Packed in boxes and stored in the back of El Camino College’s Anthropology Museum are an Egyptian mummy head and the remains of up to 100 Native Americans.
These artifacts can no longer be legally displayed, and they certainly are not for entertainment.
They were people once laid to rest before being ruthlessly disturbed, and now require a proper burial.
Human remains once displayed in 1972 for educational purposes in the old Anthropology Museum, which was located in the former Behavioral Sciences Building, are considered illegal under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
NAGPRA requires museums and universities to return Native American human remains and cultural items to their tribes.
While faculty and students have volunteered countless hours to inventorying and identifying the remains, not offering dedicated time for faculty and staff to complete the work has meant these human remains have been left in the dust.
Although there are at most the remains of 100 Native Americans in the museum’s collection, it pales in comparison to other, larger institutions which may have a larger number than this.
Part-time anthropology professor Lawrence Ramirez said that while most museums are quiet about the fact they own Native remains, he is outspoken about it.
“There’s no downside at all to just being honest that we have some bad stuff in our collection that needs to be repatriated and most importantly, inform students about the history of this,” he said.
The last recorded instance of human remains on display at ECC was in 1991, a year after the law passed.
NAGPRA was passed in 1990 to end the history of grave robbing and exploitation of Native cultures, and the law set a compliance deadline for 1996.
After remains are returned, they are reburied by tribes in a reburial ceremony.
ECC’s first effort towards compliance was in 2006, which was led by a former student, Connie Morales.
The repatriation efforts paused until just recently.
Ramirez and former student and volunteer Kimberly Crist began inventorying the Native remains in March 2024, identifying the origins.
Ramirez said the mummy’s head, originally from Egypt, may not get returned in the near future due to the higher level of legal and political complications involved with international repatriation.
The museum is now reaching out to Native tribes who may claim the remains.
However, the process of NAGPRA repatriation is lengthy and costly as it involves numerous political, bureaucratic, legal and logistical challenges.
The U.S. Department of the Interior offers grants to museums to assist with the costs of consultation, documentation and repatriation of remains under NAGPRA, but securing funding takes time.
Currently, Ramirez is only a part-time professor while also serving as a volunteer director of the museum.
Having to juggle class instruction and the museum’s day-to-day operations means the remains fall to the bottom of the program’s priorities.
Returning these remains isn’t just a legal requirement but a moral one, and it’s now ECC’s responsibility to see that faculty are supported in their efforts to bring them to peace.
National Native American Heritage Month occurs every year in the United States from Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, beginning in November 1990 when President George H. W. Bush approved a joint House of Representatives resolution and issued a proclamation, according to information from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s website.
