FY2004 NAGPRA Documentation Grant

Grant Number 40-04-GP-366
June 1, 2004-December 31, 2005

This grant was intended to further repatriation efforts with various East Coast museums. It was prematurely terminated because of the tribe’s loss of federal recognition in 2004.

The stated project goals were:

I.) our first objective under the proposed project is to enter the information in these inventories into a digital database, which will increase their accessibility for tribal members and for the federally recognized tribes who share our cultural patrimony. While compiling the inventories under the FY 2000 project, we also found that the State Museums of New Jersey and New York currently hold a large collection of Delaware human remains and

II.) our second objective under the current proposal is to travel to these institutions that have yet to submit a Notice of Inventory Completion and consult regarding the identification, cultural afflliation, proper care and repatriation of our ancestors.

III.) Our third objective is to host an intertribal summit with the two other federally recognized Delaware tribes (Delaware Nation and Stockbridge-Munsee). As we share similar interests in protecting and repatriating the human remains at the State Museums of New Jersey and New York, this caucus will be held to discuss the disposition of those remains considered culturally unidentifiable by the museum staff.

IV.) The final objective of the current project is to train the NAGPRA Director and the Tribal Liaison in the proper techniques for documenting the cultural affiliation of Delaware material culture items. Training in this area will allow our staff to better assist those at the State Museums in their effort to determine the cultural affiliation of the objects in their collections.

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