Tribal communities must use that legal power to regulate who gets to define their identity, or risk losing control of their cultural heritage, speakers warned at the “Intersecting Interests” conference at the University of Montana this week. And they face mountains of scientific research and legislation that have already painted their picture without their consent or participation.
“It's a waste of a Ph.D. if you're going to spend your life whining about your powerlessness instead of doing something about your powerlessness,” American Indian Graduate Center director Philip “Sam” Deloria said Thursday. “We need to learn how to bust somebody's chops in this business. Keep lists of people who aren't allowed to do research in tribal communities and enforce them.”
“Don't make overstatements about Indian knowledge,” Deloria said. “It weakens our case. Indians will fly in jet planes across the country in order to denounce the white man's technology. Not one of them walks across the country with a dog dragging their suitcase.”
The two-day conference brought teachers, researchers and professors from Canada and throughout the West to Missoula. Coordinator Patty LaPlant said its goal “is to afford all stakeholders a common meeting ground to discuss issues of indigenous research, data collection and data ownership.”
As American Indian culture grows in mainstream popularity, there's increasing pressure on tribal knowledge-keepers to reveal their heritage for academic study. But revealing what someone drinks after a Sun Dance or arguing why it's important not to sport-climb on Devils Tower National Monument aren't only academic issues. They have cultural value to tribal communities, and those communities need to manage the exchange rate or get ripped off.
State and federal laws restrict grave desecration and artifact collection on Indian ancestral territory. But UM law professor Ray Cross argued those rules were made with social scientists in mind, not tribal communities. He compared that to mainstream traditions that protect European cultural landmarks out of respect for the past, while Indian cultural protection depends on the landmark's scientific or economic interest.
Tribal nations need to push back against that trend, Cross said, or face homogenization into the larger United States melting pot. A growing trend in international trade treaties has nations legally corralling their patents, copyrights and intellectual property under a single national banner. That can strip a tribe of any influence when its resources or interests get absorbed in the greater U.S. international identity.
“And it's us as Indian people who are dropping the ball,” Cross said. “We should demand dignity and insight and virtue. Research should benefit the community, not just create data. You and your communities have to help yourselves.”
To do that, tribal governments need to do the hard work of drafting codes of ethics and research review standards. UM Indian Law Clinic director Maylinn Smith said much of that work remains to be done.
“Most tribes that we've worked with do not have stand-alone ethics codes,” Smith said. Tribal governments should be wary of using “model codes” produced by the Indian Health Service or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she said, because those general rulebooks won't address local challenges.
Instead, tribal communities need to decide who has the authority to say what traditions or sites need protection, and who has the responsibility to enforce those decisions. It could be the tribal government, but it might also be a council of elders, a tribal college board, or some other institution.
The process doesn't have to be adversarial, but it should be formal and thorough, Smith advised. What tribes don't want to do is get caught relying on “custom and tradition” when a state or federal law might be involved.
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com
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