P.G. to consider returning Esselen ancestor remains to tribe via the U.S. Army.

As far back as 1910, bones of the ancestors of Louise Ramirez and fellow members of the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation have been unearthed from the Presidio of Monterey and shipped off to museums and universities up and down the state.

It’s disturbing to tribal members that the remains of their ancestors are housed in museums, instead of resting in peace where they were taken from, Ramirez told the Pacific Grove City Council on Sept. 20.

One bone currently resides in the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. It was found in 1960 on Presidio Hill, above the cliff that faces the intersection of Foam Street and Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey.

A man named Donald Howard donated the long arm bone—called an ulna—to the museum, and it’s been a part of its collection ever since. It’s not known if the bone belonged to a man or a woman.

The bone was never on display, nor was it ever used for research, museum spokesperson Patrick Whitehurst says by email.

Now Ramirez and her tribe are working to get that bone—and all the remains found on the Presidio—returned, in order to repatriate them to their homeland, she says, under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

It’s been a complicated process.

For starters, the Esselen Nation is not a federally recognized tribe, in part because the members have no piece of land to call their own, Ramirez says. Historical records and research show that the tribe’s ancestors lived all over the Monterey Peninsula and as far inland as the Salinas Valley. (The tribe is recognized by the Native American Heritage Commission of the State of California.)

However, the Presidio, which is run by the U.S. Army, is federal land, and since the federal government does not recognize the Esselen Nation, the tribe had to partner with a tribe that is federally recognized. (Ramirez declines to reveal which tribe.)

The partnership and efforts on the part of the Army are historic, she says.

“It’s the first time in history, that’s how special it is,” Ramirez says.

In February, the Army published a report in the Federal Register stating that more than 300 objects have been unearthed at the Presidio since early in the last century. The detailed report includes a list of which facilities around the state received the objects.

The first documented instance of finding remains on what's now the Presidio was in 1910. The find included the remains of possibly three individuals that were sent to the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.

In 1967, the remains of possibly nine people were found around the same location on Presidio Hill, along with “associated funerary objects” including tools, shell bead fragments, animal bones and shells. Those were sent to the California Statewide Museum Collections Center, in McClellan.

So far, Ramirez says, it has not been an issue with getting museums to agree to release remains to the Army.

But they hit a slight snag in Pacific Grove, where an ordinance states that only the city can approve the removal of an object—known as a “deaccession”—from the Natural History Museum’s collection, according to a report prepared for City Council by P.G. City Manager Ben Harvey.

The museum’s foundation board approved deaccessioning the bone over the summer, but the issue has to go to the council for official approval. The council is scheduled to consider it when they meet at 6pm Wednesday, Oct. 4.

Ramirez says the goal is to rebury the remains somewhere within the tribe’s homeland in Monterey County. But finding a spot is also complicated. It has to be a location approved by a city or the county that will not be disturbed in the future.

“One of the most important things we can do is make sure they are returned to the Earth,” she says. “Out of the museum and resting in peace, especially within our homeland.”

UPDATE: The Pacific Grove City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 4 to deaccession the remains to the tribe.