Kodama (1895–1970) |
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6 • the Ainu Liberation Alliance, 1970 • Mr. Hiroshi Kaibazawa, 1980 • the Utrari (2009-present, Ainu) Association of Hokkaido, 1930- • UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007 • Mr. Ryukichi Ogawa |
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7 “The Ainu Charnel House” Store facility of specimen collections |
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8 • the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, NAGPRA, enacted in 1990 in the United States • The real problem is also the lack of imagination in Japan’s social scientists. Despite our academic tradition of cultural anthropology, we have never taken the plaintiff's side because almost all Japanese anthropologists receive grants from government and quasi-governmental agencies. • Until today, the majority have taken the defendant's side in repatriation cases with the rare exception of those anthropologists who have been trained by indigenous leaders. We do not have any authentic and politically correct Indigenous studies. We need to tackle the ethical, legal, and social dimensions of repatriation movements, not just academically, but practically. |
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9 • A legislative repatriation process does not objectively protect the Indigenous people’s human remains. For government officials, human remains should be treated as objects that must be returned to the appropriate stakeholder. Indigenous people insist that human remains are not property but a part of a whole body, a painful body, and a mindful body that will never be recuperated. |
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10 • Even now, the government does not approve of the collective rights of Indigenous people as recognized by UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous people always possessed a shared sense of collective rights before the UN began to discuss them. |
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11 • Because there is a significant interrelationship between collective human rights and repatriation of their “ancestral” bodies, Indigenous people have naturally accepted the newly emerging concept of indigenous collective rights. |
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12 • The problem is that Non-Indigenous people cannot imagine how this has affected those people whom the government and scientists harm unintentionally. |
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13 • Indigenous people (plaintiffs) insist that human remains are not property but a part of a whole body, a painful body, and a mindful body that will never be recuperated. • For government officials(defendants), human remains should be treated as objects that must be returned to the appropriate stakeholder. • My conclusion is that the repatriation requests of Indigenous people involve not only returning objects but also their recovery from violent colonial trauma, which requires a sense of homecoming to the time and place of origin. |
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14 In the memory of Seediq Bale (true human) of the Musha incident, October 27 to December, 1930 in Japanese-Taiwan Mona Rudao (莫那・魯道, 1880-1930 in center) and the Taiwanese Indigenous movements activists |
| “Stealing remains is criminal”:
Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues of “scientific research” on the
repatriation of human remains to Ryukyu islands, southern Japan In December 4, 2018, an activist group which claims indigenous rights has filed a lawsuit against Kyoto University for return of the remains of royal Ryukyuan Mumujana tomb in Nakijin village. In this presentation, I will analyze the debates regarding the Rykyuan human remains among scholars, lawyers, and civil activists and Japanese university authority in terms of ethical, legal, and social aspects. The leader of activist group and his followers share the political ideology of independence of Ryukyu island as ethnic entity from mainland Japan. Their style of claiming for repatriation is influenced by the Ainu indigenous activism in northern Japan. Based on the codes of the definition of UNDRIP indigenous people the Ryukyuan activists have been formulating collective rights of indigenousness. The university authority delays the response to their claims because the authority always inquires the official response by central government office. At the moment, these disputes come to a deadlock. The indigenous activists want to establish the collective entitlement of indigenous rights for the repatriation of remains that has not been enacted on. The university officials reject their demands in terms of legal conformity of “successors to the rituals of the family” congruent to present Japanese civil laws. The royal descendants of Ryukyu family as well as activists are claiming that royal remains should be repatriated with compensations and finally be re-buried in traditional aerial sepulture. From these debates and disputes, we should ask a series of questions such as; 1. What is their concept of property or repatriation of human remains and burial materials? 2. What is the collective human rights of indigenous peoples? 3. Why do indigenous people ask to have both collective human rights and repatriation of their “ancestral” heritage from universities? and 4. What is the difference of property right among indigenous people from ordinary neighborhood citizen? |
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