Science, Censorship, and the Fight Over the Past
Who owns the past? The Elizabeth Weiss controversy
Graeme Kemp reviews ‘On the Warpath: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors’ by Elizabeth Weiss (2024)
Who would have thought that photographs of a physical anthropologist holding ancient skulls could cause so much controversy?
Yet, that’s exactly what seems to have happened to now-retired professor Elizabeth Weiss at San Jose State University (SJSU) in the US, when she posed for photographs with Native American skulls. Weiss claims that these images proved so controversial that a campaign of silencing and cancellation was launched against her at SJSU. She was locked out of the curation facility where she worked and taken away from her curation duties, with funding withheld.
The uproar arose from a longstanding and complex debate surrounding the repatriation and reburial of Native American remains. Weiss’s decision to pose with the ancient skulls was seen by critics as a symbol of disregard for the cultural and spiritual significance these remains hold for many Native American tribes. However, Weiss argues that this reaction reflects a deeper ideological shift in academia, where mythology, contemporary identity politics, and a culture of victimhood are increasingly taking precedence over scientific inquiry. She contends that the repatriation of skeletal remains to modern-day tribes, while rooted in cultural and historical considerations, has far-reaching consequences for research and academic study. The restrictions placed on scientists, she warns, risk severely limiting our ability to learn from ancient human remains—an outcome she sees as profoundly damaging to both anthropology and the pursuit of knowledge.
The ideology behind a federal law passed in 1990 holds much of the blame for what is happening in the USA to limit scientific inquiry. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) mandates that universities and museums return or repatriate sacred objects, human remains, and funerary goods to tribes that can establish a cultural affiliation with these items. This affiliation can be determined not only through archaeological and historical evidence but also through tribal oral history and creation myths. Critics, including Weiss, argue that this approach prioritises subjective narratives over scientific analysis, leading to the loss of invaluable research collections.
Elizabeth Weiss notes, NAGPRA and the concept of ‘repatriation’ represents …
“…an ideology that places who tells the story above scientific evidence. It is a postmodern ideology where there is no truth and where victims’ narratives – in this case Native American repatriation activists – are favored over scientific evidence to make claims of connections between past peoples and present tribes.” (Page 6).
This is a problem, Weiss points out. Being able to freely study human remains, including bones, is vital for understanding humanity's past and uncovering insights into related diseases. This also includes understanding sex differences in humans. All this research has relevance to understanding present day humans, as well as helping to investigate areas such as biological relatedness between groups and individuals.
When studying the Bay Area California collection, for instance, she discovered that there was evidence of not just one distinct people living in a certain area, but also signs of replacement—indicating invasions from south-eastern tribes. However, the present-day tribe in the area rejected this, claiming that they alone had been in the area since time immemorial.
Yet for Weiss, her academic work at San Jose State University started off so well. In 2004 she was interviewed for what seemed like her dream job as a physical anthropologist at this California university, with its significant prehistoric skeletal collection. She would be able to reconstruct the past lives of humans via bone biology. This included curating the significant prehistoric Ryan Mound Collection.
This was after Weiss had completed her Master’s degree from 1996 to 1998 and her PhD in 2001.
Even then, there were moves to increase the repatriation and burial of Native American remains and make the process easier.
An example of this process in action was the case of Kennewick Man, a 9000-year-old Paleoindian, one of the oldest finds in North America. Native American tribes such as the Colville and Umatilla used their religious beliefs to try and make a claim on the historic skeleton.
President Obama therefore issued an executive order, and the human remains were turned over to the tribes and were buried. Kennewick Man was lost to science forever, Weiss comments.
And it was an omen of things to come.
Elizabeth Weiss points out: the burial of Native American human skeletons, after being returned (or repatriated) to a tribe, is a recent phenomenon. Historically, Native Americans did not dispose of the deceased in that way.
Indeed, even some Native American tribal names have come under close, critical scrutiny. For example, the Bay Area tribe called the Muwekma Ohlone. Although technically not one of the 500 federally recognised tribes, they have been trying to gain recognition based on alleged historical continuity with those who once lived in the local area.
Yet DNA evidence revealed that the Muwekma Ohlone share genetic similarities with the broader Mexican-American population, rather than being a distinct indigenous group with direct ancestral ties to the prehistoric inhabitants of the Bay Area. Additionally, it has been claimed that the ‘Muwekma’ part of the tribal name is a relatively recent invention, coined by activist Rosemary Cambra. This naming, some argue, was part of a broader political effort to secure federal recognition as a Native American tribe, a designation that carries legal, cultural, and financial implications.
Like the Muwekma Ohlone, other tribes such as the Tamien Nation and Amah Mutsun Ohlone, have also claimed descent from the Ryan Mound people, represented in the collection of that name. While such disputes between tribes go on, collections of human remains are often left alone and not used for research.
As Weiss points out: historic human remains of Native Americans often have no real meaningful link to the modern-day tribes to whom they are given. Mythology and tradition are too readily accepted as evidence, though.
Indeed, if it is uncertain which bones in a collection are Native American and which aren’t, reburial activists will try to lay claim to the whole collection anyway.
Supposed Native American insights into sex and gender are also often rather suspect, Weiss argues, as part of the ‘ways of knowing’ apparently developed by Native American tribes. This includes the apparent recognition by some tribes of non-binary ‘two spirit’ individuals who were seen as both male and female. If only evil, European colonialists hadn’t imposed the sex binary of ‘male’ or ‘female’ on indigenous peoples! Well, as Weiss points out: this ‘two spirit’ concept looks like it is a recent invention, being developed at a 1990 conference, in Winnipeg.
And as Elizabeth Weiss is keen to point out: skeletal remains are a clear and scientific way of identifying if human remains are male or female, despite what gender identity theorists try to claim.
Weiss notes that the academic situation was getting worse over recent years. For example, this included efforts by other academics to cancel a talk by Weiss on the dangers of ‘repatriating’ Native American remains or artefacts to tribes that claim ownership:
“The difference between 2019 and 2020 was astounding. The difference is that cancellation became acceptable and even lauded…Intolerance is seen as needed, to decolonize the field and atone for past ‘sins’, including the ‘sin’ of being white. Repatriation activists will not be satisfied until everything is reburied, repatriated, or destroyed.” (Page 8).
So, most of the book details Elizabeth Weiss’ battles in the university sector over the issues described above. This includes the manufactured controversy in 2021 over her handling of skulls, without gloves, at her university SJSU, where she described the items as being ‘old friends’. The photograph was the standard promotional image that had excited little negative criticism in the past. However, in September 2021 “all hell broke loose” (page 146) on Twitter and in the press, with vicious criticism of Elizabeth Weiss for her perceived lack of cultural sensitivity.
An academic Kimberly Robertson from California State University denounced what she saw as a lack of respect for the Native American human remains being handled in the photo, claiming that it perpetuated on-going violence against Native American tribes resulting in emotional, spiritual and even physical trauma to Native Nations. Elizabeth Weiss should no longer be able to access human remains in her academic work, Robertson demanded. The book explains her battles in higher-education in detail – and it is alarming material.
‘On the Warpath’ by Elizabeth Weiss is a passionate and personal account of how postmodern ideas have negatively impacted science and education in recent times, as well as academic freedom. This is also true of decolonisation attempts. Genuine education and science are damaged as a result. The book perhaps suffers from a slightly over-excited tone in places and probably has more exclamation marks that are strictly required. In a few places Weiss digresses into issues that perhaps aren’t directly related to the book’s main themes. However, overall, the book deserves to be read as an important guide to current intellectual trends, including cancellation culture.
Graeme Kemp is a former teacher and civil servant who currently lives in the Midlands. He is an English and Cultural Studies graduate of several universities in England and Scotland. He has also contributed book reviews to the Don't Divide Us website and 'Bournbrook' Magazine.
I remember being so furious when they were forced to give up studying Kennewick Man and the remains were reburied by a tribe who not only couldn't even prove they were related to him, but were never asked to! I thought this was both outrageous and insane. Elizabeth Weiss is another hero of mine.
This is so counterproductive to supporting higher education as the looney left continues to cannibalize itself. Another gift to those on the right who seek to undermine funding. So stupid and exasperating.