FBI seeking to repatriate thousands of Native artifacts 'collected' by Christian missionary

[MineralMan]

Another example of Native Americans being exploited by missionaries who were supposed to be "saving" their souls. Looks like this one was saving other stuff for himself. Apparently, the missionary believed that his culture was more important than Native American culture, so he stole items from them, and dug up others from burial mounds. All in the name of Jesus, I guess...

https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/fbi-seeking-to-repatriate-thousands-of-native-artifacts-collected-by-christian-missionary-WvUjm9Fj4EikTh7ouEUSZg/

FBI seeking to repatriate thousands of Native artifacts ‘collected’ by Christian missionary



Recovery of Native cultural artifacts is the largest single discovery of cultural property in FBI history. Christian missionary had used a skull as a fruit bowl and adorned skeletons.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s website, an official operation by the FBI—which led to the discovery of over 7,000 seized artifacts— has resulted in the FBI reaching out to the 573 federally-recognized Native American tribes in the United States in an attempt to find the proper home and legal repatriation of thousands of culturally-significant items.

The discovery has been the subject of ongoing investigations for years in which a 91-year-old Christian missionary by the name of Donald C. Miller, who lived in Indiana, had run an amateur museum of sorts out of his farmhouse.

According to the FBI and several news reports, tens of thousands of cultural artifacts in varying methods of display—from being encased in jars, to sitting behind glass display cases—and now, according to the APTN, as actual skeletons adorned with breastplates and/or bone choker necklaces or as a saw-carved skull into a fruit bowl on a table—set the stage for his museum.

More at link...

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Holy Cow,

hope these artifacts make there way back to the Tribes to whom they belong. One would be surprised at what one will find in Rural Swap Meets and so called Antique Stores.

[MineralMan]

2. I think most of them will make it back to their rightful owners.

The old missionary who had them stole them. I think there's a Commandment or something that mentions stealing.

There's a long tradition of artifact collecting among people who were supposed to have been bringing Jesus to Native American tribes. More often, they brought prejudice and stole the cultures' artifacts in the process of saving their souls.

At least in this case, every effort will be made to return the stolen items. It's one thing to frame some arrowheads you plowed up on your farm field. It's quite another to use a Native American's skull as a fruit bowl. That''s some ugly stuff, right there.

[Act_of_Reparation]

3. Happy are the colonialists...

...for they shall inherit everybody else's shit.

[MineralMan]

4. Sure. After the genocide, it's all theirs.

And even if the locals don't die, the colonialists can just steal everything, because force majeure...