Court gives tribe rights to artifacts

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Court of appeals for the State of Louisiana has decided that the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe is the rightful owner of artifacts that were buried with their ancestors.

During the years 1731-1764, the ancestors of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe had a village near the Mississippi River in what is now the State of Louisiana. After 1764, the Tunicas left that village and eventually settled in their present location in central Louisiana. Although the existence of the historical village was known, its exact location had been lost in the years since 1764. In 1967, a treasure hunter, Leonard Charrier, found the village site. Because it was known that the Tunicas buried artifacts with their dead, Charrier immediately began searching for burials. He found them and over the next three years excavated and removed more than two tons of materials. The artifacts included beads, stoneware, iron kettles, knives, muskets, Indian pottery, European ceramics, crucifixes, rings and bracelets.

Litigation arose over the ownership of the artifacts in 1974. The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe intervened to asset its claim. Following trial in 1983, a state district court ruled that the Tribe owned the artifacts and did not have to compensate Charrier for discovery and excavation of the artifacts. On October 15, 1986, the appellate court affirmed that decision.

In doing so, the Louisiana courts have established the proposition that Indian burial goods "rightfully belong to the descendants ...for such disposition as the descendants may deem proper." In addition, those courts have recognized that Indians

do not view the excavation of their graves as scientifically or archaeologically justified but simply as "the systematic despoilation of their ancestral burial grounds."

The tribe was represented by Donald Juneau, private counsel, and Richard Dauphinais of the Native American Rights Fund.