Sacred Objects: Look, Learn, and Respect
Some objects are used every day: a basket for gathering berries, a paddle for a canoe, a skirt for school. Other objects are sacred. They are used in prayer, healing, and ceremonies, and they are treated as holy. Think about how you would feel if someone used a holy object from your family or faith as a toy or a party decoration.
For many years, schools taught Native American history by having students make copies of sacred objects, such as drypaintings, pipes, masks, and medicine bags. Many Native nations have asked people to stop. These pages no longer include those crafts. Instead, you will learn how to tell the difference, and what to do when you are not sure.
Myth or Fact?
Myth!
Many stores sell copies of sacred objects made by people who are not Native. Being for sale does not make an object everyday. Ask: Who made it? What is it used for? What does the nation say?
Everyday, Sacred, or It Depends?
Tap an object, then tap the group where it belongs. Sometimes the answer depends on the nation and on how the object is used. When it depends, the respectful thing to do is ask.
Everyday Object
Sacred or Ceremonial
It Depends, So Ask
Would You Make It?
Read each plan. Would it be respectful to make it in class? Tap Yes or Better not.
Bringing Objects Home
For more than a hundred years, collectors and museums gathered Native objects, and sometimes even the remains of Native people taken from graves. Many sacred objects ended up in glass cases far from the nations they came from.
In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, called NAGPRA. It requires museums and agencies that receive federal money to return human remains, burial objects, sacred objects, and certain community treasures to the Native nations they belong to. Returning them is called repatriation. In 2024, new rules said museums must have a nation's permission before displaying these objects, and some museums closed exhibits while they asked.
That same year, 1990, Congress also passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which makes it illegal to sell a craft as Native-made when it is not.
A Story from My Flowerbed
While digging a flowerbed at my home in Johnson County, Tennessee, I found several stone arrowheads and hide scrapers. They were made by Native people who lived in this valley long ago. I cannot say which nation made them. The Cherokee lived in this region, but some stone points are thousands of years old, much older than any nation we know by name today.
These are everyday tools, not sacred objects, and they were on my own land. That matters. It is against the law to collect artifacts on public lands, such as national and state parks and forests, and on tribal lands. On private land, you need the owner's permission. Disturbing a grave is against the law everywhere. If you find something, leave it where it is, take a photo, and write down exactly where you found it. Archaeologists say the place where an object is found tells as much of its story as the object itself.
Gay Miller, Book Units Teacher
Word Match
Drag each word to its definition, or tap a word and then tap its definition.
Vocabulary Words
Definitions
Sacred Objects Quiz
Think About It
- Why is "It depends, so ask" a good answer when you are not sure about an object?
- Why do you think the place where an artifact is found matters so much to archaeologists?
- Choose one object from the sort that was sacred. What respectful activity could you do instead to learn about that nation?