5 indicted for American Indian artifact looting

[Adsos Letter]

Source: AP/Indian Country Today
By Carson Walker, Associated Press
Story Published: Feb 3, 2009

EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. – The pottery, stone knives, arm bands and other American Indian items sitting in a vendor’s booth or posted online look innocent enough, but the centuries-old artifacts taken from South Dakota’s rugged Missouri River banks don’t belong to the sellers.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has indicted five men, accusing them of looting or trading the ancient items.

The river’s banks are “supplying the rest of the country the artifacts they want for their collections,” said Richard Harnois, senior field archaeologist with the Army Corps of Engineers in Pierre. “There isn’t anywhere else in the country that is like this. You have a huge drainage system populated by people for 12,000 years and banks that are eroding.”

Federal laws prohibit the removal of human remains, funerary items and other sacred items from public and Indian land, and bans anyone from knowingly buying those items. It is legal for landowners to take items from their own property.

“It sure seems to be the Missouri River trenches is the honey pot,” Harnois said. “It’s just one huge artifact mine for some of these folks.”

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/38866612.html

[catnhatnh]

1. The Bush family are reportedly Indian grave robbers:

From Wiki:
In 1918, certain remains of Geronimo were stolen in a grave robbery. Three members of the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones served as Army volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I; one of those three members was Prescott Bush, father of the forty-first President of the United States George H. W. Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush. They reportedly stole Geronimo's skull, some bones, and other items, including Geronimo's prized silver bridle, from the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery. The stolen items were alleged to have been taken to the society's tomb-like headquarters on the Yale University campus, and are supposedly used in rituals practiced by the group, one of which is said to be kissing the skull of Geronimo as an initiation.

Just in case you needed another reason to hate them...

[Broken_Hero]

2. K and R, nt

[H2O Man]

3. Good.

They should face consequences that put an end to their practice.