The people who populated what we now call the Americas probably sailed or walked across the Bering Strait several thousand years ago — considerably before the Norsemen who discovered "Vineland" and long before Columbus arrived. Only sixty miles of open water separate Alaska and Russia; the strait freezes from time to time, enabling people to walk across it. We do not know who these people were or what they called themselves. But European explorers found them from the Bering Strait to Tierra del Fuego. It is unfortunate that the people Columbus encountered continue to be classified as a homogeneous group called Indians. Native scholars use the terms Indian and Native American reluctantly.
———The field of archaeology is a discipline that has been little understood in the Native American community. Digging about in the ancient tombs and robbing graves are activities Native Americans associate with witchcraft and consider to be fraught with the danger of contamination and death. Traditionally, most Indian people would not consider digging up another human being's remains. However, times change.
———The European explorers were fascinated by the native people they encountered in North America. Who were they? The ten lost tribes of Israel? Were they human? Non-Indians sought answers to these questions by excavating ancient settlements and burial sites. And from the first, they turned to Indian laborers to assist them. But native people have long since outgrown their status as mere informants or laborers for anthropologists. They have over the past fifty years become literate and are now ready to take an active role in the wider subject of human studies. They are no longer content to be explained, poked, dissected, analyzed, and interpreted by outsiders. They now request — no, they demand — that they be allowed to take an active role in the study of their people and their cultures.
———The A:shiwi, or Zuni, have since the 1960s sponsored their own archaeological programs. The Hopis also have their own cultural-resources program. The Navajos have an exceptional resource-management department, and the Mashantucket Pequots of Ledyard, Connecticut, are designing and financing their own archaeological museum. Archaeology is helping them to rediscover their identity.
———In the past, anthropologists ("the ones who ask foolish questions") would arrive in native communities every spring. They would flock into Indian villages with hard candy for the native children, small cameras, notebooks, and short, stubby pencils. (They always had short, stubby pencils.) Today there is not much flocking, but the anthropologists still arrive with their laptop computers, phone hookups, and grant money. However they don't stay long. And there is no hard candy for the children.
———The archaeologists were altogether a different breed. They hired field crews for pick-and-shovel duties and to provide information. They came in a large flock and camped out in the ruins they were excavating. And they stimulated little interest among Indians.
———Traditionally, archaeological field parties hired their field workers from the nearby communities, with the intention of having them do all the major digging. Fieldwork crews at most of the major cities — Chaco, Hawikuh, Mesa Verde, Pecos, and Aztec, to name a few — were recruited from Navajo and Zuni groups. Some native families have provided stabilization-crew members for the National Park Service for every forty years. In the language of the Zunis and Navajos, archaeologists are called "the ones who dig up bodies or bones."
———Therefore, although archaeology does not deal exclusively with digging up human remains, the implications of exhumation are so strong that there are very few tribal members willing to go into this line of work. So how can one explain why Indian people would work on an excavation crew? Some say it is all right to dig up human remains as long as one is doing the bidding of the person in charge. In other words, the workmen are not doing the digging on their own; they are doing it for pay. Therefore, they are not subject to spiritual danger and cannot be accused of witchcraft. And if a question of danger or contamination does arise, there is always the purification ceremony (the expense of which is so great that the rite is performed only in the case of real danger.) Others rationalize their activities by saying that they are not digging up their own and that even if they are digging up their own, they are doing so with respect for the human remains and not for "power."
———Indian archaeologists also argue that most tribes do not have a very strong historical ethic, that they are very present-minded. Tribes look on the past in terms of events and happenings and look upon certain traditions in terms of the "here, now, and always." All their prayers for example, start with the phrase, "Here, now, this day." They have a very strong present and future orientation but a weak historical perspective. As one elder said, "Why dwell on the past? We have already been there . . . and we can't do anything to change it."
———Today, there are more Indians with degrees and credentials from various universities than ever before. While gaining an education, however, these Native Americans are often losing ground culturally. Native cultures are suffering the same ills that confront small towns and large cities in America. What does all this have to do with archaeology or Indian archaeologists? A great deal. There has been a deep-seated change in cultural attitudes toward the very serious taboos concerning death and spiritual contamination, and toward ideas about witchcraft. Most of the Indians who are going into the field and who are pursuing professional degrees began as paraprofessionals in summer field schools and contract archaeology projects. And because they are not exposed to the deep cultural conditioning of the older generation, they do not dwell on cultural restrictions.
———The law says that all federally funded construction projects, as part of the plan of work, must have an archaeological survey and must develop a data-recovery plan. Today, these projects are carried out by private contractors who hire local people as field-survey crews and as a salvage, data-recovery, and excavation crews. Most of the work consist of resource management, surveying and mapping, mitigation programs, and repatriation activities. This is where all or most Indian archaeologists are involved. They are for the most part not directly in charge of excavations, simply because they have not had the advanced classroom training necessary. Furthermore, they are usually working in subject areas not directly associated with their own tribe.
———Despite the growing participation of Indians in archaeology, some feelings of apprehension and anxiety persist, based on the old taboos. Consider the Zuni Archaeological Program (ZAP). Most, if not all, of the field programs sponsored by the ZAP are headed by non-tribal members, assisted by paraprofessional tribal field leaders. The later are given the opportunity to participate in the production of field reports for publication. A recent statement by the only Indian archaeologist in the Bureau of Land Management working in the Great Basin reflects this mixture of scientific and tribal viewpoints. "I've never worked in a burial, and I wouldn't disturb one unless it was an emergency," he declared. "And then I'd have a medicine man there to bless the bones and the archaeologist. . . . We may be tainting our souls by messing with the dead." As a scientist and an Indian (Paiute), he lives in and between both worlds. He would like to see more Indian archaeologists, who, he feels, would be helping their people.

EDMUND J. LADD (Shiwi)
Museum of New Mexico Santa Fe, New Mexico