NYC natural history museum closes Native American exhibits, citing federal regulations

NEW YORK – The American Museum of Natural History on Saturday closed two exhibit halls containing Native American artifacts to comply with federal regulations.

The closures at the New York City museum, announced in a staff letter Friday, are meant to comply with new changes by the Biden administration on the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRPA), which requires consultation and consent to display items. Other institutions have recently covered or removed exhibits containing Native American artifacts, including the Field Museum in Chicago, Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

At the American Museum of Natural History, the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls have a significant number of cultural objects that could require consent to exhibit, museum president Sean Decatur said in the letter to staff. The exhibits are "severely outdated," he added, and the museum decided to close the exhibits rather than covering or removing specific items.

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“While the actions we are taking this week may seem sudden, they reflect a growing urgency among all museums to change their relationships to, and representation of, Indigenous cultures,” he wrote in the letter posted online. “The Halls we are closing are vestiges of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives, and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples. Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”

The Hall of Eastern Woodlands focused on Indigenous peoples including the Iroquois, Mohegans, Ojibwas and Crees through the early 20th century, the museum website said. The Hall of Great Plains contained artifacts from the Hidatsa, Dakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho and Crow peoples, among other nations.

The museum also covered seven displays, including one of Native Hawaiian items, Decatur said. School field trips to the Eastern Woodlands hall, which has been part of local students’ social studies curriculum, will be suspended.

The New York Times first reported on the announcement on Friday.

In October, the museum announced its collection had the remains of 12,000 people, about 26% of whom were Native American. The museum had 12 display cases that had human remains that were also removed. The museum also announced it had remains from enslaved African Americans that were removed from a northern Manhattan burial ground. Museum staff were working to repatriate remains, Decatur said.

Decatur said the museum, founded in 1869, embraced the new federal regulations to improve how museums worked with tribes and communities.

The changes took effect Jan. 12. When the U.S. Department of Interior announced the final rule, Secretary Deb Haaland, who is Pueblo, said the law is essential to return stolen sacred objects to communities.

“Finalizing these changes is an important part of laying the groundwork for the healing of our people,” she said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NYC American Museum of Natural History closes Native American exhibits