Asperitas clouds over Santa Barbara seen from our home on November 15, 2023.

October 2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two laws Tuesday intended to compel California’s public university systems to make progress in their review and return of Native American remains and artifacts.

Decades-old state and federal legislation, known as repatriation laws, require government entities to return these items to tribes. Those artifacts could include prayer sticks or wolves’ skins that have been used for ceremonies.

—Associated Press 

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December 2023
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California is pressing universities to repatriate thousands of Native American remains and artifacts
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How two campuses are succeeding
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When the state auditor reviewed the UC’s progress, UCLA stood out.
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“We don’t do anything special at UCLA that isn’t supposed to be done legally at other UCs and Cal States,” said Michael Chavez, who started as UCLA’s archaeological collections manager and repatriation coordinator this year. 
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Chavez credits the university’s 2020 audit results to the impact of his predecessor, former coordinator Dr. Wendy Teeter.
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“[She] didn’t allow any obstacles to get in her way in the pursuit of repatriation,” Chavez said. 
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Since retiring from UCLA last year, Teeter now works with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians as an archaeologist where she reviews development projects and mediates between the developer and the tribe. 
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—Calmatters.org 

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James Terry of New York accumulated a large collection of artifacts from the Santa Barbara area between 1875 and 1887. Most of the artifacts came from the Channel Islands. Terry was the first curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History between 1891-1894, and the museum purchased his collection in 1891 (Nelson 1936). The purchase of large collections and subsequent employment of the collectors became a common practice.”

–Chester King, Overview of the History of American Indians in the Santa Monica Mountains (Page 65) Academia.edu