Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture by Chip Colwell

Where do the dead, the sacred, and the communal belong? With whom? What takes precedence, religious or academic freedom? These are only some of the questions that senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science Colwell explores in Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits.

The Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (also known as NAGPRA) created a path for the return of human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony, meaning items that were communally owned in 1990. Many feared that NAGPRA would lead to the death of museums, but Colwell argues that has been far from the case. By following the stories of four objects (a sculpture that is a living god, the scalp of a massacre victim, a ceremonial blanket, and a skeleton from an “extinct” tribe), Colwell masterfully, clearly, and thoughtfully considers all sides of the repatriation process from the births of the objects to their ultimate returns home.

Well-researched and, at times, personal, Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits is vital reading for anyone who wishes to learn about repatriation, the museum world, and the muddied boundaries of academic and moral responsibility.

Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture by Chip Colwell, The University of Chicago Press