Traditionally Associated Peoples and Ethnographic Resources

TAPS and Access to Nonrenewable Resources in National Parks
Larry Loendorf, Loendorf and Associates
February 25, 2003

Abstract: With the mission of the National Park Service to preserve the natural and cultural environment, protection of nonrenewable resources is almost sacrosanct. What, then, does Yellowstone National Park management do when a traditionally associated person (TAPS) requests access to Obsidian Cliff for the purpose of mining for obsidian? Or how does Petroglyph National Monument react when a TAPS adds new symbols to a petroglyph panel? The answers to these questions and dozens more like them are unresolved and remain a thorny issue for both traditional users and resource managers. Archaeologists and historic preservationists frequently use the "nonrenewable" category to reinforce their case for protection of cultural resources. Indeed, alteration of modern archaeological and historical sites decreases their integrity and makes them less "significant" than a similar site that is untouched. When a TAPS alters a significant archaeological site, the very foundation of the American historical preservation movement is compromised. Let me frame the debate around Obsidian Cliff, a National Register site, a National Historic Landmark and an extremely significant archaeological resource. An unauthorized individual who takes obsidian from Obsidian Cliff would be charged for violating ARPA (Archaeological Resources Protection Act). Recent ARPA prosecutions for Indian artifact theft in Yellowstone National Park have resulted in fines in the thousands of dollars. At the same time, traditional users are requesting permission to procure obsidian at Obsidian Cliff. Initially, it should be clear that I support traditional users' rights to collect obsidian from Yellowstone National Park. But I believe that the Park, as protector of that obsidian for the past 130 years, has the right to establish the terms for its procurement. I also think that the TAPS have the responsibility for establishing their access rights. TAPS need to be forthcoming with evidence for their traditional use of the resource. This does not mean that Park management must know the details of a ceremony that might be practiced before digging for obsidian. Rather management needs to know its intended use and how much obsidian is needed. TAPS also need to make reasonable requests. Asking for several hundred pounds of obsidian and the right to quarry it with a jack hammer, for example, is not a reasonable request. It is more reasonable, however, to request five pounds to be dug with a shovel and used as medicine in an eye-curing ceremony. Park management needs to develop the criteria for reasonable requests, especially with popular resources. Traditional users' requests should be in writing and presented with sufficient lead time so that Park management can react to it. In other words, Park management should treat a TAPS request for access to a nonrenewable site in the same way it treats any request to use Park resources, whether it is to use the Park for making a movie or to undertake research on grizzly bear behavior. There needs to be a panel review wherein a written TAPS request is approved, denied, or sent back for revision. The review panel needs to explore questions such as: Does the requested obsidian have to come from Obsidian Cliff, or could it be procured at another source in Yellowstone? Perhaps it could come from a source on other federally managed lands outside the Park. How nonrenewable or endangered is the resource, and how will the traditional use change it? What has the Park done to establish that it is actively protecting and preserving the resource? The foregoing scenario is developed around Yellowstone Park obsidian, but what about a TAPS asking permission to put a new petroglyph on the rocks at Petroglyph National Monument or Canyon de Chelly? Indeed, the Navajo, one group of Canyon de Chelly traditional users, have a history of painting and engraving on the rocks. A request to add an image to the Antelope House painting, a traditional Navajo panel, could be very reasonable for the appropriate TAPS. This example illustrates the complexity of the problems associated with requests to use or alter a nonrenewable resource. I do not think it is possible to develop rules that will apply across the National Parks; rather each request will need to be examined individually. In the end, however, I believe there are ways that nonrenewable resources can be used for traditional purposes and not seriously compromise the integrity of the resource.

Introduction

This essay is an abbreviated summary of an oral presentation that I made in February 2003 at a workshop on National Park ethnographic resources and traditionally associated peoples. The workshop titled "Living Peoples and Cultures" was sponsored by the National Park Service Archeology and Ethnography Program. It was held in Tucson and coordinated by the University of Arizona's Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology. The workshop was dedicated to Miki Crespi's efforts to integrate anthropology into the National Park Service.

Traditionally Associated People and Access to Nonrenewable Resources in National Parks

With the mission of the National Park Service to preserve the natural and cultural environment, protection of endangered species and nonrenewable resources is almost sacrosanct. What, then, does Yellowstone National Park management do when a traditionally associated person (TAPS) requests access to Obsidian Cliff for the purpose of mining for obsidian? Or how does Petroglyph National Monument react when a TAPS adds new symbols to a petroglyph panel? The answers to these questions and dozens more like them are unresolved and remain a thorny issue for both traditional users and resource managers.

Archaeologists and historic preservationists frequently use the "nonrenewable" category to reinforce their case for protection of cultural resources. Indeed, alteration of modern archaeological and historical sites decreases their integrity and makes them less "significant" than a similar site that is untouched. When a TAPS alters a significant archaeological site, the very foundation of the American historical preservation movement is compromised.

I began thinking about this issue a few years ago when the United States Forest Service started trying to develop a management plan for Bighorn Medicine Wheel in northern Wyoming. The Bighorn site is one of the better known examples of the stone features that are commonly called medicine wheels. The Bighorn Wheel is a circular arrangement of stones measuring about 80 feet across it maximum dimension. It has 28 rows of stones or "spokes" that radiate from a central cairn to an outer, encircling stone rim. There are five smaller, stone enclosures are various locations around the wheel's perimeter. Some of these smaller stone enclosures are very similar to Crow Indian vision quest structures. The Crow have traditionally used the Bighorn Medicine Wheel as a vision quest location, but this use post dates its original construction (Wilson 1981:337-338).

Aside from this use by the Crow the Medicine Wheel's function and builders remain a mystery. Regardless of who built is, however, to American Indians the Bighorn Medicine Wheel is a sacred, ceremonial site.

Based primarily on its archaeological value, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. At that point, however, only the Wyoming Archaeological Society had done any excavation at the site. This project, directed by Don Grey, was undertaken primarily by avocational archaeologists. The work was well controlled, however, with a well-written report on the research (Grey 1963). In 1973, Michael Wilson (1981) directed a University of Wyoming excavation at the site. Both Grey and Wilson report considerable evidence of prior digging at the site, presumably by relic hunters.

In 1988, the Forest Service proposed the construction of a visitor's center near the Medicine Wheel, upgrading the road and building a viewing platform to elevate visitors so they could get a better view of the structure. This proposal was met with considerable resistance from American Indians who worked with environmental and historic preservation groups to block the proposal. Ultimately they were successful in having the site recognized as a traditional cultural property.

The management saga for the Bighorn Medicine Wheel continues but it was at this point that I started to think about the potential conflict between traditional cultural properties and historic preservation. As part of the management plan, American Indians were given access to the site for ceremonial purposes. After Indians used the site for a ceremony, archaeologists visited the site and reported that during their ceremony the Indians had moved some of the rocks in the wheel. Of course the alteration of any historical property affects its integrity and from the historic preservationists' point of view, Indians moving stones in an historical site, regardless of their purpose, is defacement, pure and simple.

I must admit that this was my own first reaction. On reflection, however, I realized that the stones in the Medicine Wheel had been moved several times previously – an unknown number of times by relic hunters and twice by archaeologists doing controlled excavations. The excavations were completed under permits, but so were the Indian ceremonies at the site with permission.

The potential for conflict between TAPS and historical resources is especially acute in the National Park Service where the stated mission of many National Parks is to protect an historical resource. What response with Park management have when a TAPS requests permission to undertake a ceremony in the kiva of one of the western parks dedicated to preserving ancestral Pueblo sites? This conflict has already surfaced with endangered species.

Perhaps the best known example is at Wupatki National Park where the Hopi have requested permission to remove baby eagles for ceremonial purposes. This request was approved by Nancy Kauffman, who was then the regional director for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. In preparing this essay I spoke with Kauffman. Referring specifically to Wupatki, Kauffman said, "How could I deny the taking of eagles from Wupatki National Monument when approximately 50% of the golden eagles that die each year do so from collisions with airplanes or moving trucks and electrocution on power lines. How can I deny an American Indian request for two or three eagles?"

Not surprisingly the Fish and Wildlife approval of taking eagles met stiff resistance from bird and wildlife advocates (Williams 2001). Furthermore when the Hopi arrived at the park boundaries they were denied permission to enter the park. Citing the Organic Act and 36CFR 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5 the National park Service determined that it was illegal to take eagles from a National Park. In some back and forth decisions, the National Park Service ultimately decided it would be ok, if the regulations were changed, to allow the Hopi into Wupatki to obtain eagles. The proposed changes were published in the January 2001 Federal Register with a request for public comment but as yet no decision has been made regarding the Hopi and the Wupatki eagles.

This leads to my question for the National Park Service, would the superintendent of Wupatki National Park have been better off if he had an ethnographic resource use plan? The Wupatki superintendent is reported to think that he was blind-sided; he thought the Park was getting along quiet well with the Hopi and eagle taking did not come up in several prior consultations with the Hopi. If this is the case, he would have been better off if he was able to point to a plan for use of ethnographic resources. He simply could have used a plan, negotiated between the Hopi and the Park, to point out that eagles are not part of the plan and if they are to become a part, a new plan will need to be established.

In essence this is what the National Park Service is currently proposing to change the rules and allow the Hopi access to Wupatki for eagles. But even if the Hopi do succeed in getting permission to get eagles from Wupatki National Park, the solution will not help Indians trying to gain access to resources in other parks.

Let me frame the debate around Obsidian Cliff, a National Register site, a National Historic Landmark and an extremely significant archaeological resource. An unauthorized individual who takes obsidian from Obsidian Cliff would be charged for violating ARPA (Archaeological Resources Protection Act). Recent ARPA prosecutions for Indian artifact theft in Yellowstone National Park have resulted in fines in the thousands of dollars. At the same time, traditional users are requesting permission to procure obsidian at Obsidian Cliff.

Initially, it should be clear that I support traditional users' rights to collect obsidian from Yellowstone National Park. But I believe that the Park, as protector of that obsidian for the past 130 years, has the right to establish the terms for its procurement.

I also think that the TAPS have the responsibility for establishing their access rights. TAPS need to be forthcoming with evidence for their traditional use of the resource. This does not mean that Park management must know the details of a ceremony that might be practiced before digging for obsidian. Rather management needs to know its intended use and how much obsidian is needed.

TAPS also need to make reasonable requests. Asking for several hundred pounds of obsidian and the right to quarry it with a jack hammer, for example, is not a reasonable request. It is more reasonable, however, to request five pounds to be dug with a shovel and used as medicine in an eye-curing ceremony. Park management needs to develop the criteria for reasonable requests, especially with popular resources.

Traditional users' requests should be in writing and presented with sufficient lead time so that Park management can react to it. In other words, Park management should treat a TAPS request for access to a nonrenewable site in the same way it treats any request to use Park resources, whether it is to use the Park for making a movie or to undertake research on grizzly bear behavior. There needs to be a panel review wherein a written TAPS request is either approved, denied, or sent back for revision. The review panel needs to explore questions such as:

In my opinion, this last point is an important one. If a TAPS asks to gain access to a resource in a National Park, the Park had better have a record of research with the resource. Otherwise, the TAPS are going to say if that resource is so significant, why haven't you studied it in the last 75 years? Lack of money is a weak excuse because Parks have sufficient money to dig archaeological sites and build visitor centers, so they should be able to budget money to study significant resources.

Citing the 1916 Organic Act as a reason for the National Park Service to deny a request for a nonrenewable resource is also not adequate. The relevant section of the Organic Act states:

The service…shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as the national parks, monuments and reservations…by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose…which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

Individuals using this law cite the "unimpaired" status of the resource as the part of the statute which makes it illegal for Indians to collect in National Parks. Yet when archaeologists excavate at Obsidian Cliff, they are altering the condition of the site such that it is no longer unimpaired. The archaeologists conduct an excavation with a research design and a permit. This is precisely the process I think American Indians need to follow. They need to write a statement that outlines their purpose for obtaining obsidian and obtain a permit.

The foregoing scenario is developed around Yellowstone Park obsidian, but what about a TAPS asking permission to put a new petroglyph on the rocks at Petroglyph National Monument or Canyon de Chelly? Indeed, the Navajo, one group of Canyon de Chelly traditional users, has a history of painting and engraving on the rocks. A request to add an image to the Antelope House painting, a traditional Navajo panel, could be very reasonable for the appropriate TAPS.

This example illustrates the complexity of the problems associated with requests to use or alter a nonrenewable resource. Ongoing consultation with Indian Nations is the essential element in trying to develop ways that nonrenewable resources can be used for traditional purposes and not seriously compromise the integrity of the resource.

References Cited