[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 17 (Monday, January 27, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Page 3914]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-1855]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items from Arkansas and 
Oklahoma in the Possession of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth 
College, Hanover, NH

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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    Notice is hereby given under the Native American Graves Protection 
and Repatriation Act, 25 U.S.C. 3005 (a)(2), of the intent to 
repatriate cultural items in the possession of the Hood Museum of Art, 
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, which meets the definition of 
``unassociated funerary objects'' under Section 2 of the Act.
    The eight items--seven copper beads and a polished clear quartz 
celt--were purchased by Mr. Glover Street Hastings III, a private 
collector. Mr. Hastings' daughter, Carlena H. Redfield, donated the 
collection to Dartmouth College in 1981. Mr. Hastings' donation 
information indicates the celt came from a Caddo grave in the Ouachita 
River Valley, Montgomery County, AR. Mr. Hastings' information 
indicates the seven copper beads came from Spiro Mound, Sequoyah 
County, OK.
    Celts and copper beads are consistent with the types of funerary 
objects used in traditional Caddoan burial practices. Spiro Mound is 
considered a prepared physical location into which, as part of the 
death rite or ceremony of a culture, individual human remains were 
deposited. Both Spiro Mound, Sequoyah County, OK and the Montgomery 
County, AR, are located within the area archeologically and 
ethnographically documented as being occupied by ancestral Caddoan 
populations for the last 2,000 years.
    Officials of the Hood Museum of Art have determined that, pursuant 
to 25 U.S.C. 3001 (3)(B), these eight cultural items 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 an Native American individual. Officials 
of the Hood Museum of Art have also determined that, pursuant to 25 
U.S.C. 3001(2), there is a relationship of shared group identity which 
can be reasonably traced between these items and the Caddo Indian Tribe 
of Oklahoma.
    This notice has been sent to officials of the Caddo Indian Tribe of 
Oklahoma. Representatives of any other Indian tribe that believes 
itself to be culturally affiliated with these objects should contact 
Mr. Kellen G. Haak, Registrar and Repatriation Coordinator, Hood Museum 
of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, telephone (603) 646-3109 
before February 26, 1997. Repatriation of these objects to the Caddo 
Indian Tribe of Oklahoma may begin after that date if no additional 
claimants come forward.
Dated: January 17, 1997.
Veletta Canouts,
Acting Departmental Consulting Archeologist,
Deputy Manager, Archeology and Ethngraphy Program.
[FR Doc. 97-1855 Filed 1-24-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-70-F