Fort Peck Tribes repatriate sacred items

Nora Mable
Missoulian

When she was little, Dyan Youpee spend her afternoons in her dad’s office — sometimes doodling under his desk.

Dyan’s father, Darrell “Curley” Youpee, founded the Fort Peck Cultural Resource Department in 1995 and served as director for 22 years.

As a young girl, Dyan remembers listening to her father’s conversations. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she was absorbing valuable information.

“It was a revolutionary time,” she said. “I watched my dad fighting to have a spot at the table with federal agencies. so that language has always been part of my lexicon. It’s always been instilled in me that I was rich in culture.”

Dyan Youpee now directs the Fort Peck Cultural Resource Department, and it’s these experiences that led her — along with members of her staff and the Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board — to drive nearly 500 miles from the Fort Peck Reservation to Missoula this summer to repatriate cultural items from the University of Montana.

Questions of compliance

Public schools, museums and other institutions nationwide house items affiliated with tribes. Sometimes the items are donated. Other times, a school or museum staff member may have bout or collected the items for archaeology or research purposes.

Dave Kuntz, director of strategic communications at UM, said these items are state-owned. The university has legal requirements from the state to protect the objects and serve as a repository for them. Kuntz said that while in the past, the items would be displayed in classrooms or used for research, they aren’t anymore. Now, he said, the university stores the items in a secure place, where qualified staff care for them.

Youpee said the university is not in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection Act (NAGPRA), a federal law stating that human remains and other items of cultural significance belong to lineal descendants and tribes. Under NAGPRA, all federal institutions must inventory and identify Native American remains and items in their collections and consult with tribes regarding their return. Youpee sad she and her father tried to repatriate items from UM years ago but alleged the university was “dragging their feet.”

Kuntz said “it is our full intent to be in compliance” with NAGPRA.

“It’s going to take time,” Kuntz added. “It requires a considerable amount of work. UM is working to do it the right way, and part of doing it right means working with each tribe individually.”

Kuntz said the university is hoping to hire a repatriation coordinator, whose full-time job would be to work with tribes to return items of significance.

‘We came as a sovereign nation to correct them’

When Youpee, her staff and the council members met with UM collections staff last week, she said they were determined to bring the sacred objects home.

“Since UM doesn’t want to follow the federal law, we came as a sovereign nation to correct them,” she said. “They were housing items illegally, and through tribal law, we cam to take them back.”

Youpee sadi the collections staff at the university helped her and her staff pack the items so they’d be safe for the drive home.