Chicago’s Field Museum Complies to New US Regulations Surrounding Native American Displays

The Field Museum in Chicago has covered up several display cases featuring Native American artifacts in compliance with the recent changes in US regulations that require collecting institutions to obtain consent from tribal leaders regarding the showcasing of objects tied to their heritage.

Field Museum's Compliance with the Updates to NAGPRA Regulations

These updates were applied to the original law encompassing objects of ancestral heritage called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA for short, which was signed into law in 1990 by then-President George H.W. Bush.

Specifically, the new lines within the regulations require all institutions dealing with cultural objects to request and verify affirmative consent from lineal descendants and respective tribes before said institutions can display their sacred or culturally significant items, including human remains.

First among the institutions to apply changes within its activities, in line with the new regulations, is the Field Museum, which released a statement detailing the actions it has done in doing so.

This includes concealing displays in its Robert R. McCormick Halls of the Ancient Americas and the Alsdorf Hall of Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples, and also confirmed that it "does not have any Native American human remains on display."

Observance of the New NAGPRA Regulations Elsewhere

In terms of one of the largest collecting institutions within the realm of anthropological objects, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, it has yet to announce how it plans to enact within the new limits set in the NAGPRA.

That said, its website indicates that it will be closing its galleries, including multiple shows that display American Indian artifacts, on a rotating schedule starting on Tuesday, Jan. 21, until Feb. 16, with specificities regarding their planned "maintenance" remaining undisclosed.

Two other collecting institutions that have a large chunk of such artifacts, including the American Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian, have also yet to release their statements regarding the changes.

Outside of the new updates, however, the AMNH has said that it will be removing displays of human remains in October of last year, according to Artnet.

On the other hand, the Smithsonian Institute, which handles operational decisions for the NMAI, issued a statement in 2023 that said it has returned over 5,000 remains belonging to Indigenous people.

During the 90-day comment period within the NAGPRA updating process, a variety of collecting institutions spoke out, including representatives from 48 federally recognized Indian Tribes, among other relevant groups.

One such Indian Tribe said: "We appreciate the difficult work and coordination the Department has undertaken to make vast and meaningful changes to shift the burden of NAGPRA compliance to where it belongs-to federal agencies and museums."