IN a backroom of the Museum of Mankind in Paris, on a shelf above the
pickled brain of 19th-century anthropologist Paul Broca, sits a bell jar
containing the dissected genitals of a South African woman. The ledge below
houses her skull and skeleton. All but forgotten for nearly two centuries, the
remains of Saartje Baartman are at the forefront of vociferous demands from
South Africa鈥檚 minority groups for the return of bones and body parts removed
during colonial and apartheid times.
South Africa isn鈥檛 the first nation to do battle over the return of the
remains of indigenous people. Museum curators in Australia, North America and
Europe have been wrestling with the ethical and moral issues surrounding the
return of ethnic remains for a decade or more (see The end of anthropology?).
But the country can claim to be a special case. Many scientists argue that South
Africa needs to safeguard its unique archaeological record鈥攅specially the
hominid fossils which are the direct ancestors of humankind and relics from some
of the last hunter-gatherers on Earth. And studying such remains will further
undermine the 鈥渟cientific鈥� basis of apartheid.
The Baartman case has brought the issues into sharp focus. Last year, a group
called the Griqua National Conference which represents the descendants of
Baartman鈥檚 people, the Khoisan, wrote to Nelson Mandela requesting his support
for their efforts to repatriate Baartman鈥檚 remains. In February, Ben Ngubane,
the Minister for Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, raised the issue with
Jacques Godrain, the French Minister of Cooperation.
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This move, which set the wheels of debate in motion, has been accompanied by
growing popular demand for the return of other ancestral remains from scientific
institutions both at home and abroad. Disputed specimens include five desiccated
Bushmen heads stored in cardboard boxes at the Natural History Museum in London
and the plethora of craniums, skeletons, bones and tissue in South Africa鈥檚 own
museums and universities. 杏吧原创s and government officials are now trying to
resolve the question of who owns the dead.
Last month, the topic was high on the agenda when museum curators met in
Kimberley for the annual congress of the South African Museums Association. They
agreed to press the government to support demands for the return of Baartman鈥檚
remains and they recognised the sensitivity of their own collections. The
curators also asked the government to fund a programme to document and make
public an inventory of all human remains in local and overseas institutions.
Ancestral remains
A reservoir of good will already exists between scientists and those
responsible for safeguarding skeletal remains. For example, Phillip Tobias, a
palaeoanthropologist in the Department of Anatomy at the University of
Witwatersrand, who is at the centre of the debate, has impeccable anti-apartheid
credentials. In the early 1950s he was president of the liberal National Union
of South African Students and he was a member of the University of Witwatersrand
Senate during the 1950s and 1960s, a time when students and staff were in bitter
conflict with the National Party government over its racist education policies.
Now he sits on a panel that advises the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and
Technology about how to manage the country鈥檚 museum heritage.
Another key figure, Alan Morris, associate professor of anatomy and cell
biology at the University of Cape Town, has just published a compendium of
skeletal remains called Skeletons of Contact. The book challenges the
stereotype upon which the old government鈥檚 racist policies were based. Morris鈥檚
work makes a nonsense of the notion that South Africans could be assigned to
different 鈥渞acial鈥� and 鈥渆thnic鈥� groups on the basis of physical and cultural
differences. Instead he shows cultural similarities between people from
different ethnic groups, particularly on the frontiers of the Cape Colony where
Khoisans, Africans and Europeans interacted freely before segregationist
policies were rigidly enforced by colonial and apartheid governments.
In the 1960s Tobias and his colleagues exhumed skeletons of Griqua leaders
from graves near the town of Kimberley. Now he is negotiating with the Khoisan
Representative Council and the family of Griqua chief Cornelius Kok II for these
bones to be returned. 鈥淭he feelings and sensitivities of the living descendants
or congeners of the deceased should be respected and consulted,鈥� he says.
Most of South Africa鈥檚 anthropologists would agree. But they are also
concerned that people should recognise the scientific value of human remains to
humanity at large. For example, Tobias is appalled by a recent request from
Chief Sam Mankuorane, leader of a group of Tswana people living in the country鈥檚
Northern Province. The chief is campaigning for the return of the famous Taung
skull鈥攐ne of the earliest records of the hominids who lived in Africa
between 1.5 and 5 million years ago. 鈥淲e find ourselves handling remains that
are derived from the ancestors of all living humanity,鈥� says Tobias. 鈥淎s far as
personal identity is concerned they are anonymous鈥� They are the common
heritage of the living human species.鈥�
Keenly aware of the problem, South African anthropologists highlight the
benefits for people who are prepared to compromise with scientists. 鈥淭he
involvement of local groups in the curating and custodianship of remains may pay
dividends such as the sense of spiritual wellbeing, social satisfaction and
conformity of the group,鈥� says Tobias.
But there are other, much more tangible benefits. The Mandela government has
adopted an ambitious programme of land redistribution, designed to offset the
skewed patterns of ownership created by apartheid. It aims to restore 30 per
cent of the country鈥檚 arable land to its original owners within five years. The
commission dealing with all the claims recognises graves as legitimate evidence
of occupation before segregation. Even exhumed bones can help in pressing land
claims, if DNA tests link the remains to living indigenous groups.
The study of human remains could also improve healthcare for South Africa鈥檚
deprived minorities. Comparing the bones of living people with their ancestors
five generations ago can determine if today鈥檚 people are better off, says
Tobias. For example, analyses of defective bone development in the shin bone
(tibia) and flawed development of teeth enamel (hypoplasia) provides baseline
data that can be used to work out the environmental and genetic components of
health in a particular community. Epidemiologists can devise diets and other
approaches to nutritional problems common to a specific group of people.
In recent years, scientists have used analysis of isotopes of nitrogen and
carbon in skeletal remains to learn about people鈥檚 diets, whether they were
hunter-gatherers or farmers, the environments they lived in and how their
societies adapted to cope with these conditions. 鈥淭wenty years ago it would have
been inconceivable to obtain DNA from archaeological skeletons or isotopic data
bearing on health and diet,鈥� says Morris. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know what will be possible
in 20 years. If you reinter skeletons, the potential for vital new information
down the line will be lost.鈥�
Other anthropologists argue that the changing nature of their work now offers
indigenous people valuable insights into the way their ancestors lived. Patricia
Davison, assistant director at the South African Museum points out that in the
19th and early 20th centuries physical anthropologists were obsessed with the
idea of fitting people into strict 鈥渞acial鈥� categories. Frequently these new
findings debunk the racial stereotypes peddled by colonial anthropologists.
Peaceful negotiations
So, can scientists and ethnic groups reach a compromise? The signs are
promising. The science and culture ministry has already said that it intends to
resolve the question of who owns the dead using special commissions and
multi-ethnic negotiating forums similar to those used in the wake of apartheid.
鈥淲e have not yet devised a coherent policy on the question of human remains in
museums,鈥� says science and culture minister Brigitte Mabandla. But Mabandla鈥檚
ministry is preparing a White Paper for discussion. Also, it will shortly set up
a new National Heritage Commission which will manage monuments and historic
sites and buildings and represent the country鈥檚 spectrum of ethnic groups.
One way to reconcile the conflicting needs of scientists and local people,
says Mabandla, is to create 鈥渁 cemetery which will have an on-site museum which
records the history and science associated with them [body parts]鈥�. Such a
museum would be run by locals and could employ scientists to determine whether
human remains have potential value for land claims or other human rights鈥�
demands. 鈥淩eputable scholars could then be given permission to study or to
restudy the remains under conditions to be determined by the people,鈥� says
Tobias.
Morris points to a successful project in neighbouring Namibia, where local
people have allowed his team to excavate skeletons from the Rehoboth district,
about 100 kilometres south of the capital Windhoek. The Rehoboth are mixed-race
descendants of Khoisan clans who intermarried with African peoples in the 18th
century. Morris is exploring subsistence patterns, diets and survival strategies
in Khoisan clans who lived in the desert of central Namibia between 1600 and
1800. The Rehoboth have agreed that he can take responsibility for the remains
until his scientific studies are finished, and then they will be returned to the
community-run museum.
The organisations that raised the debate in the first place seem ready for
such compromises. African communities seem only too happy to be flexible over
customary burial rites when it is in their interests for these traditions to be
renegotiated. 鈥淲e know we are only a community if we can get enough knowledge
about what happened to our people,鈥� says Martin Engelbrecht, coordinator of the
Khoisan Representative Council. 鈥淲e could be open to the suggestion that we put
the bones back in the ground but in a way that scientists can still get
补肠肠别蝉蝉.鈥�
Mansell Upham, an advocate for the Griqua National Council, agrees. 鈥淭he past
has been distorted by apartheid and is going to require extensive work to be
reconstructed,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he only point we are trying to make is that there
must be consultation and custodianship.鈥�
* * *
The end of anthropology?
Susan Pfeiffer, a physical anthropologist at the University of Guelph, in
Ontario, has compared the reburial of skeletons to book-burning. But
anthropologists are forced to recognise that the value of human remains is more
than just academic. Increasing pressure from cultural and religious groups
agitating for the restitution of their ancestors has led to new laws in North
America, Australia and Europe.
In 1971, for example, a Yankton Sioux woman from Iowa learned that a highway
construction team had unearthed several Sioux skeletons. Her lobbying led to
modification of Iowa鈥檚 鈥渧iolation-of-sepulchre鈥� codes, the establishment of a
cemetery for remains more than 150 years old and cooperative research programmes
between academics and people of Sioux descent.
In 1986, native Americans in Wisconsin were outraged when a developer planned
to build condominiums on the site of a Chippewa cemetery on Madeleine Island in
Lake Superior. The unmarked site was not protected by state law. The
controversy, which was resolved when local landowners bought the site and turned
it into a park, forced the Wisconsin legislature to enact a new law in 1987.
This requires the creation of an official register of all burial sites and
stipulates that researchers must get the consent of native American communities
for projects that involve unearthing their ancestor鈥檚 remains.
Two years later, the US Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection
and Repatriation Act. It requires museums to draw up an inventory of their
skeletal collections and stipulates conditions under which these can be returned
to native American communities.
The laws in Australia give native peoples even more control over what happens
to their ancestors鈥� remains. There, a 20-year history of conflict between
aboriginal groups and scientists has culminated in the reburial of human remains
from the Pleistocene. Australian Federal law now states that all remains
pre-1770 are by definition Aboriginal, and must be controlled by Aboriginal
authorities.
Orthodox Jews in Israel have lobbied hard for restitution of their ancestors.
The government recently handed down a new interpretation of the Antiquities Act,
resulting in the reburial of all human remains younger than 5000 years.
Anthropologist Israel Hershkovits, scanning the empty shelves at the Sackler
School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, declared bluntly: 鈥淚t鈥檚 the end of
补苍迟丑谤辞辫辞濒辞驳测.鈥�