[meteorite-list] New York Times Correction

From: meteorite1.net <themeteoritesite_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:04 2004
Message-ID: <OE329fLBmj90VIhCWRL0001253e_at_hotmail.com>

Hello list members,

    I do not want to upset anyone here but I am confused on this Willamette
issue.

"The American Museum of Natural History bought it in 1906." I assume from
the Indians.

"Two years ago, after the opening of the museum's Rose Center, the tribes
demanded that the meteorite be returned." I assume that would make it 1999
or 2000, 93 years later.


    Ok the Indian tribes sell the meteorite, not have it taken from them but
they sell it. 93 years later they demand it be returned. Wouldn't the fact
that they sold it release them from any claim to it, be it legal, moral or
ethical.

    Would this be the real life definition of "Indian giver".

Sorry but it does not make sense to me

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] New York Times Correction


> >
> >
> > There is a short article in The New York Times that reviews the recent
> > Willamette meteorite saga.
> >
> > In the article it refers to the Macovich Collection as the largest
private
> > collection of meteorites in the world.
> >
> > Of course, this is not accurate, and upon seeing the story on
NYTIMES.COM a
> > short while ago, I immediately advised the reporter/writer of the same.
> > (While the Macovich Collection is the preeminent collection of aesthetic
> > irons, there are several private collections that are much larger in
overall
> > scope...value...etc.)
> >
>
> Here is that article:
>
> http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0213sacredstone-ON.html
>
> Uproar over a sacred Oregon meteorite
> New York Times
> February 13, 2002
>
> When the American Museum of Natural History opened its gleaming new
> planetarium two years ago, it gave its highest place of honor to the
> Willamette meteorite, the pitted, 15.5-ton boulder that fell to Earth more
> than 10 millennia ago.
>
> But unknown to most of its admirers - or until recently to the Oregon
tribe
> that considers it sacred - the meteorite has a flat spot at the top,
created
> by museum curators in 1998 when they cut off a 28-pound chunk and traded
it
> to a private collector for half an ounce of Mars.
>
> On Sunday, the collector, Darryl Pitt of New York City, sold a 6-inch,
> 3.4-ounce slice off that chunk for $11,000 at an auction. A second,
smaller
> piece of a meteorite he obtained in a trade with the Natural History
Museum
> in London a couple of months ago sold for $3,300.
>
> "This is not anything that is unusual," said Pitt, whose Macovich
Collection
> is the largest private collection of meteorites in the world.
>
> But the auction dismayed descendants of the Clackamas Indians of Oregon
who
> regard the meteorite as a spiritual union of earth, sky and water.
>
> "Would someone want to auction off a crucifix, one of the holy statues out
> of the Catholic Church or something like that?" asked Kathryn Harrison,
> former chairwoman of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, which
includes
> the Clackamas.
>
> The Oregonian, the state's largest newspaper, took up the cause, accusing
> the American museum in an editorial on Saturday of showing "disgraceful
> stewardship" of the meteorite. "If we had our way, it would be heading
back
> on the next westbound freight train," the newspaper said.
>
> Dr. David Wheeler, a chiropractic physician in West Linn, Ore., who bought
> the smaller thumbnail-size piece that weighs a third of an ounce, said he
> wanted to discuss with the tribal members how he might share his new
> purchase with them.
>
> "I did it, because I wanted to bring a small part of the meteor back to
> Oregon," Wheeler said. "I may end up donating it to them."
>
> Matt Morgan, a meteorite trader in Colorado who runs the Internet site
Mile
> High Meteorites, bought the larger piece "because it's a historic American
> meteorite and one which I don't have," he said. "It's one of the things
you
> always read about in the books."
>
> Morgan said he and two other investors would cut that piece into six or
> seven smaller pieces, keeping some for themselves and selling the others.
> "We'd like to recoup some of the investment we made," he said.
>
> The Willamette meteorite, the largest meteorite ever found in the United
> States, is believed to have originally landed in Canada, and then was
pushed
> by glaciers to Oregon's Willamette Valley thousands of years ago. The
> American Museum of Natural History bought it in 1906.
>
> Two years ago, after the opening of the museum's Rose Center, the tribes
> demanded that the meteorite be returned.
>
> The tribes and the museum settled their dispute with an agreement in which
> the meteorite remains in New York and tribal members can conduct a private
> ceremony once a year at the center.
>
> But dozens of pieces of the Willamette meteorite were removed over the
years
> and scattered to institutions around the world.
>
> Meteorite collectors trade pieces of space rock the way boys once traded
> baseball cards: a slice of Mars for a chip of carbonaceous chondrite, a
moon
> rock for a new meteorite find from the Sahara.
>
> Unlike curators of art or fossils, where great value is placed on the
> integrity of objects, meteorite curators at major museums participate in
the
> trading game, giving samples of their collection to private collectors in
> exchange for newly discovered rocks.
>
> "In meteoritics, it's long been a tradition to trade pieces of specimens,"
> said Dr. Michael J. Novacek, provost of science at the American Museum of
> Natural History. Scientists routinely cut meteorites apart for scientific
> study exchange and send pieces back and forth for different laboratories
to
> analyze.
>
> Trading pieces of the museum's meteorites with private collectors allows
the
> museum to acquire new, rare meteorites, Novacek said. "It ultimately had a
> scientific purpose," he said.
>
> In exchange for the 28-pound piece of the Willamette meteorite, Pitt gave
a
> part of the Governador Valadares meteorite, which landed in Brazil in
1958,
> one of a few known to have come from Mars.
>
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Received on Thu 14 Feb 2002 12:26:14 PM PST