February 2025 Update from the President

The Museum’s activities included a new exhibition and programs in Fall 2024 as well as ongoing consultation, repatriation, and collections stewardship activities.

Letter from President Sean Decatur to Museum Staff

03.03.25

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to share my semi-annual update about the Museum’s ongoing work to engage with Native communities, carry out new requirements under the updated NAGPRA regulations, and to advance consultation and repatriation activities.

  • As I shared with you in the fall, a group from the Museum participated in the opening ceremony for the Fourth Annual Munsee Language and History Symposium at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton in October.

    We attended the symposium as part of our commitment to strengthen our relationship and collaboration with the Munsee-Delaware communities, a branch of the Lenape, on whose ancestral homelands the Museum is located. Earlier in the fall, we facilitated a visit to the Museum for Munsee scholars to view an important Wampum belt in our collection, and we were also able to loan the belt for the symposium.

    The session, “Munsee-Delaware Wampum Belts,” presented by Ian McCullum (Munsee-Delaware Nation, University of Toronto), is available on the IAS YouTube channel, and the section about the Wampum belt begins at about the 10-minute mark.

  • In 2024, the Cultural Resources Office, led by Director Nell Murphy, conducted more than 700 consultations with 88 different stakeholders, including federally recognized Tribes, Native Hawaiian Organizations, lineal descendants, federal agencies, Canadian First Nations, and foreign governments, and hosted 14 Indigenous delegations. Twelve repatriations were completed in 2024 to 17 stakeholders that included 15 federally recognized Tribes and two Native Hawaiian Organizations. There are multiple repatriations in progress, and I will be able to update you on that important ongoing work in the summer.
  • As part of the Museum’s Human Remains Stewardship Initiative, the Museum has made great progress and is continuing work on the new facility for human remains collections on the fifth floor, under the direction of Director of Collections Programs Katie Sabella and Dean of Science Scott Schaefer.
  • We now have a total of eight staff members, with four new positions added in 2024, dedicated to supporting the work of consultation, repatriation, and collections stewardship, with additional support from the Division of Anthropology, Science Conservation, and Dean of Science.
  • To advance our work under the updated NAGPRA regulations for duty of care for cultural objects, the Museum has been reaching out to federally recognized Tribes and Native Hawaiian Organizations to invite consultations on sacred objects, funerary objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. As of the end of January, the Museum has reached out to 202 federally recognized Tribes and has consulted with 21 of them. In addition, we are following up on our initial outreach to communities represented in the Eastern Woodlands and the Great Plains Halls as we prepare to de-install cases in those galleries in 2026.

  • The Changing Museum exhibition, about the past, present, and future of representing cultures, opened in October on the third floor. Joe Horse Capture (A’aninin) was an advisor, and the voices of more than a dozen Indigenous people are included in the exhibition.

    The same floor also features a screening area for a new short film, Haudenosaunee: People of the Longhouse, produced by Haudenosaunee filmmaker Caleb Abrams (Seneca, Wolf Clan).

    In addition, in mid-October, the Education Division launched a new daily field trip experience, Seeds to Stories: Exploring Traditional Foods of the Haudenosaunee, developed with Seneca educator Marissa Corwin Manitowabi and featuring a second film produced by Caleb Abrams. Designed for New York City 4th-grade school groups, Seeds to Stories has served 1,230 students through February 11 and has been enthusiastically received by students and teachers. Sign-up has been extended through March.

  • Grounded by Our Roots is on view through spring in the Northwest Coast Hall. The next exhibition in that space, Shaping the Future Through Tradition, which will open in June, will be curated by Mike Bourquin (Tahltan/Gitxsan), a filmmaker who previously worked with the Museum to produce the video that is currently on view in the Northwest Coast Hall.
  • The Education Research and Evaluation team in the Education Division is working with Dr. Gladys Rowe to evaluate the Grounded by Our Roots exhibition. Dr. Rowe gave a presentation about cultural storytelling on Tuesday, January 21, for Museum staff and students.

In addition to these efforts, we are also launching work on reimagining our cultural halls in the Museum (with the exception of the recently renovated Northwest Coast Hall). This process will have opportunities for input from Museum staff as well as broader communities; more news to follow soon.

Many thanks to everyone contributing to drive this work forward.

Sean