A piece in the L.A. Times addresses the reaction of Blanding, Utah to the arrest of 16 residents for looting and trafficking in looted artifacts. One of the criminals, a medical doctor, subsequently committed suicide.
Sadly, it's not difficult for anyone who has worked in the Four Corners to understand why the good people of Blanding felt entitled to plunder and destroy Native American cultural patrimony on BLM land. Edward Abbey called the BLM the Bureau of Livestock and Mining, and it continues to give away water rights, grazing rights, oil, gas, and mineral rights for a song. Doesn't it logically follow that kivas and pueblos are there to be exploited by the industrious? "Pot hunting" is part pastime, part cottage industry: unprovenanced ceramics and other artifacts are offered for sale in flea markets and gas stations across Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Whether the raids were heavy-handed is a legitimate question. Many of the suspects were armed—-but in southern Utah, that is hardly remarkable. That at least one of the looters had talked about shooting Federal agents is not, perhaps, as alarming as it first appears: this remains a standard form of bravura among ranchers and independent-minded folks in this region. These folks are not always against the use of force by the police, however. A few years ago, for example, Utahns were generally content for raves to be broken up by SWAT teams and police dogs.
The real problem in the case of Blanding would appear to be less the strong-arm tactics used by the arresting officers than the fact that they were agents of the much reviled Federal Gubb'mint. It is no secret that Westerners prefer said Gubb'mint to confine itself to the distribution of economic largesse, and otherwise keep its nose out of their business. When it commences to kicking down the doors of upstanding citizens, never mind if those citizens are engaged in criminal activity, it is cause for lasting resentment. Such resentment can end up directed at archaeologists, who are often seen as being in cahoots with the Feds, and at the material record itself: witness any number of defaced pictographs and vandalized sites.
The writer of the L.A. Times piece considers artifacts primarily as objects with monetary value, glossing over the desecration and destruction of Native American cultural heritage--any Native American voice is conspicuously absent from the article--and, predictably, totally ignoring the loss of information about the past that results from looting. This reflects a hierarchy of values with which academics, archaeological professionals and those interested in cultural heritage have resisted coming to grips: for many members of the public, the only stake in archaeology they are interested in holding is financial, with the concerns of Native American groups a distant second, and intellectual inquiry (or ivory tower academic curiosity) trailing the field. If we want to persuade the residents of Blanding and other such communities to stop looting, it will require not only the enforcement stick, but the incentive carrot; neither, however, is likely to be trusted if they are seen as originating in Washington, D.C.
[note: this post has been updated with the name of the town, Blanding; not to be confused with Market Blandings, Shropshire]
18 June 2009
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6 comments:
Use of a bigger enforcement stick might help. These people need to learn to follow the laws of the land. Utah needs to enforce these laws, not wait for the feds.
Sure, more local enforcement would be great. This case necessarily falls under Federal jurisdiction... being on BLM land and all.
But more importantly, local enforcement depends on local cops treating looting as a real problem. Note that one of the accused is the brother of the sheriff of Blandings, who is investigating, not the looting, but the "harsh" treatment of the looters.
Interesting post. A minor correction, Blanding is where the looting is at, "Blandings" is P.G. Wodehouse. [There was an article on the Native American voice on the 13th in the Salt Lake Tribune. http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12585230]
I'm pretty sure Gubb'mint is not the way you Seth, pronounce government, as a PHD candidate, & i'm also pretty sure that Utahns don't have deep southern accents. So, to underhandedly use the reader's assumed prejudice towards the south & anti-fed types by associating anti-government characters in Utah with southern stereotypes that bring out revulsion in brain-washed liberals, clouds the actual issue of the piece, which is kind of interesting. I've been thinking alot about the accumulation of actual wealth & how to create the basis for a strong organization, & it does tend to begin with ill-gotten things, taken by sheist or by force. I'd argue that this is a fact throughout human civilization.
I am from Blanding, and I'm pretty sure no one says "Gubb'mint" here. I personally take offense to that. Also, I would like it to be known that most of Blanding's educated citizens are not outraged by what happened. Also, we are not all looters.
I'm sorry you don't like the term "Gubb'mint." I got it from a guy in Durango in the late 90's, and I've been using it ever since as shorthand for resentment of Federal authority, which--I think you'll agree--is widespread. I've heard the Department of the Interior abused in terms usually reserved for totalitarian regimes. Not everyone feels this way, but lots do.
Anonymous, clearly not all 3000 people in Blanding are looters, or there wouldn't be anything left at Hovenweep, or a hundred smaller sites in the area. But it seems to me your town has a looting problem, and a Sherriff disinclined to do anything about it.
Sean, I don't assume our readers are liberal, educated, or hate the South (one is from 'Bammy). I do hope none are "brainwashed," a fairly ungenerous term whatever their politics.
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