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When Karen Underhill took the helm as archivist at Northern Arizona University in 1990, her eyes were opened to a new world of storing Native American cultural information. Certain documents may be blessed by medicine men, images can have the power to affect the health of the viewer, and some photographs shouldn’t even be seen by most people.As Underhill’s understanding and respect for the Native traditions grew, so did her desire to share them with others. She is working with representatives from 15 indigenous communities and three non-Native colleagues to create “Protocols for Native American Archive Materials,” a best practices document for archiving material from Native cultures that she hopes will be adopted worldwide.

“Indigenous cultures create, organize and maintain information very differently than Western society,” said Underhill, head of special collections and archives at NAU’s Cline Library. “We need to be able to balance the Western approach with a Native American approach.”

The best practices document offers standards and goals to inspire and foster mutual respect among indigenous groups and the institutions archiving their information, and it can be adapted to different cultural scenarios.

It suggests archive managers consult and concur with indigenous communities in the collection, ownership, preservation, handling, access and use of archived resources.

Cline Library partners with the Navajo and Hopi tribes living on the Colorado Plateau to care for collections and to respect culturally significant material such as ceremonial images. About 10 percent to 15 percent of the library’s 8 million archived items relate to Native American cultures.

“Most libraries and archives tend to put things in categories, which doesn’t always work with Native cultures,” Underhill explained. “Traditional practice would be to group all photographs together, but that approach isn’t always valid. For instance, according to their tradition, a pregnant Hopi woman shouldn’t view an image of a ceremonial snake dance. If we take responsible care to archive them correctly, that won’t happen.”

Cline Library set up a system where it works with tribal officials in identifying culturally sensitive materials. This way the archive can continue to grow yet remain culturally protected. As a result,last year the Hopi Tribe asked Cline Library to digitize and make available via the Library’s Colorado Plateau Digital Archives 900 photographs of Hopi life taken by photographer Milton Snow in the 1930s to 1950s. The Hopi Tribe retains ownership of the original images. An added incentive for the Hopi Tribe is that they also receive any commercial use fees generated by the images.

“The United States has a democratic tradition of open access to everything, but for Native people there is a lot of material that is culturally sensitive and should not be viewed by just anybody,” she said.

The idea for a separate best practices document for Native information germinated during the joint Navajo Nation, National Archives and Records Administration and the NAU 1998 display of the Navajo Treaty. The 1868 document freed the Navajo people from captivity at Fort Sumner.

“During that process I not only had to learn about a lot of care and security issues, I learned from project director Dr. Evangeline Parsons-Yazzie that care for a document that has such cultural impact and significance includes appropriate ceremonies,” Underhill said.

In April, Cline Library hosted a conference on campus to garner input for “Protocols” from representatives from 13 U.S. tribes, Canada and Australia.
“The strong relationship formed with the Navajo Treaty project and our strong relationship with the Hopi Tribe made me realize we could bring everyone together to develop a best practices document to improve the way archives around the country are handling collections,” she said.

Gloria Lomahaftewa, a member of the Hopi Tribe and a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act specialist at the Museum of Northern Arizona, attended the conference and agrees with “Protocols.”

Lomahaftewa said the acceptance and implementation of the protocols will be beneficial in providing a means for understanding and enabling tribes to provide guidance in materials usage and storage.

“Tribal groups have been working for years in attempting to educate institutions that maintain archival holdings of information and documents from their people that some materials are culturally sensitive,” Lomahaftewa said. “The work Cline Library is doing will really help this effort.”

Underhill recently published “Protocols for Native American Archival Materials” in the RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage (Fall 2006).

For information go to the official home for the “Protocols,” the First Archivists Circle (a non-profit professional group of Native American and tribal archivists). http://www.firstarchivistscircle.org/files/index.html

NAU