In a symbolic gathering graced with friendship and solidarity, leaders of the Ute Mountain Ute, Southern Ute and Northern Ute Indian tribes met this week in Towaoc to discuss shared goals and Native American issues.

On Thursday, the tribal summit focused on the importance of unity among the three tribes in re-acquiring Ute cultural artifacts and human remains stubbornly held onto by many of the nation’s top museums.

Roland McCook, Chairman of the Northern Ute Tribe, located in northeastern Utah, urged organization among the 14 western tribes, including the Utes, in order to usurp myriad federal regulations dictating how those artifacts are returned. This process, known as repatriation, is often cumbersome and too time-consuming, McCook said.

"As an organized group, we will become a more powerful force," he said. "Because as it is now, there are many hoops, but no accomplishment. It is up to us to take the lead on this issue."

The Northern Utes have drafted a resolution that calls for a coalition of tribes in Utah and Colorado to become the representatives of cultural artifacts and burial sites found on native lands.

Artifacts and Indian remains discovered in the process of development across Colorado have resulted in the discovery of some 600 remains that now sit in Colorado museums, McCook said. The claim process is governed by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which McCook said requires tribes to "jump through too many bureaucratic hoops" in order to obtain Indian burial remains found on lands once inhabited by the three Ute tribes before the reservation system.

As it is now, every time a burial site is unearthed during construction on those historical Ute Indian lands, NAGPRA requires that local tribes prove their ownership before the remains are handed back to them for re-burial.

"They take our ancestors from the ground, and then make it extremely difficult for us to get them back," McCook said. "It can take a lifetime of effort, and we did nothing to disturb them in the first place."

McCook criticized NAGPRA laws that require 43 tribes across the West be consulted for each set of ancestral remains that are disturbed, proposing instead that only the 14 tribes now residing in the Four Corners states be contacted in order to streamline the process.

"Many tribes do not want to deal with this, so the process should deal with us tribes that have enough interest to do this," he said.

Hard evidence that convincingly proves burial sites — some which are more than a hundred years old — are not always possible for the Ute tribe to obtain, McCook said. For many tribes the topic of the dead is considered too taboo to deal with, and the painful prospect of having to re-inter ancestors rudely removed from their final resting place is almost unthinkable.

Where to rebury ancestral remains once they are obtained through the NAGPRA process is also a difficult decision for tribes, because often it is not possible to re-inter near the original location. The tribal leaders discussed the need to work with state legislators in establishing "cultural-use areas" on public lands for native tribes regarding the sensitive issue.

"As more and more development continues on our traditional lands, we will run into this problem much more," said Manual Heart, a Ute Mountain Ute councilman. "So we need to look at it now, because there are many burials that will undoubtedly be uncovered as our cities grow."