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Looking out at Aniak’s airport runway, 2018. (Photo: Krysti Shallenberger / KYUK)
A tribal government from Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is suing state and federal agencies for taking human remains from an airport site and refusing to return them.
KYUK’s Sage Smiley reports.
About 200 miles up the Kuskokwim River in Western Alaska, the village of Aniak hugs the riverbank and encircles the community airstrip in a wide loop. And that airstrip is at the heart of a civil case recently filed in Anchorage federal court.
Aniak’s tribal government – the Aniak Traditional Council – is suing state and federal agencies for taking human remains from an airport site and not returning them, and subsequently not allowing the tribe to further excavate the site.
The Aniak Traditional Council says that’s a violation of federal law because it’s barred the tribe from practicing its cultural and religious traditions and has endangered other ancestral remains of Aniak’s tribe that could still be buried at the community’s airport.
The tribe wants the excavated remains to be returned and to be allowed to continue exploring the site to recover and preserve other remains or cultural artifacts.
According to court filings from July 2, the suit stems from a project to relocate Aniak’s airport runway to comply with federal aviation standards.
In 2020, a contractor digging trenches for the project found human remains. Almost a year later, the Aniak Traditional Council brought in an archaeologist to examine the site. The suit says they discovered that the airport project cut a trench through a “previously intact prehistoric burial site”.
The recovered remains and related artifacts were sent to the University of Alaska for examination.
Since then, Aniak’s Traditional Council says that the University of Alaska has kept the remains and that the Federal Aviation Administration has refused to assist in repatriation, in violation of the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, also known as NAGPRA.
The Traditional Council also claims that the FAA and state Department of Transportation have barred the tribe from further excavation. Aniak’s tribal government is concerned that airport maintenance could further disturb the site and the ancestors buried there.
The suit names five defendants: the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and its Commissioner Ryan Anderson, the University of Alaska system, the Federal Aviation Administration and FAA administrator Michael Whitaker. All have declined to comment on the case.
Desert cliffs and canyons make up much of the landscape near Tuba City. (Courtesy Arizona Office of Tourism)
A bill introduced to Congress this week, if ratified, would establish a reservation in northern Arizona and southern Utah for the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe.
As KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports, it’s the only federally recognized tribe in Arizona that doesn’t have its own homeland.
The measure is part of the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act which has already been approved by the Navajo, Hopi, and San Juan Southern Paiute tribes.
It sets aside 5,400 acres for the new reservation and water to supply it.
Robbin Preston Jr. is the tribal president for the San Juan Southern Paiute.
“I think it’s going to mean the world to us, especially in this day and age where everybody wants to have an identity, which we have, but also a place to call home.”
Preston says his people have waited decades for this day and the reservation will allow the tribe to offer houses, jobs, and healthcare to its members.
The two parcels that make up the proposed reservation are west of Tuba City in Arizona and near Navajo Mountain in Utah.
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