About This Project

Create dedicated Post-Return Sacred Stewardship Funds attached to repatriation agreements. When museums, universities, or federal agencies return ancestors, sacred objects, funerary objects, or objects of cultural patrimony, the return should include resources for community-defined care after the handover. Eligible uses would include private ceremony, transport, reburial or re-placement, restricted-access storage, climate-safe care where desired, cultural teaching, language documentation controlled by the community, trauma-informed consultation, legal support, security, and intergenerational transmission. The fund is not payment for the object. That would repeat the category error. It is repair infrastructure for custody that should never have been interrupted.

Timeline