Chicago museum to return Inuit remains to Canada
Circa-1929 photo of an Inuit man in a kayak, taken by Edward Curtis. Library of Congress photo.
Field Museum repatriation director Helen Robbins says Inuit leaders in Labrador two years ago learned the museum had the skeletal remains and asked for their return. The museum will pay all costs of the repatriation, which will take place in 2011.
According to Robbins, the bones came to Chicago from a two-year expedition to gather Inuit artifacts. The explorers visited Zoar, an Inuit community abandoned for more than 30 years. She says Field anthropologist William Duncan Strong dug up the skeletons from a cemetery.
Robbins said the Field Museum maintains a sizable collection of human remains from all over the world. When inappropriately collected, the museum works to return the remains.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-07-20-10 1757EDT
