The Nation - News from Sept. 12, 1989

The Smithsonian Institution, American Indian groups and several members of Congress will announce a breakthrough agreement today that will allow tribes to recover skeletal remains and burial artifacts of their ancestors from the Washington museum, the Washington Post said. The disposition of Indian remains has been the major obstacle to creation of the National Museum of the American Indian as part of the Smithsonian. The accord stipulates that the museum will return remains where the “preponderance of evidence” links them to specific tribes. Previously, those seeking the return of remains had to prove that they were direct descendants of the deceased.