A law protecting Native American items from exportation has been signed into effect.
President Joe Biden signed the “Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony (STOP) Act” on December 21. The act prohibits sacred Native American items from being exported from the United States and creates a certification process to distinguish sacred objects.
Federal agencies would work with Native Americans and delineate what items should not leave the U.S. and return them. Information about these items would also not be subject to public information laws.
Some Native American tribes had already voiced opposition to the sale of artifacts, such as when an auction was held in France in 2016, according to NPR.
The auction sold items such as a war shirt from a Plains Indian tribe, an Acoma Pueblo war shield, and religiously significant ceremonial objects from the Hopi Tribe.
“The STOP Act is really born out of that problem and hearing it over and over,” said attorney Katie Klass, a citizen of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma representing the Acoma Pueblo, according to NBC DFW.
“It’s really designed to link existing domestic laws that protect tribal cultural heritage with an existing international mechanism,” she continued.
The STOP Act also increases penalties set by existing laws, making the first offense of illegally trafficking items a felony.
“We should always look at the laws we pass as not static but as living laws, so we are able to determine improvements that can be made,” argued Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM), who introduced the bill, according to Hawaii Public Radio.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed in 1990. NAGPRA established penalties for trafficking cultural items found on federal or tribal lands.
It also established the process for returning Native American human remains, cultural items, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony found in the possession of museums and other institutions.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 effectively made it illegal to sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian-produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization. This law covers any and all Indian and Indian-style arts and crafts produced after 1934.
Federal laws relating to the adoption of Native American children are also under contention at present, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
