ABSTRACT
Long before it was vogue or fashionable, when the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was still a dream, Zuni religious elders made a link between the removal of sacred objects and the current state of the world. Searching their collective memories and relying on their wisdom of Zuni belief systems, they came to the conclusion that the present state of world unrest, manifest in catastrophic earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, and wars, might be due to the loss of control over certain powerful and mischievous spirit beings. In council, the leaders of the Deer and Bear clans agreed that it could be because the Ahayu:ta, or Twin Gods, had been removed from their shrine homes and were being held captive in different museums around the world where they were exhibited as “objects of art.”
