Remains of 12,000 American Indians stored under UC Berkeley gym

" ... There is a legend at the University of California, Berkeley, that human bones are stored in the landmark Campanile tower. But university officials say that's not true — the bones are actually stored beneath Hearst Gymnasium's swimming pool.

The remains of about 12,000 American Indians rest in drawers and cabinets in the gym's basement. Many of them were dug up by university archaeologists and have been stored under the pool since the early 1960s.

The bones now are at the center of a dispute between American Indians who want to rebury their ancestors and university officials who have been slow to hand over the remains.

[ ... ]

Birgeneau says Berkeley is the victim of a "campaign of vilification" by a small group of critics. He fears the uproar will damage its effort to increase American Indian enrollment and attract donations from wealthier tribes.

"It's going to take us some time to recover from this, and I really am concerned about the damage done to possible educational opportunities for Native American people," he said.

[ ... ]

Before Europeans arrived, California had hundreds of tribes. But the 1849 Gold Rush triggered a slaughter that reduced the native population from 300,000 to 20,000 in about 50 years. Many tribes had so few survivors they have been unable to win federal recognition.

The Hearst Museum was founded in 1901 by Phoebe Hearst, UC's first woman regent and mother of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.

The museum is perhaps best known as the place where Ishi, California's last "wild" Indian, lived for five years until his death in 1916. Ishi was a living exhibit at the museum, then in San Francisco. The museum sent his brain to the Smithsonian Institution, where it sat in a jar until 2000 when it was returned to California for burial. ... "

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