Amid New Federal Rules, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Closes Chumash Exhibit 

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History has temporarily closed its Chumash Life exhibit in response to new federal regulations that require museums to obtain explicit consent from Native American tribes before displaying certain cultural items.

The new rules give sharper teeth to NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a law that established protocols for museums and other institutions to return human remains, funerary objects, and other sacred items to their tribes of origin. 

Since the enhanced regulations took effect last month, museums across the U.S. have roped off some or all of their Native American exhibits as curators work to determine which objects can be shown. 

“Leading museums around the country have complied with the update to NAGPRA by covering or emptying displays pending consultation, and our leadership agrees this is the right approach,” said Luke Swetland, president and CEO of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Discussions with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians are set to begin next week, Swetland said, and the museum expects to reopen the Chumash Life exhibit sometime in March. In the meantime, staff will be installing temporary signage meant to educate visitors about NAGPRA and its relationship to the field of archaeology.

“Our tribe is encouraged by the recent movement we’ve seen as a result of these new NAGPRA rules, and we hope it continues,” said Kenneth Kahn, Tribal Chair for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. “We have dedicated, knowledgeable members of our community who have worked closely with universities on past repatriation efforts,” including UCSB, “and they’re looking forward to consulting with museums on their exhibits going forward.”

The Santa Ynez Band filed its first claim with the museum in 2021, and the next year received the remains of about 1,000 Chumash and pre-Chumash people who had lived throughout the South Coast.

Among the most significant were three bones belonging to the Arlington Springs Man, which were discovered on Santa Rosa Island by archaeologist Phil Orr in 1959. The bones were radiocarbon dated to 13,000 years old, making them the oldest human remains yet found in North America.

The discovery gave weight to a theory of human migration known as the “Kelp Superhighway Hypothesis,” which suggests the first people arrived in North America not by land, but by sea, following the coastline of the Pacific Rim of northeastern Asia and Beringia down to South America, where kelp beds provided food for these earliest explorers.

Following the 2022 handover, the museum hired a full-time specialist to focus on NAGPRA requests, said Swetland. “Our museum has very consciously said we want to go back and redress everything that was in our holdings, get it back to where it rightfully should be,” he explained, pointing to the museum’s official statement on repatriation that says in part: “In keeping with the precepts of tribal sovereignty and self-determination, and in the spirit of restorative social justice and healing, we are committed to fixing the mistakes of the past, and moving forward with ethics and integrity.”

The NAGPRA specialist, Jonathan Malindine, came from UCSB’s anthropology department, where he oversaw its repository. “NAGPRA is really a piece of human rights legislation,” he said. “It was designed to give tribes the same protection against the desecration of graves that almost everyone else in the world enjoys.”

Malindine said that over the last two years, the museum has returned more than 99 percent of the Chumash remains that were in its possession. The few pending cases involve items from outside the region, many of which were donated by members of the public. “The cases get pretty bizarre,” said Malindine, including anonymous packages arriving at the Coroner’s Office and an instance of bones found in a thrift store in Ojai.

Malindine noted that while he primarily works with the Santa Ynez group as the only federally recognized Chumash band in the region, he is also in regular contact with other Chumash communities identified by the California Native American Heritage Commission. “We’re being as inclusive as we can to keep everyone in the conversation, without getting into the middle of inter-band relationships,” said Swetland.

According to a database created by ProPublica that tracks repatriation compliance among 622 U.S. institutions, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History ranks among the top in the country for quickly and proactively turning over remains. That’s in contrast to places like the Illinois State Museum or the Ohio History Connection that both still have more than 7,000 remains in their possession. “We want to be the conduit to get these people back home where they belong,” said Swetland. “We really don’t want to be in the human ancestors business.”

And as for the latest round of regulations and ongoing discussions with the Chumash, Swetland promised the museum would go above and beyond what the legal requirements are “to ensure they’re comfortable and everything we do comports with their values.” 

“This is good stuff,” he continued. “It’s a new day. You can go kicking and screaming into the light, or you can walk boldly in. We as a museum have decided we’re going to walk boldly in.”