The Hidden Files: The BIA's Museum Program -- Stolen Property, Stolen Lives

 (Above) BIA Museum report was obtained by FOIA in 2019

The Hidden Files: The BIA’s Museum Program – Stolen Property, Stolen Lives

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Hidden in the files are the facts about the BIA Museum Program, a collection of 8 million items in bags and boxes, and on shelves, in 156 places, 87 BIA and 69 non-BIA facilities. It includes Native ancestors' remains, sacred items stolen from their graves, and artifacts.

The facts about the BIA storage facilities are only known because of a freedom of information act request.

It reveals that non-BIA facilities are being used as holding facilities for vast amounts of the BIA's "collections" in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, Kansas, South Dakota, Idaho and Illinois. (See list below.)

Two of these are in Tucson. The largest of the BIA collections is at the University of Arizona's Arizona State Museum, and the National Park Service repository, near downtown Tucson. Some of these precious items are being held at museums in substandard conditions at museums in South Dakota, Arizona, and Utah, according to the BIA's report.

Native Voices Reframe History in New Grand Canyon Film

Coleen Kaska, former Havasupai Council member, says, "The water does not say that I belong to you. The water does not say, you know, I’m going to go this way for these people over here. The water has its own source, its own nature. It does not belong to anybody, it belongs to everybody." Photo Deidra Peaches, courtesy of Grand Canyon Trust

From left to right: Jim Enote (Zuni), Loretta Jackson-Kelly (Hualapai), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma (Hopi), Coleen Kaska, (Havasupai), and Nikki Cooley (Diné).  Kuwanwisiwma says in the film, "from the Grand Canyon, the spirits travel throughout the world as clouds." Credit: Deidra Peaches, courtesy of Grand Canyon Trust.

Native Voices Reframe History in New Grand Canyon Film

With an all-Native cast and production team, “Voices of the Grand Canyon” shifts the storytelling power to Native peoples who, for more than a century, have been excluded from the dominant narrative of Grand Canyon National Park. Their violent treatment and histories of forced removal from the Grand Canyon are mirrored in national parks across the country. The film has run the festival circuit over the last year, but is being released to the public online today for the first time. It won best documentary at the Indie Film Fest in Phoenix in February 2022, has been accepted into a dozen festivals around the world, and will be playing periodically at Grand Canyon National Park’s visitor center on the South Rim.

By Ashley Davidson
Communications Director
Grand Canyon Trust

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona —Deepen your understanding of the United States’ most iconic national park in the new short documentary “Voices of the Grand Canyon,” which launched online today in advance of Grand Canyon National Park’s 104th anniversary on Feb. 26, 2023.