Human Remains in Private Hands?

Factual Questions
1

Isn’t there a law in the US concerning not having human remains – aside from the ashes of a cremated loved one – in one’s home or business?

Aside from, of course, institutions of archeology and higher learning or museums.

I was wondering about this when I watched a program on television concerning mummies and found out that a store out in Arizona has three on display. One is the remains of a cowboy, one apparently an Indian woman and one a 600 year old little girl of 2. These are natural mummies – meaning made so by the heat and sand and not wrapped like the Egyptian ones.

I have little problem with human remains being used for study, or being used for education, like in a museum, but those are usually thousands and hundreds of years old. I do have a problem with a couple of curio shop owners using them to draw in customers. The cowboy and the Indian woman are not even 200 years old!

I happened to wonder what gave these people the right to place the remains of humans on display in their store, to own the remains of relatively modern people. I mean, one cannot go into a cemetery and dig up the remains of someone buried there for 200 years who no longer has any ancestor and put them on display.

Besides, I thought Indians these days filed lawsuits to reclaim the bodies of any of their dead who had died within the last 500 years or so, in order to rebury them according to tradition.

I don’t know, but it seems somehow wrong for a store selling nick nacks and souvenirs to have the corpses of 3 human beings set up for display for customers to gawk at. I mean, didn’t they pass laws to stop circuses from buying and displaying ‘pickled punks’? (Deformed bodies of dead infants in jars of preserving fluid.)

2

I also always thought it was illegal to sell human tissues including bones. I have talked to teachers that use cow bones in their classrooms because they can’t get real human bones. So they say. I substituted for a class that still had a very old REAL human skeleton display. All the new ones are made of plastic. Much cheaper that way, and I assumed more legal. But it looks like people can buy non Indian remains… and apparantly it is easier than we thought.

http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/bone0100.htm

This site claims: "The trade in human bones is indeed permitted, with the exception of those belonging to Native Americans. There are several national companies that specialize in selling human and animal bones. Most have Web sites with pictures and prices. Some offer explanations to quiet controversy and educate the uninformed. "
They must be right. All I could find on selling humans remains was the law about Indian stuff. So I wonder if the one corpse you saw was Indian afterall.

US CODE: Title 18 Chapter 53
"Sec. 1170. Illegal trafficking in Native American human remains and cultural items

(a) Whoever knowingly sells, purchases, uses for profit, or transports for sale or profit, the human remains of a Native American without the right of possession to those remains as provided in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act* shall be fined in accordance with this title, or imprisoned not more than 12 months, or both, and in the case of a second or subsequent violation, be fined in accordance with this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. "

*“PL 101-601; 25 USC 3001-13; 104 Stat. 3042)
This act assigns ownership and control of Native American cultural items, human remains, and associated funerary objects to Native Americans.”

3

I cannot believe Science Teachers told me they could not get real human bones because it is illegal. This pisses me off. I can’t wait to hear one say it again.

In the meantime, I will be shopping at my new favorite website:

http://www.boneroom.com/bone/humanbones.html

COOL!!

4

According to the link, bones deposited in a grave site within recent times and Indian bones would be illegal to own. However, the cowboy was found out in the desert, apparently dropped by a shot in the stomach and either buried by someone or just left to rot. The latter I doubt, for even in the arid desert there are critters just willing to feast on a decaying body.

Real ancient bones, I don’t think I have an objection to, even if I disagree with the macabre desire to own them. I recall reading about how the British and their Indian counterparts dug up so many mummies from the dessert sands that they used them for fuel in their steam engines on the rail roads and imported the corpses by the car load.

(Judging from the enormous amount of remains being turned up, that seem to virtually clutter some countries, cremation just might be the best way of disposal instead of regular burial.)

I find it repellent that some shop owners would use the desiccated body of a 120 or so year old wrangler to draw in customers or the body of an equally ancient woman, even if she is not an Indian. If I am correct, they forbid the sale of the grisly artifacts found in possession of one of Hitler’s officers after the war – lampshades of human skin, books bound with tanned human leather and so on though I think they are in a war crimes museum.

There was some famous guy from the 16 or 1700s who was buried and his head was stolen. His body eventually lay in state in a huge London church, but the search for the head went on. It turned up at a college somewhere and they wouldn’t give it back, even after pleas from the man’s surviving descendants. I could not grasp that logic very well. I mean, the descendants are alive and wanted the head back but the college was using it as a symbol of prestige.

How did they have the right to keep what was stolen from a body?

Eventually, it was returned and buried with the body.

But, then again, the Catholic Church believes in keeping bits and pieces of long dead Saints, called relics, about. I think one church has collected a couple of hundred of them. But, even so, the Catholic Church is a Church, and institution of religion and worship.

I mean, they dug up Jessie James, examined what little remained, did some tests and decided it was really him and poked him back in the ground.

5

It is totally legal to own non-indian skeletons. Most teachers in labs of schools and colleges have platic skeletond because they are cheap! The cost of a true human skeleton is in the thousands currently.

AFAIK, from my mom the doctor, India is making a killing selling off their skeletons and they are or were the largest exporter of medical-grade display skeletons.

-Sam

6

FarTreker said:

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of the above practice, although I have heard of the mummy wrappings being used in late 19th-century paper mills in the USA.

Step forward Oliver Cromwell, famous guy, Protector, and destroyer of ancient churches.

Parks Canada has had a srtict policy for at least 15 years now that the display of human remains is not consistent with treating them in a dignified and respectful manner. This applies to all human remains (or portions thereof) that turn up in National Parks or Historic Sites: First Nations or European. The artifact collections of Parks Canada took several years to be purged of First Nations remains and associated spiritual items, some collected over 100 years ago. They were returned to the appropriate First Nations band, and in many cases were re-interred where they were first discovered, with full ritual.

7

Far Treker, I saw those same mummies on a Discovery Channel show that went to air in Australia about three months ago.

I also had the same misgivings you did. While the forensic science was fascinating, I was troubled by the gratuitous manner these mummies were displayed as exotic curios in a shop. This manifestly debases the dignity of the of the persons they once were, and violates any religious beliefs of the tribes concerned.

I certainly would not want to see a mummy in this manner. Ancient human remains are not pretty to look at, and to gratuitously exhibit them in a shop which is accessible by children is quite inappropriate.

8

Cromwell’s head, eh?

All these years later, there’s still some Irish people who’d like to play rugby with old Ollie’s head if they could get their hands on it. Cromwell did NOT make himself popular in Ireland, to make the understatement of the century.

9

Maybe it’s a dubious point of civic pride, but the shop in question is here in Seattle, not anywhere in Arizona. I saw the show you mention, and it was kind of nice to see Sylvester and Sylvia get a little notice again. I was surprised to see Gloria, the two-year-old, since she wasn’t on display last time I visited the shop, several years ago.

The place is called Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, and it’s been on the Seattle waterfront since 1899. Maybe there’s some sort of grandfather clause in some law that allows them to keep the mummies that they had gotten before such laws were enacted?

By the way, Sylvia is a white woman, not a Native American.

10

My 9th grade Bio 1 teacher had a real human skeleton on a stand in the classroom. We called him (the skeleton) Bob.

11

Interesting. I call my rotting corpse “Bob” (after my ex-roommate).
http://pw1.netcom.com/~heliboy/bob.jpg

12

Well, Infoseek wasn’t any help. I searched on “mummy” “mummies” and “cowboy”, but didn’t turn up anything on the cowboy mummy. Does anyone know of a site?

13

Johnny L.A.:

Could it be The Thing?

and here’s the Seattle Mummies.

14

That I believe you are all referring to is a combination gas station/ general store/ curio shop about 50-75 miles East of Tucson.

Once you leave the city heading east through the desert, you start seeing strange billboards for ‘The Thing’ which is only ‘X’ miles ahead depending on how far you have to go. At the time, I was moving out to Texas, and the ride is so boring that when we finally got to the place (with a huge sign that said ‘The Thing’ though I don’t know if that is the official name of the place) we just HAD to pay the $2.00 to see what the hell it was.

It is basically a hodge-podge of western junk the curio shop owner had collected, usually with a explanation below each item saying something to the effect of ‘This is a rusted out Winchester rifle found in the desert which was THE THING to carry with you if you lived in the mid to late 1800s’

The ‘museum’ (and I use that term loosely) concludes with the real ‘Thing’ which is a supposed Indian mummy though as I recall, they say it is a Mexican indian (not sure if that gets around the law you all mention). It is basically a short statured beef-jerky looking person in a quasi-fetal position with some tattered cloth around them. No big deal in my opinion. I had no idea there were all these laws against mummies. I just assumed no one would want one, or that they were very expensive which is why they aren’t all that common.

Regarding the other comment on human skeletons, I have heard the story of India basically being a great bone factory for the medical schools and science classes of the world though I have always wondered whether that was true. I would think shipping bones of the dead overseas would have all kinds of wierd rules (wouldn’t they be considered biohazardous or treated in some other wierd resticted way?)

15

I have a vague recollection of seeing something about a very old woman who has her dead husband’s body in her living room. maybe someone can find a link.

16

Shades of Hitchcock and Faulkner, I should think.

17

Thanks Saltire, I stand corrected. I could not recall where the place was, but the Cowboy was found in Arizona, so I figured it was there. I missed the part entirely about the woman being White. (Man - place the mummified body of a Black woman on display and see how quickly lawsuits fly.)

Years back, when I was in my teens, I recall that mummies were popular things to have around even further years back. It was not uncommon for students in England, in college, to have one in their dorm, or for old adventurers both American and British to have one gathering dust in the library.

In the 1800s, so many mummies were uncovered from shallow burials – not the grand pyramids – that they were used for fuel, making paper, curios, and some even ground up as medicine.

I keep thinking of that bizarre Catholic church somewhere that had so many bones laying about that, in the past 300 years or so, some artist covered the walls with decorations made from skills, leg bones and so on. People consider that some form of high art, I considered it appalling and gross. Like the stacks and stacks of dismembered and sorted bones in catacombs.

I don’t know, call me a prude, but I think a better use would have been to cremate all of those extra bones and sprinkle them in the woods as fertilizer. By the way, if I recall right, both the church and the catacombs charge a fee or take donations to see the garish works.

What is this that some sects have about lining burial crypts with old bones in order to make room to pack in more?

I fully understand the archaeological interest in ancient bodies, the older the better, but to display them anywhere but in a museum, to me, is somehow not right. Like, I was fascinated years ago when they discovered the Bog People and learned what they ate, how they lived and how they died. Ozzie, the mummy dug out of the ice has been fascinating – but no one has any of those mummies kicking around their rumpus room or attracting customers in to buy old tea cups and post cards.

Like, researchers went to the arctic, found the graves of some of a failed exploration team, dug them up to see why they died, found the reason and reburied them. No one took one home to stand in the corner holding an umbrella stand.

I think it was the mummy of the cowboy which got to me. He is not ancient. In my opinion, it seemed wrong for him to be there.

18

Had to laugh at the mummy discussion concerning “The Thing” in eastern Arizona. It is called a gaff and was created by Homer Tate many years ago. He is known as the king of gaffs and supplied many carnivals and side-shows with Fiji mermaids etc. He was actually an early sheriff here in Graham county, Arizona. I wrote an article on him and his interests for our newspaper. His son and my dad were best friends. He owned a store here in Safford and then moved to Apache Junction in Arizona and then into Phoenix in later years. The “Thing” is not real!

19

I stopped at THE THING once when I needed gas, it was a back room to a convenience store. I knew that I wasn’t going to pay to see it since anything that was so crpytic and yet had to advertise so much was bound to be a come-on. I think they may have tried to set me up to pique my interest because just as I was going to the checkout, a guy came out of the room and the clerk started making small talk with him about the display. Could have been real, could have been a setup.

20

Thread title + 12-year-old zombie thread = funny.

Interesting, though. I learned something new just now!