2023-09474. Notice of Intent To Repatriate Cultural Items: Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK

AGENCY:

National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the Gilcrease Museum intends to repatriate certain cultural items that meet the definition of unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony and that have a cultural affiliation with the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations in this notice. The cultural items were removed from unknown locations.

DATES:

Repatriation of the cultural items in this notice may occur on or after June 5, 2023.

ADDRESSES:

Laura Bryant, Gilcrease Museum, 800 S. Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104, telephone [phone], email [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

This notice is published as part of the National Park Service's administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA. The determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the Gilcrease Museum. The National Park Service is not responsible for the determinations in this notice. Additional information on the determinations in this notice, including the results of consultation, can be found in the summary or related records held by the Gilcrease Museum.

Description

Three cultural items were removed from unknown locations. Museum records do not provide details regarding the original acquisition of these items, except to note that two of them were donated to the Gilcrease Museum by different collectors who primarily collected in the latter half of the 20th century, and that one of them was purchased by Thomas Gilcrease in 1950 from Emil Lenders, an artist who traveled around the country at the turn of the 20th century. The three sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony are pipe bags.

Six cultural items were removed from unknown locations. Museum records do not provide details regarding the original acquisition of these items, except to note that six of them were donated to the Gilcrease Museum by a collector who primarily collected in the latter half of the 20th century. The six unassociated funerary objects are pipe bags.

Cultural Affiliation

The cultural items in this notice are connected to one or more identifiable earlier groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures. There is a relationship of shared group identity between the identifiable earlier groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures and one or more Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. The following types of information were used to reasonably trace the relationship: anthropological, historical, and oral traditional.

Determinations

Pursuant to NAGPRA and its implementing regulations, and after consultation with the appropriate Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations, the Gilcrease Museum has determined that:

• Six of the cultural items described above are reasonably believed to have been placed with or near individual human remains at the time of death or later as part of the death rite or ceremony and are believed, by a preponderance of the evidence, to have been removed from a specific burial site of a Native American individual.
• Three of the cultural items described above both are specific ceremonial objects needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present-day adherents and have ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance central to the Native American group or culture itself, rather than property owned by an individual.
• There is a relationship of shared group identity that can be reasonably traced between the cultural items and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, Oklahoma.

Requests for Repatriation

Additional, written requests for repatriation of the cultural items in this notice must be sent to the Responsible Official identified in ADDRESSES . Requests for repatriation may be submitted by any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice who shows, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the requestor is a lineal descendant or a culturally affiliated Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization.

Repatriation of the cultural items in this notice to a requestor may occur on or after June 5, 2023. If competing requests for repatriation are received, the Gilcrease Museum must determine the most appropriate requestor prior to repatriation. Requests for joint repatriation of the cultural items are considered a single request and not competing requests. The Gilcrease Museum is responsible for sending a copy of this notice to the Indian Tribe identified in this notice.

Authority: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 25 U.S.C. 3003, and the implementing regulations, 43 CFR 10.8, § 10.10, and § 10.14.

Dated: April 25, 2023.

Melanie O'Brien,

Manager, National NAGPRA Program.