Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits
Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture
- Contents
- Review Quotes
- Awards

I. Resistance: War Gods
1. Only After Night Fall
2. Keepers of the Sky
3. Magic Relief
4. Tribal Resolution
5. All Things Will Eat Themselves Up
6. This Far Away
II. Regret: A Scalp from Sand Creek
7. I Have Come to Kill Indians
8. The Bones Bill
9. We Are Going Back Home
10. Indian Trophies
11. AC.35B
12. A Wound of the Soul
III. Reluctance: Killer Whale
Flotilla Robe
13. Masterless Things
14. Chief Shakes
15. Johnson v. Chilkat Indian Village
16. Last Stand
17. The Weight Was Heavy
18. Our Culture Is Not Dying
IV. Respect: Calusa Skulls
19. The Hardest Cases
20. Long Since Completely Disappeared
21. Unidentifiable
22. Their Place of Understanding
23. Timeless Limbo
24. Before We Just Gave Up
Conclusion
A Note on the Terms American Indian, Native American, Etc.
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
"A lightly written, insider's account of the battle over human remains and objects in museums. . . . As this book shows, the fight to reclaim Native America’s culture has been waged, in significant parts, by professionals such as Colwell. His is indeed an insider’s account--just not from the sidelines. He too has been on the battlefield."
Choice Magazine: CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Awards
Won
Council for Museum Anthropology: CMA Book Award
Won
Colorado Center for the Book: Colorado Book Awards
Won
Society for Historical Archaeology: James Deetz Book Award
Won
National Council on Public History: NCPH Book Award
Won
Society for Humanistic Anthropology: Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing
Honorable Mention
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
History: American History
Law and Legal Studies: Law and Society
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