and Senator Campbell were very eloquent about it this morning, that there is just not an appreciation.

When we're talking about appropriations here, that is a key issue that the majority of the Members of Congress do not understand that we are talking about significant spiritual matters, and that basically that this Nation goes to great extent and lengths to protect and repatriate its dead, but when we're talking in this instance about the first Americans putting their ancestors and spirits to rest, there just does not seem to be that kind of priority on it.

I think it needs to be elevated to the human level, because in the case of the Pawnee Tribe, throughout this entire process that was very acrimonious, with different State agencies involved, it is very, very true that the living Pawnee people felt collectively a tribal spiritual sickness because of the mistreatment of their dead, and when the people were finally laid to rest, there was a great spiritual healing among those people.

You all identified the numbers today of 200,000 remains out there. That kind of spiritual sickness and pain continues to be inflicted and plagued upon the Indian people of this country, and Congress should certainly see fit to look, when we're looking at trillion dollar budgets-yes, we're in a budget-cutting mode, but when we're talking about $10 million annually-and that is basically a conservative number-that Congress should see fit to prioritize this right now and say,

Look, it's finally time to let these people be put to rest and let the spirits be restful and not wandering around aimlessly and to heal up those living relatives of the people that are here today and to put the money up and finally do it and get it over with.

Senator INOUYE. In your estimation, how many more identifiable Pawnees are still on museum shelves?

Mr. PEREGOY. That's a difficult question to answer at this time. We do know for a fact that there are probably between 100 and 200 remaining in Nebraska museums that we have not been able towe don't have the money, haven't had the money to come up to identify them, but based upon information provided by Nebraska museums, they are probably, we think, another couple hundred. Senator INOUYE. I thank you very much.

May I now call upon the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Jesse Taken Alive, accompanied by Tim Mentz.

STATEMENT OF JESSE TAKEN ALIVE, CHAIRMAN, STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE, FORT YATES, ND, ACCOMPANIED BY TIM MENTZ, NAGPRA REPRESENTATIVE, STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE

Mr. TAKEN ALIVE. Thank you very much, Mr. Inouye. [Remarks in Native tongue.]

Mr. TAKEN ALIVE. I want to begin by saying thank you, as well, to those individuals who have actually repatriated, who have actually reburied, who have stood there in the cold winter winds of North and South Dakota and reburied our ancestors. I want to publicly thank them for the record for their tears and pain that they endured for us so we can be here today and petition for more enhancement of this process, because it is one that is painful and one that is causing a lot of harm to our people.

Senator you have asked everybody since I've been in the room for their input and their comments on important and sacred issue that you began with your comments this morning, something that happened to your people in Hawaii. I will offer this for the time being, and we will followup with more as we discuss it at home.

I think the question needs to be asked of those people who took these artifacts, those people who were involved in this issue for you in your home country in Hawaii. Were they stolen? If they were stolen, why were they stolen? What was the purpose of stealing from us?

We also need to share with them that the guardianship capacity isn't us guarding the remains. It's not us guarding artifacts. It's the spirit of those artifacts, it's the spirit of those remains that guard us. That is our interpretation of guardianship capacity. We're not guarding them, they're guarding us. They're with us.

As indigenous people it is in our heart and our blood to believe, not to know, not to contemplate, not to rationalize, but to believe that they are here and guarding us, because if we look at history as indigenous people, with all these suppressions, with all the genocidal acts, with all the acts of eradication aimed at indigenous people, we wouldn't be here today.

So we know for a fact and we can humbly believe that the remains and their history that they left are our guardians and they will always be.

That is our interpretation in their courts, in their laws, and we ask, upon their honor, to respect that.

Senator Inouye, we have buried approximately 3,000 ancestors. We haven't put a cost on it, but we know it is going to be for the goodness of our people and those yet born.

I would like to say that without adequate input into this process and, as you can see, the testimony that we have submitted says that time and time and time and time again-without adequate input from the indigenous people of this continent, of this country, without that input and without seeing an expeditious manner the reburying of these remains and returning of these artifacts, all we are doing is justifying the grave robbing that took place.

We don't see that adequate input from Indian Country. We're seeing the justification in 1995 of grave robbing.

There is a lot of frustration. There is a lot of emotion. There is a lot of pain in this subject, in this matter that we talk about today.

It has been pointed out through the morning that it is because of this yes, because of lack of money; yes, because of lack of resources-because our ancestors and their remains being disturbed, we are suffering a lot of consequences from it.

How do we buy serenity? How do we buy that peace of mind?

In this sense, in English words, we say that with the return of our relatives we can attempt to address it, but we can't buy serenity. We can't buy peace of mind. We are asking just to be treated fairly, just to be heard, just to enhance and be able to build upon this government-to-government relationship, to be heard as these rules and regulations and policies are being promulgated.

We know what's going on now. We have suffered some of that pain through our parents and grandparents. It has been asked this morning if anybody's parents or grandparents' or great-grandparents' graves were robbed, what would happen? It would end up in court. The perpetrators would get their due, what's coming. That's simply all we're asking. Just return them. Just return these remains to us, please. You've studied us long enough.

With regard to unidentifiable remains, we can believe that those remains dating back 500 years or more are American Indians. They are Native Americans and don't have to be studied any more. If that wasn't the case, again, there would have been a monumental court case. If those remains were not Native American, there would have been a monumental court case, but they are American Indians, and we're asking for their return. Take them out of those boxes. Take them off those shelves. Give them back to the people and let us decide how that should be done, because, after all, as American Indians, as indigenous people, those are our ancestors.

What would happen if we went to Europe? What would happen if we went to any other country and did that? That was done to

us.

So there are a lot of unresolved grief issues that we're living with in Indian Country today. They are inter-generational. They are passed on time and time again.

What we're saying today is we know and we believe that, with the return of these remains, a lot of those inter-generational grief issues will be dealt with, will be addressed, and finally we'll begin to continue down that path of healing as American Indian people.

Our proposal is very simple: again, to look at government-to-government relationships. If we in Indian Country don't take advantage of this policy and this proclamation that President Clinton made, we would be part of paternalism and we would be part of one of the biggest jokes when it comes to American Indian policy with regard to the United States, because commonsense tells us that one policy is not going to work for 555 respective indigenous nations of North America.

Simply what we're suggesting as a start is to get a true government-to-government and to build on this government-to-government relationship that will allow us to develop regional policies of repatriation, as we're talking about today, policies of education regionally, and that would be a starting step to a true governmentto-government relationship.

We know that the Government expended a lot of resources in signing those treaties, those land lease agreements—a lot of resources. They didn't just say one policy's going to take care of all of Indian Country. They went out and visited all of our respective ancestors in this process, and that's all we're saying-continue that respect.

So this would be a starting step to that process of coming out to Indian Country.

Today I have a council meeting going on at home. I have asked the leaders of our tribal government for permission to be here because we all believe this is a very, very important matter that needs to be addressed.

You can take a look at the testimony that we've provided. Unfortunately, we haven't gotten a chance to see any of the draft regulations. We were told that laws and mandates preclude us from seeing those. So some of the comments that are in here may have been addressed. We hope they have been-some of the frustration in here. But the point remains: We haven't gotten a chance to see those.

Just to give you an example of the frustration that was shared with the Review Committee, one of the items we bring out is that the proposed regulations published in May 1993 consisted of 15 pages. The proposed final regulations are reportedly over 140 pages. Again, this may be unfounded, because, as of 2 days ago, the regs have been published, but this is some of that frustration that's encountered when we don't have adequate American Indian input into policymaking.

After all, it's us. It's us who are going to be affected, so maybe it's good to have us as part of the process.

Last, what I would like to share-two requests. First, if we could get a copy of this transcript of what's being said today so we can match it up with what has been experienced for us with this process of NAGPRA repatriation. Second, if we can, before we leave this room, have a copy of the regulations that were published 2 days ago and not have to wait for longer periods of time to get those, we'd really, really appreciate it.

I apologize if some of the comments may have been offensive to policy, policymakers, or to the system, but when we take a look at remains, we're talking about our people, we're talking about their spirits, we're talking about their wisdom, we're talking about the connections they continued to make with us before the United States was a country. We know that those are of simplicity, those are of truthfulness, those are of honesty.

Again, I thank the individuals in our respective homelands that we currently occupy for their work that they have done as they have repatriated and continue to repatriate remains and articles of our ancestors. I thank them for their pain and their suffering and their tears that they shed for us.

And I thank you, the committee, for allowing me this opportunity to bring these issues before you. As is outlined in our testimony, we thank you for what you have done to make this historical law do what it was intended to do-open the door to the spirit world one final time for our loved ones and begin a healing process by returning the sacred items that we need to revitalize our nations [Native words].

[Remainder of testimony in Native tongue.]

Mr. TAKEN ALIVE. I thank you very much, Senator Inouye. If you've got comments or questions for us, we'd be happy to entertain those. Those that I can't answer, I'll ask my relative, Mr. Mentz, who is our lead person on this back home on Standing Rock and works with the North Dakota Intertribal Reinterment Committee, to answer some of the questions or comments that you would like to find at this time.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Taken Alive appears in appendix.]

Senator INOUYE. I thank you very much, Chairman Taken Alive. As I have indicated, we will be submitting a series of questions in writing, hoping that they will respond to them.

As to your request that the final regulations be available to you, I will have one here for you-my own. If you want additional copies, copies can be made. There are 35 pages of very fine print, and I would need new prescriptions to be able to read this. It is right here.

I would like to ask a question of not only you, sir, but all other interested parties. I think all of us will agree that when this process comes to an end, when all the existing tribes are recognized or not recognized, are fully satisfied that their ancestors have been returned to them, there will still remain in shelves and boxes throughout this land thousands upon thousands of unclaimed, unidentified human remains that we know are Native Americans. The question I ask is: Do you have any suggestions as to how we should provide them with a final resting place that they can go in peace? Mr. TAKEN ALIVE. Yes; my response to that is: We would call upon our experts, we would call upon our respective spiritual leaders to ask guidance from the spirit world. This may seem preposterous, this may seem crazy as we speak in a setting as we are today to the many non-Indian friends and foes we may have. They may think, "Boy, those guys are crazy, they're ridiculous, they're losing their mind," but this is how we envision continued healing to occur. So we would call upon those means.

In fact, maybe they are here waiting for us to sit down with them and put into writing their words and their bits of advice. I know that the answer, the solution is out there, Senator. It's out there for us, but all we're saying is, in this system, give them an opportunity to offer their solutions, and just as the tip of the iceberg we talk about NAGPRA and how that has not happened.

That would be my response to your question, sir.

Senator INOUYE. Well, I hope that we can find some way to pay the proper respects to these ancestors of yours that are unidentified and unclaimed.

Mr. TAKEN ALIVE. If I could add on to that, Senator, at the turn of the century there was a historian or anthropologist who came to Standing Rock Reservation and attempted to record or did record a lot of the traditional songs, be they sacred, ceremonial, or social songs, and put them on a tape.

Since that time, everybody thought that was the gospel truth, what had been recorded. But because of technology at that time, not being able to preserve those recordings, we have come to find out, when we speed correct those particular songs, the words are different, the meaning is different.

The point I'm making: Sometimes we think through policy, sometimes we think in today's world that we're doing the right thing, but in reality we're not. We're not doing the right thing.

So I just want to try to emphasize or illustrate just what I have said. For almost 100 years, people thought that this was the gospel truth of some of those songs that were recorded.

I might add that they are stored at a Smithsonian Institute on wax means of recording. Come to find out, it is not the gospel