Donald E. Crabtree Lithic Technology Collection

CLIR-DHC: Advisory Board Interview Richard Meyers 12/05/2022

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (00:00): All right. Well, thank you everyone for joining us for this interview. I’m really excited to be here today with Richie Meyers. Uh Richie, would you give us an introduction? Um just your name, your title and affiliations. And before you do that, I just want to say thank you so much for being here and agreeing to be part of our Tribal Advisory Board. We just have been incredibly lucky with the folks who agreed to participate and help us with this, and you’ve been a really big part of that, so thank you for agreeing and, um, I’ll kinda turn it over to you to do your introduction.

Richard Meyers (00:29): Sure. Uh [laughs] not the best with introductions, but I guess my name is Richard Meyers and everybody calls me Richie. Um I am a cultural anthropologist by training, or I guess a four-field Boasian trained anthropologist according to my chair [laughs], Elizabeth Brandt, but, um, I currently am the Tribal liaison for the Black Hills National Forest. Uh prior to that, I was the director of graduate studies at Oglala Lakota College here in the Pine Ridge Reservation. I reside in the town of Wanblee, uh, which is on the eastern part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. I am, uh, let’s see, other professional thingies. I am the president-elect to the Association of Indigenous Anthropologists, and, uh, I believe next year I will take over as president of that. It’s a subsection to the, um, American Anthropological Association. Oh I think that covers everything. I’m not so sure what else. [laughs]

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (01:33): I think that’s a great intro for our audience and we’ll also have this all typed up too, and so you can always look it over and, uh, let us know if there’s anything you want to add or we can put in your — your written blurb that introduces you to folks. So thank you. Thank you for bringing, um, all this expertise to bear with us. We’re, like I said, just really lucky with the crew that we got, and, um, thank you for — for taking on these questions. So with that, I’m just going to kinda dive into the first one, which, what’s your perspective on the Crabtree Collection and ones like it? Do you think, um, it’s appropriative of Native cultures? Is it appropriative? What are your thoughts on it?

Richard Meyers (02:09): Yes, I uh, I guess over the past few years I — I sit on a variety of different boards and some of those boards have a lot of archaeological, um, people on there. [laughs] And I — I guess I was not the most, uh, driven to or as attuned to archaeology, but somethin’ I’ve noticed over these years is many of them all share the desire to dig for arrowheads. [laughs] And as children, which I recently admitted that after Indiana Jones, I had the same desire and dug a three-fit, foot pit in my, uh, Irish grandma’s yard once and got in trouble. But, um, the idea of, I guess what it means to collect and to, I guess, acquire with the curiosity, uh, on one level is a benign act of just human engagement with the world around us. But at the same time, in, uh, different capacities, these actions, um, you know, obviously following NAGPRA in the 1990s and as Native people have been a recipient without necessarily a, you know, voice in a lot of things.

Richard Meyers (03:30): All of the — the cultural appropriation that has been going on and ongoing and still ongoing every Thanksgiving and Halloween and whatnot in mainstream America, it, it’s something where the conversation is exciting to see now that your project here that we’re a part of is, uh, taking that on. So I guess thinking of the Crabtree Collection, it’s a fascinating moment to engage with the complexity of what it means to bring forward those who’ve never understood or considered the marginalized voices of Native people and, uh, give people who have, you know, an invested interest and emotional ties to artifacts, um, that — that proper recognition and seat at the table to converse about it.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (04:24): Thank you. That’s well and powerfully said. Um I — I recently learned that surface collection of arrowheads had been excluded from NAGPRA. I’m not sure if that’s right, if I’m understanding that right. But I, I’m just sorta struck by what you said about that as a sorta commonality amongst, um, maybe archaeologists as a whole or even people who’ve had some experience or interest in archaeology, just in amateur sense. Do you — do you have any context or any knowledge you can share with folks about why those surface points were left out of that and how, how maybe that it, itself part of an appropriation or obscuring, um, the kind of proper cultural context for those?

Richard Meyers (05:08): So for sure, uh, I — I just learned of that in a policy for the Forest Service recently at a training, actually this past week in Golden, Colorado. [laughs] So one of the, uh, you know we had law enforcement there and agents discussing people with, uh, all sorts of really fascinating stories and selling things on eBay [laughs] to big lawsuits and big, um, recoveries of, of really, I guess, artifacts that not all are Native, um, oriented, some are different kind of American history that, uh, leads to military collections and other such items. But again, that — that notion of, uh, the fetish for objects and containment, kind of objectification, all of that stuff is unique in some ways to, I guess the, the educational background of what it means to objectify something in science. Um it’s a little bit detached from the more personal, you know again, stories and things that you learn if you are growing up in a Native community, there are things you’re not supposed to do or touch and out of respect,

Richard Meyers (06:26): things have a different, kind of, uh, I guess, embodiment of — of, um you know, uh, there’s a different concept to what that means. Something is inanimate versus animate versus all things in the universe kind of have their, their purpose and place. But the surface level, uh, artifacts, you know again, depending on what they might be, uh, they have to be more, more so, uh, not an arrowhead, but the idea that an arrowhead is something that could indicate a more, um, I guess, intense need for an archaeological inspection [laughs] if there’s a couple versus a random one here or there. Uh it, it’s an interesting thing both legally, culturally, and policy-wise, what that’s, you know, what that means to unpack that phenomena. Um if it was something more, uh, connected, there’s something there and an arrowhead, you’re gonna need to do an inspection or I guess, um, a survey, an archaeological survey. I’ve had way too many, uh, neologisms and acronyms in the past few weeks from anthropology to federal acronyms, so I apologize, but — but yeah, yeah.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (07:51): No, you’re — you’re doing great, man. And, um, yeah, really, really fascinating. I see we’re both still learning as we go, um, uh, even — even up till the moment in real time. And it, it is really interesting, um those points you raise about sort of objectification and appropriation and, um, pan-Indigeneity and anonymization of culture and the way in which, um, we should consider those items more carefully as potential archaeological evidence and so on and so forth. So, and also, um, just want to say before we go into question two, it’s doing and doing the research for this project, it’s been disturbing to me how many ads now I get on Facebook of people selling artifacts, um, you know, and I — I get ads now on all my social medias that, that have groups that sell that.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (08:39): I get ads now for it on eBay, and I’ve never searched in any of those systems for these items. I don’t collect them and would not. Um and it’s just really interesting to see how in doing the research for — for this work, how that’s introduced me to this sort of consumer marketplace of stolen and other unprovenanced things, and it’s — it’s — it’s really disturbing and, um, really unexpected. I — I hadn’t thought about how that sort of new technology’s enabled these old habits and even sort of further and extend and amplify them. So yeah. Um all right. Jylisa, well, why don’t you go ahead with question two.

Jylisa Kenyon (09:14): Okay. Uh do you think folks digitizing digital collections who are not anthropologists should take up this type of contextualizing work that we’ve kinda been talking about through this project and through our advisory board? Um if so, how can we be successful without causing further harm?

Richard Meyers (09:32): Hm. That’s a really excellent question. [laughs] It would be, uh, awkward to say “no.” But uh, no I — I think yes, obviously, I think the technological advances since the early days of, um, even prior to the establishment of the formal anthropology out of ethnology and amateur kind of engagement with travel narratives to so on and so forth, uh, the — the kind of methodology that anthropology has and has had and kind of wields, um, you know, for good or for bad, it has spread out ethnography you’ll find in the field of education. You’ll find it as a method in a lot of different fields for, uh, research. So to me, digitizing is, you know it’s a wonderful advent of — of, uh, technological abilities to capture something.

Richard Meyers (10:30): And is that more or less harmful? I, I’m not the end all be all on giving a perspective there. Um there are different, obviously, perspectives, what, going to photographs. Not all Tribal people are against them and not all Tribal people are for them. You have a lot of contingent beliefs and ideas as to what’s appropriate and what is not, but digitizing something that exists and allowing that access to that knowledge base and — and resource, um, in an equitable fashion, but at the same time a respectful fashion, having people think of those things, I think that’s the point. And so it makes sense to spread that responsibility not — not simply in the field of, I guess, anthropology or cultural resource management. More, the more fields the better — better, the more the merrier. [laughs]

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (11:30): I think that’s such an encouraging response for, um, galleries, libraries, archives, and museum workers. You hear that abbreviated as GLAM. Um, you know, for those GLAM workers, um, because so much of our training we’re taught to think about information sort of outside of content or outside of context, like think about the information, not what’s actually contained in that information. And so we do a lot of deferring to other experts. So, you know we, I’m an education librarian in title, and so I do a lot of work with education faculty who have experience in the classroom that I don’t have, you know and, and never will. They’re K through 12 experts. So at the same time, I feel like that can mean that sometimes those GLAM folks are reluctant to get in there with these collections that have these obvious issues, but figure out how to raise them and bring them up and bring it to the forefront of the conversation because we’re taught to not think of ourselves as experts.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (12:22): And I feel like one of my — my big hopes for this is that we can sort of inspire people to think about our responsibility as information curators and preservers and, um, you know, outreachers to think about what our sort of bigger responsibilities are and not just reproducing these harmful messages forward. So, um I think that that’s a really, a great message and a great starting point that it’s like it doesn’t have to be, um, your particular area of expertise necessarily in terms of the content or the subject. You can know that we need to be bringing critical perspectives to information and then think about how to get the right people in the room that are those experts, like Richie, for instance. Um, so a follow-up question for that is what do you think makes a digital effort like this a good partner to Native nations and people? What can the academy and land-grant schools do to be better partners and more accountable to Native stakeholders?

Richard Meyers (13:15): Hm. That’s a really a — a really excellent question. It’s got a lot of different parts to it. Um I know this past week in real time, the Tribal leaders meeting in DC met with the different government agencies and the land-grant, 1994 Tribal college universities so forth was discussed in — in that notion of really revisiting what the original Morrill Act wasn’t including, Blacks or Native people in its inception. So it’s again, uh, uh, an exciting time to visit all of these things. I think, uh, [cough] the, the digitizing and the, uh, kind of engagement to allow Tribes, I guess for lack of more complicated kinda verbiage, a — a seat at the table in the, um, holding and wielding and, and depictions and, and kind of, uh, displays of both material culture and culture-at-large, um, in different capacities is something that again, uh, for so many years has been held ironically, like the previous question, in the hands of so-called experts and specialists. Um, much of the irony of becoming an academic and being a Native person is you become a generalized specialist.

Richard Meyers (14:40): Anything Native North America gets thrown on your lap. So from, uh, [laughs] I guess applied anthropology of contemporary Tribal nations and sovereignty to, uh, historical or ethno-historical research to, um, foods. There, there’s just, just so many different, uh, topics and kind of genres that you cross when dealing with the large overarching topic of Native North America. And within that kind of complicated, um, arena, you have power dynamics and the power has always been held by those who are not living in those communities. The voices of those who do reside are usually neglected. It’s not to say that sometimes Native academics don’t live in their communities and are spread out. And so it’s interesting to conceptualize, are you any different than an academic-at-large or do you represent your Tribal community? Who represents who? How many people are out there? What are stakeholders? What is the community? Um, some of those questions, you know, are inherent to this project as well. Who represents the Native community? Who in what, uh, particular Tribes, it, it’s much the same as with NAGPRA and other things. Bringing people to the table is critical, so.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (16:11): Yes, um, and I think just such — such a great perspective and great, um, great wisdom for our audience to think about, um, being really skeptical of any easy efforts to sort of identify someone to speak for the whole of a Tribal nation or sovereign nation is just like very, very challenging. And so, you know I think Jylisa and I really experienced that in real-time on this project in designing the advisory board and figuring out, um, who should we ask and what are we asking for? So where are we asking people to speak from? Um what experience are we asking them to bring? And are we asking people to speak from their personal experience as Native academics, or are we asking people to represent a official sovereign viewpoint? And I think we were very clear in that we were asking people for opinions and inputs, um, perspectives, attitudes that are from their personal and professional context, but that we aren’t saying, um, you know, a particular sovereign nation has a particular viewpoint on this project.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (17:16): And I think there’s some real nuance to that. That folks who aren’t used to working with, uh, Native nations as partners might not, um, be as aware of how nuanced and complex that is and how you need to think about specifically what you are asking for people, um, when they are contributing on an effort like this. So we’ve really worked closely with our, um, expert at the university. Yolanda Bisbee, who’s our, um, is she a chair, Jylisa? What’s, do you know her official title? She’s like one of our, um, she is our Tribal, uh, liaison coordinator for all of the official coordination between the University of Idaho and Tribal nations.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (17:54): And so we brought her in on this, um, right from the start and she said, “you don’t need my specific input,” but she’s one of the folks who actually gave us this advisory board idea and then, um, has sorta been with us as we’ve gone through the iterations. So um, lot, lots of me kind of rambling off there, but, um, hopefully some useful context for folks to think about as they’re inspired by this video to try this in their own GLAM context that, um, there’s really a lot of nuance to what you’re pointing out there and a lot of questions you gotta think about, about who you’re asking and for what, um, you’re bringing them in, what the capacity is. Um Jylisa, do you want to go to question number four for us?

Jylisa Kenyon (18:31): Sure. Thanks, Marco.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (18:31): Yep.

Jylisa Kenyon (18:31): Um from your perspective, what should people know about flintknapping to understand the art and practice in a way that doesn’t center this one white non-Native person whose collection we’re digitizing?

Richard Meyers (18:48): Jeez. It, it’s a really, uh, I guess, multifaceted question about you know any action. I — I — I don’t know why, but I’m gonna roll with it. But in my head popped this, uh, YouTube of a German guy making loincloths, and, um, he’s out there on YouTube. I’m not sure what you would use to search for him. In Lakota, the word chegnake [Transcription Needed 00:19:15] is the, the device that holds your certain anatomical part, and that’s what you would call it. But obviously, uh, people these days, they might use Fruit-o-Loom or they might [laughs], uh, just modern times, different clothes, different garments, but the need to make authentically this, um, chegnake [Transcription Needed 00:19:43] or loincloth, he seems to be really good at it. [laughs] I would say, gee, my Grandpa didn’t teach me that. I don’t think even his Dad or his Grandpa was wearing one, considering the way that history has been. And as far as Tribes and contact go, Lakota people, you know, uh, reservation and, and other things are sort of later than more eastern Tribes and — and so forth.

Richard Meyers (20:15): And so that idea of what constitutes an authentic rendition of something, I think of a — a lot of Discovery Channel shows and people are, again, [clears throat] the — the fascination and almost fixation on a purity and an authenticity that freezes in time what an anthropology calls the ethnographic present. And putting Native people into that, I guess, pigeon-hole is an interesting thing for a lack of really, uh, complicated ways of framing the discussion to look and see how one does or doesn’t make something. [clears throat] What’s really fascinating is if there’s a non-broken continuity in an oral tradition that was passed through families and possibly still remains and is not, you know I guess, proprietary information for those families, and there are things like that, but once you see it on YouTube, I’m guessing it’s no longer proprietary for good or for bad. It’s been leaked. It’s been, uh, expanded and — and made visible and, um, searchable.

Richard Meyers (21:34): And so there’s that wrestling with, I guess, in the trajectory, whether it’s avant-garde and kitsch, or, um, you know, I guess you could say Black culture and music and being appropriated and then innovating. It’s a consistent, keep taking a new creative moment after you become kind of, I don’t know if I would say commodified, co-opted or compromised by the mainstream when things take what you do and make that no longer your intimate connected situation or ceremony and put that into, again, a scientific objectification. It’s no longer that knowledge sharing between an intimate group of people, but it’s something that lo and behold you can Google or ask Siri for. [laughs] And that again, is a unique, I guess, aspect of modernity that brings and invokes all sorts of complicated conversations. But with flintknapping, um, there’s a — a ton of offshoots of survival people out there and TV shows, uh, “Naked and Afraid.”

Richard Meyers (22:47): I, I’ll admit, I get myself watching some of those sometimes just to pretend I’m not living in modernity and wonder, gee, if I had to make something, would I? [laughs] Or would I just wait to be rescued? So there are things to definitely consider. I think I’ve painted some goofy, if not weird pictures of how knowledge can be something that is a continuity in a family lineage, and stories are held that way. Oral traditions, cooking recipes, all sorts of things, how you bead, how you, um, design things, what are family and what are individual, kind of bordering into the realm of entrepreneurial.

Richard Meyers (23:32): So that’s, that’s also another angle is everything is interesting in terms of culture and sharing, but as everything goes, you have to sometimes anchor down the mode of production we’re in as capitalism, which entails commodification, exploitation, and profits. So if that’s driving the, uh, behind the scenes, I guess, ‘Wizard of Oz’ person behind the scenes, that changes the narrative of sharing and experiencing culture that should be a human aspect to negating certain people’s, um, access to certain things for others to benefit in a profit way. So there’s — there’s some food for thought in that response. [laughs] But, yeah.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (24:25): Thank you, Richie. I, that blew my mind in several different dimensions at different points along — along the way. I was like, oh, Crabtree’s like Eminem, except if Eminem hadn’t even lived in [laughs], you know, a suburb of Detroit, um, [laughs] you know, and then wouldn’t cite…

Richard Meyers (24:38): [inaudible]

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (24:38): …Black culture as being like an influence or… But he is an amazing rapper, right, so it’s like, like…

Richard Meyers (24:41): Yeah.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (24:41): …and he did innovate things in rap, but also it’s not, he’s never going to be a Black rapper doing it in Black culture either, right? So it’s like there’s that — that kinda tension there. Um, yeah just — just really mind-blowing and we’ve had, um I don’t know, a handful of these interviews now mention those, uh, “Naked and Afraid” or survival type shows, and you know, and — and they are, they are fascinating and the, uh someone made a really great remark in our, our recent interviews where she was laughing, she was saying um, was it Kisha who said it, I think maybe? She was, or I can’t remember if it was Kisha or Lorisia, but, um, either one.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (25:15): She said like, “well, people didn’t do that alone. You know, it’s so funny to watch those, seeing people doing these like primitive survival challenges as a singular person, you know trying to do all these things.” And then of course, it like takes out the whole community and — and culture element, which I feel like also very much connects to what you’re saying here, which is like you know, you can take the, the traditional recipe out of the context, and we can call it Chipotle, but that’s not the same as being in Oaxaca making these foods, understanding what the foods mean, understanding how the foods, medicine, understanding the — the, comal or other tools that you’re using to make it, you know, knowing the right flour, whatever, you know all of these different things that go into the culture of the food.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (25:55): It’s like, yeah, you can take it out and commodify it and call it Chipotle, and sure there’s some, the ingredients are the same, but can you call it the same thing? You know, and, and I think that that’s, um, a — a pretty powerful way to think about flintknapping in this context. So thank you for giving us all a lot to — [laughs] to think about there. And I, I think your loincloth example is perfect, actually. So, um, yeah, YouTube, man. [laughs]

Richard Meyers (26:15): Yep.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (26:15): I’ll be searching for that one later. Um Jylisa, are you up on this question next? Or is, I, I’ve lost track of where we’re at.

Jylisa Kenyon (26:24): Uh you are, for question five.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (26:25): For five. Okay. So one of the topics we’ve discussed as part of this grant project is the relationship between experimental archaeology, amateur archaeology, and cultural as well as knowledge appropriation. Um can you talk a bit about what you see as the relationship between those concepts, and especially in this context of the Crabtree Collection?

Richard Meyers (26:48): Um [coughs] sadly, my mind always gravitates back to TV, and uh I guess TV is not even the right word because whatever, I — I don’t even have a TV. I have a TV that I have the internet wired into, and so I don’t even know what to call it, but I’m gonna just use TV for the moment. But, uh, I know that there’s a channel, perhaps it’s Discovery, whatever mainstream channel that has different adventure-type things on there that does what I referred to earlier, the Indiana Jones effect, so to speak, where it’s suggesting that these non-academic inclined, um, professional archaeologists, meaning the people on the show are not, [laughs] they’re more in the amateur realm, are out there searching. And a lot of this, kind of uh, I guess in culture studies, the notion of where we’re at historically, where history and remakes of movies and creative, kind of visiting to, um, world and, um, American history for sure, this revisionist notion of trying to change what, what exists for a contemporary uninformed, [laughs] unanchored in terms of professional, uh, perspective, that can be, uh, somewhat, um, dangerous.

Richard Meyers (28:21): And I guess when I say dangerous, it sort of, hmm, perpetuates the necessary, um, curiosity, not for intellectual reasons, but for financial gain. And so there’s this idea of digging, pillaging, uh, excavating, stealing, so that eBay can [laughs] ultimately dictate a — a monetary notion. And monetizing culture in that regard is something that, uh, I guess some of those terms, that’s — that’s what comes to mind. Um it’s not to say that academic archaeology or anthropology for that matter are spaces that are accessible to the public. So the terms that you’ve kinda enumerated I think are all interrelated in different ways. And the desires of each of those so-called camps needs to get its kind of solipsistic, uh, way of being, to learn how to kind of co-mingle with other groups. And yet there are, again, uh, things that are, are tough to escape, and that is the overarching economic impetus for knowledge acquisition. Um oftentimes, the most curious people, you don’t find them in an institution of academics.

Richard Meyers (29:51): They’re someone who’s busy working on a doc and they’ve traveled the world and they have a really fascinating ability to just kind of converse about life and interesting ways of being and insight. But if you are looking for someone who is trying to enmesh that knowledge in a way that brings them revenue, brings them grants, brings them the commodification of knowledge, like a card game, then there, there’s something to say about in between all of that is developing humanity to make all of us better citizens in that educational grounding. Education for everyone versus trying to create a, I guess, a stratified society where only certain people are allowed that.

Richard Meyers (30:44): Again, it’s not to say that traditional societies don’t have rules where not everybody is meant to see things. So those are, those are real issues. Not everybody who’s a Lakota is meant to see things that are proprietary-wise of different tiyospaye [Transcription Needed 00:31:02] or families. If you’re not of that family, maybe you’re not meant to know it. You can’t just say, “but I am Lakota.” [laughs] And I — I find that an interesting thing I — I — I come into contact with here and there, and I, I’ve seen that in other Tribes as well. Just because you’re of that larger Tribal category doesn’t mean you were raised in the way that is meant to handle certain objects, certain knowledge, and certain ceremonies. So, a lot of things, lot of things there in those three kind of, uh, bounce-off points there are really interesting.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (31:40): Yeah, thank you, Richie. That, um, again, I — I think really a lot to think about and unpack there and a lot of nuance. Um and I — I for instance, you know I wonder about the impact of things like “Ancient Aliens” and the, you know, the popularity of that as both a TV show and as a meme you know and the way in which it does sort of like corrode people who don’t have, um, more formal access to education. Um you know, it — it really, you know people are like, “oh, it must be aliens who created ancient wonders of the world you know versus, you know, Indigenous people who are still present today” you know. It’s — it’s — it’s really interesting ‘cause it’s — it’s — it’s both funny and sort of ludicrous, but then it also does have this kind of like vile connotation, and it — it actually hurts people’s learning and sort of, you know, wisdom or knowledge in a sort of broader sense because it — it teaches people to think like, oh, well, of course these primitive people in the past couldn’t have made, uh, spectacular pyramids or other structures.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (32:39): You know, it must be aliens. And it’s like you would rather, you know, citing something that we haven’t proven exists versus Indigenous people who we know exist and can indeed give us like oral histories of how these things were done, you know. And it’s just, it’s — it’s — it’s just really interesting the way that entertainment and that commodification has a real impact on the actual, um, real knowledge work and the way it kind of takes that human curiosity and pretends to satiate it, but really, like sorta fills it in with lies and also maybe, uh, reduces people’s critical thinking, um. I also noticed the same thing in like cryptozoology, like the appropriation of things like sasquatch, for instance. Like many people feel sasquatch is just a generic term to describe this concept, and it’s like, no, that actually belongs to specific Tribes, right? Like not everyone calls it sasquatch, you know. Not everyone calls it bigfoot. And there’s some other cryptozoology concepts that I won’t even name because in those Tribal traditions, those entities are not supposed to be named

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (33:37): and in fact, you take a huge risk by naming them. And it’s, it’s really interesting, the appropriation and sorta commodification of those entities into a kinda mainstream paranormal cryptozoology culture you know and people making movies or other profit motives off of it. And, it’s like, I find that very vexing because if you’re trying to not talk about these concepts that, you know, can bring serious harm to you, how do you go about making that rebuttal to a white culture that’s appropriating those concepts? It — it creates a real bind there, um, when it’s like, that is a way of doing spiritual harm. And also it’s very challenging to address it without doing spiritual harm in, sort of, in context. So I think — I think these, uh, the TV thing, it always at first seemed sort of like, oh, it’s funny, but it actually like really gets to some heart of some serious cultural issues in about like two steps. I think in a way, um, where people encounter, it’s a place where people encounter a lot of cultural appropriation without even necessarily realizing. So I — I think your remarks are right on target and are gonna give folks some, some expanded, uh, reference points and thinking next time they tune into “Lost and Afraid: Bigfoot.” [laughs]

Jylisa Kenyon (34:48): Okay, so on to question six, um, you have done a lot of work and research on identity articulations through the lens of sociolinguistics. So in thinking about the Crabtree Collection and other ones like it, what concepts from those areas of study are necessary for us to understand and ensure that our sharing of this collection doesn’t cause further harm?

Richard Meyers (35:17): Hmm. I, uh [clears throat] jeez, again, certain things pop into your head and you’re like, “should I or shouldn’t I?” Um I saw someone take a stance on a LinkedIn posting, and I wouldn’t have thought that until I read their response. And it completely started a different trajectory on I guess, uh, the framing of Indigenous people. And the person was on, you know, for — for I guess for good or for bad their — their social media soapbox. And they were telling the person who made the initial post, “beware of your pronouns and your prepositions when framing the Indigenous,” and I — I don’t know what it was, uh, it’s escaping me, but as — as a sociolinguist, the idea of not necessarily what is being said, but how it’s being said is indicative of the dynamics of power, uh, the focus, the, um, I guess, unspoken rules of how you’re supposed to be or think about an issue. And so oftentimes, uh, again, as Marco was saying, TV has made things in — in the world we live in.

Richard Meyers (36:41): It’s — it’s a tough one because if you’re to approach everything with a serious nature of, “I’m going to approach this very analytical and I’m gonna get there, and this is going to be right or wrong, morally or not,” versus there are some absurd things that are, um, I guess, so absurd that to me, I’m only gonna just approach it with humor and maybe dark humor and sick twisted humor because the power dynamics are so messed up that uh, it — it should be just known and that they’re not is that much more, I guess, uh, sardonic. [laughs] But the idea of, um, what would it mean to talk about ‘those people’ [laughs] and well, the — the contingent ‘those people’ comment comes from who’s saying they’re ‘those people.’ Whenever that happens in racial discussions or when someone says, “I have a Native friend” or “I have a Black friend.” [laughs] It’s humorous because you can think of multiple instances where people do that, but at the same time, there’s something more to it.

Richard Meyers (37:52): And when someone says, “I got gypped,” or I had a, a staff member say, “oh, I keep getting Jewed,” [laughs] and I was sitting there going, all right, there’s not many Jewish people around here in South Dakota, nevermind on the reservation. The language framing is exposing other things of a discourse level and language use, and where is that? What is that? How does that permeate? The fascinating thing of when did you learn that? Who taught you that? A racist redneck on the border town? It wasn’t a Lakota person ‘cause there’s no word in the language for some of these things, but, you know, I think there’s a word, there’s plenty of words actually, but the word concept metaphor wise for a, a Mexican in Lakota is a literal wetback. And obviously, why would you come up with that? It’d be like, what’s the word in Lakota for dolphin? There’s no dolphins on the plains. [laughs]

Richard Meyers (38:54): Doesn’t mean you can’t come up with a concept metaphor to describe something, but you see relationships through the lens of sociolinguistics. You see power dynamics through the lens of sociolinguistics. And circling that all back to your question, how something is framed, ‘arrowheads of these people,’ the terminal narratives of archaeology, the Anasazi, ‘the people who are no longer able to make decisions about artifacts’ is detaching the contemporary people who are those direct descendants. But if you make a terminal narrative, no one knows who left this. [laughs] Well, I’m not so sure that’s, you know. There, there are difficulties, don’t get me wrong, and Tribally-specific, but not culturally in the large sense of — of regionality and, and people. So again, it brings and always invokes multiple layers to keep peeling back as to where do you want to stop thinking about this phenomena? And then ultimately who has ownership [laughs] of what has become a commodity?

Jylisa Kenyon (40:04): Those are great points, Richie. And it — it reminds me of, um, something that Marco and I came across, um, in one of our kind of earlier discussions just a few weeks ago with some members of the team that we’re working with, and then a conference call that we saw is, um, kind of referring to like the Native, um, and Indigenous items in this collection of which it’s about 10%, the others were made by Crabtree, but referring to those that are currently unprovenanced as lost, rather than calling them stolen or looted, and, and how the use of that word lost implies something completely different and — and changes the power dynamic than actually calling it stolen. Um so it’s — it’s very, very interesting and something that Marco and I have, um, kind of been discussing and trying to figure out how do we, how do we start that conversation with our colleagues too, when — when that’s something that is — is the norm for them to call items like that.

Richard Meyers (40:57): Hm-mmm.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (41:00): Yeah, I absolutely agree, Jylisa, and Richie, I think it’s fascinating too, you’re bringing up the example of the Anasazi. Um so I grew up in Farmington, New Mexico or rather outside of it, and there’s a small archaeological site, um, in between Farmington and Aztec called Salmon Ruins, and it’s just a — a small, um, site of Anasazi people, you know sort of writ large terminology. And we’d always go on field trips and stuff there as kids, and they would you know have us grind the corn and you know see some tepees, which is interesting ‘cause Pueblo people weren’t tepee people. So I now can sort [laughs] of see all the cultural hodgepodging happening here at this quasi-archaeological place, um, but, you know, no connection was made for Brown Chicano Native people, um, or even Navajo kids because I went to like a — a Navajo elementary school. And so there was no connection made between like these are your ancestors. It was very much like this is this mystery and these people disappeared and nobody knows, you know.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (41:58): And it’s literally only within the past five years that I’ve learned, like oh, well, the Anasazi are considered to be, you know, the proto-ancestors of most modern Pueblo people in southwest Tribes. Like yes, we don’t know exactly where people went, in, as sort of precise exact population. There is a mystery there about what happened to folks where that population, um, migrated to when they cleared out of their, you know, habituated cities. But seriously, like this sort of method, the message of lost and the way that was, you know sort of, applied in real-time to Native kids, um, and sort of divorcing them from their own culture and history, even as you take them to sites of their own culture and history you know.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (42:38): And so the sort of, um, the meta-ness of that and the way that twists back in and creates cultural confusion even for people at, you know, the very specific individual level, much less in these broader ways of how we understand things and who’s lost and what’s a missing culture and so on and so forth. So yeah, lot’s of, lots of points to think about and sort of expand on there. Um well, we’re coming down to the end of our time though, Richie, we’re — we’re about 50 minutes here, so I’m going to ask your last question, which is, is there anything else you think people should know about flintknapping, the Crabtree Collection, or any of the topics we’ve talked about today?

Richard Meyers (43:13): Oh, geez. Um I guess, uh, what often comes to mind is — is anthropology or archaeology or conversations about flintknapping, um, tepees, how did people do things in the past, uh, human history, human origins, some of those really you know fascinating, but yet vexing questions that are not answered with precision. Um there’s a definite disconnect that people will keep that conversation, I guess, compartmentalized as though it doesn’t have impact upon those who live right now. And as you gave a, you know, an excellent example of the irony of telling people who are direct connections to the subject matter that this stuff is lost [laughs] and making sure that they’re not connected. Um again, the, the scholar Michael Wilcox at Stanford is the one I believe who, um, coined the term terminal, uh, narratives in archaeology. And that idea of what else is there in the world that people do in such a conversation to take things away.

Richard Meyers (44:34): Um, the, I guess the other term besides terminal narratives is imperialist nostalgia, another term that’s an academic coined by, uh, I want to say Renato Rosaldo or someone. But the basic gist being when there’s a military Apache helicopter or the Navajo Ford Explorer or, you know, the Jeep Cherokee, whatever thing in mainstream is assuming it’s honoring you, it’s more of this twisted kind of historical day-to-day for someone of these cultures, you know just like the ‘Redskins,’ just like a lot of things. You’ll see Native people with the symbolism there, and it’s — it’s not a definitive statement, but this idea that there’s something awkward to see a full Native person walking around with the Cleveland Indians hat on with the kind of, mmm, appropriation there, but is it an appropriation back? Just like with Black culture and the use of the ‘N word’ and who can say something, who cannot, how do you reclaim and reappropriate some of these issues?

Richard Meyers (45:50): And they’re not done issues by any means. Um the vantage point that someone speaks from is, uh, I guess, a moment that can be very telling. [phone rings] Telling to, uh, you know something that is very contemporary and contentious and, uh, emotionally charged for a lot of people’s identities. And often it’s, you know, I guess, uh, not necessarily a no-brainer, but things that in mainstream don’t seem offensive [laughs] are yet another reminder of what it’s like to be from a community that’s been stomped on by people who are being ‘not offensive.’ So — so, just, uh, yeah, I — I don’t know if I would want to say don’t forget that necessarily. That sounds really soapboxy.

Richard Meyers (46:48): But I would say it, it’s an interesting thing to really think about something like human origins as abstract, obtuse, and benign as one would think it could be. It’s also contingent on the way that that narrative is wielded by those in power because you can take away the voice of people by assuming a narrative that is slanted and pretending it’s objective, when in fact it’s just another narrative. So those are the only things that come to mind, but it’s a really fascinating, you know. I would love to, I wish the Crabtree fellow was, you know we could go hang together and discuss some stuff and see if he’s like that guy on YouTube who I, I’d like to go for a cheeseburger with him too. [laughs] So…

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (47:44): [laughs] I mean, by all accounts, Crabtree was a pretty cool guy who, um, really loved flintknapping and loved to talk to people about it and loved to share, um, on — on that front. So, um, I, I think — I think that in and of itself, um, is, he would learn as much from you though I think [laughs] as — as you would learn from him and probably then some, um. Uh Richie, I just — I just want to say thank you so much. I mean, everything you’ve said today has just been, um, each question I wanna go back and listen to your answer and think about and do some Googling ‘cause there’s about three or four different things in each question I want to follow up on. And, um, I’ll just, you know sort of wrap us up and say I, I did a BFA and, you know, I was a photography major. And so my final thesis project, I was doing, um, like street photography in South, South Phoenix and specifically looking, which is like, uh, Mexican or Latino neighborhoods.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (48:32): And I was looking at the murals that people had painted on the different sides of their tiendas, their little stores and shops and things. And there were so many, uh, racist depictions, like sleeping Mexican, drunk sleeping Mexicans with the sombrero and the cactus. And it just blew my mind ‘cause I was like, this is like in-community, like and yet it’s this imagery that comes from out-of-community that is this negative racist imagery. And it’s also kinda mind-blowing that like people are paying to have this painted on the side of their store, their restaurant, or whatever, you know and probably paying another Brown person to come paint this racist negative depiction of Brown people on their store. Uh, and also super interesting when you have this also very long lineage of like Chicano empowerment via murals, especially in places like Los Angeles where that’s just been a huge part of community identity and civil rights activism and social movements.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (49:23): And so that kind of real tension in the way, that um, those iconography and imagery created by dominant, uh, oppressive culture and the way that gets ingested back in — in culture and then sort of lateral harm is done through sort of continued, like, remixing of that same harmful stuff without getting the kind of poison out of it. It’s — it’s something that’s really, um, complex for people to think about, and I think, um, it’s particularly important for people outside of cultures to understand that you don’t get a green pass, uh, for any, any nonsense, any harmful nonsense because you see something happening in-culture. You know, it’s like you don’t, just because you see a Native person wearing a — a Redskins hat or something does not mean that’s an acceptable logo or mascot that honors people. Right, like there’s all kinds of things happening within community and the way that this harmful language gets kind of sucked in and then remixed, but not ultimately, um, resolved or transformed.

Marco Seiferle-Valencia (50:20): And so, um, hopefully this project, we’re just trying to create some space where people can get some inspiration about how to transform some of the work that they are doing in GLAM in the way that they can. And, um, Richie, just thank you so much. Um this interview today was just awesome. Like I said, just really, really, really great contributions and so much nuanced and thoughtful things, and also funny and accessible content for people to think about. So thank you for showing up for us so much and just giving us such great honest and open answers, and, um, you’ve made this effort much better for your presence here. So thank you for that. I really, really appreciate you, and I appreciate you trusting us with this and doing this interview and, um, collaborating with us.

Jylisa Kenyon (51:01): Thank you.