{"id":815,"date":"2007-02-08T19:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T19:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2007-02-08T19:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T19:57:00","slug":"pagans-want-some-bones-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":"Pagans Want Some Bones Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Borrowing the rhetorical tools developed in North America<\/a>, British Pagans are becoming increasingly vocal on the issue of “ancestral remains<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

British pagan groups are increasingly asking for human remains and grave goods from pre-Christian burials to be returned to them as well. The presence of what they see as their ancestors in dusty drawers or under harsh display lights is an affront to their religion. To them, the bones are living beings, whose existence is bound up with their religious descendants and the sacred land.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am friends with some of the British Pagan academics who have been pushing this issue hard. On the other hand, ask any geneticist<\/a>: lots of people, most of them not capital-P Pagans, are descended from those ancient ancestors.<\/p>\n

So let us admit that these demands are to a large extent a stunt. We are dealing with self-appointed spokespeople here. David at the Cronaca archaeology blog has other comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Borrowing the rhetorical tools developed in North America, British Pagans are becoming increasingly vocal on the issue of “ancestral remains.” British pagan groups are increasingly asking for human remains and grave goods from pre-Christian burials to be returned to them as well. The presence of what they see as their ancestors in dusty drawers or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[20,21,5],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-archaeology","tag-england","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-d9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1497,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1497","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":0},"title":"Avebury Pagan Remains to Remain on Display","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Although some British Pagans have demanded NAGPRA-style reburial for Neolithic (and thus \"Pagan\" in some sense) human remains found at the famous ceremonial site of Avebury, English Heritage have decided against doing so. These Neolithic human remains were excavated in the Avebury area by Alexander Keiller between 1929 and 1935.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":1},"title":"Call for Papers: Pagans and Museums","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"NOTE UPDATED DEADLINES AT BOTTOM Museums and contemporary Paganism are inextricably linked. Gerald Gardner, founder of modern pagan witchcraft, first publicized Wicca in 1951 at Cecil Williamson\u2019s Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft at Castletown (later The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft) on the Isle of Man. Some of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"museums\"","block_context":{"text":"museums","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=museums"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":842,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=842","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":2},"title":"The National British Pagan Burial Mound","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I blogged earlier about how some British Pagans have borrowed the rhetoric of North American tribes, wanting their own version of NAGPRA and control over the remains of prehistoric British people.Blogger and academic Yvonne Aburrow suggests that such remains, after study, might go into a national burial mound.It would be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1267,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1267","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":3},"title":"Contemporary Pagans: Indigenous or Not?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A kerfuffle over who said what about which flavors of Paganism at the just-concluded Parliament of the World's Religions is summarized over at The Wild Hunt.This year's parliament in Melbourne listed \"Reconciling with the Indigenous Peoples\" as one of its key topics.Some contemporary Pagans have been playing the \"indigenous card\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature religion\"","block_context":{"text":"nature religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1185,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1185","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":4},"title":"Mainstreaming British Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Another \"Pagans in our midst\" article, this one from The Guardian, a generally left-of-center British newspaper.Writer Cole Morton advances the \"fastest-growing religion\" meme, promoted also by the Pagan Federation:The Pagan Federation, which aims to represent all \"followers of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion\", claims the number of adherents has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":5},"title":"CFP: Pagan Studies Conference at Masaryk University","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism and its Others 13-14 June 2022 Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Brno, Czechia The Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University invites your participation in a conference on the overall theme of \u201cPaganism and its Others\u201d to be held in Brno, Czechia, 13-14 June, 2022, with in-person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}