The March 2025 PAW article “Changing the Way We Think About Religion in the Americas,” about associate professor Garry Sparks, refers to Princeton’s collection of historical documents written in Maya languages. The article does not specify whether these documents are originals, copies, on loan, or owned by the University. Any such original documents are historical artifacts of the Maya people. Those pieces as well as any rare or difficult to reproduce copies should be in the hands of the people whose history they carry.
This situation begs some questions: 1. How did those documents come into Princeton’s possession? and 2. Why do they continue to be in Princeton’s possession when historians worldwide are calling for historical artifacts to be returned to their homelands? Princeton’s own Chika Okeke-Agulu, Nigerian art historian and African art professor, made exactly that case in a 2021 interview published by the CBC and reproduced on the University website. However, the PAW article doesn’t even mention the problem of cultural artifacts maintained by others. Instead, the article seems to brag that Princeton has “one of the largest collections in the world” of these Maya Native language documents, including “nine of the 20 known versions” of one particular tome from the 1550s.
It is admittedly a nontrivial challenge to figure out who exactly should take possession of documents from so long ago. Nevertheless, governments and museums around the world are making the effort to identify more rightful owners and repatriate artifacts. If Princeton’s collection contains anything which cannot be readily found in the Maya’s own repositories, the University needs to step up and return the documents to the Maya people.
The March 2025 PAW article “Changing the Way We Think About Religion in the Americas,” about associate professor Garry Sparks, refers to Princeton’s collection of historical documents written in Maya languages. The article does not specify whether these documents are originals, copies, on loan, or owned by the University. Any such original documents are historical artifacts of the Maya people. Those pieces as well as any rare or difficult to reproduce copies should be in the hands of the people whose history they carry.
This situation begs some questions: 1. How did those documents come into Princeton’s possession? and 2. Why do they continue to be in Princeton’s possession when historians worldwide are calling for historical artifacts to be returned to their homelands? Princeton’s own Chika Okeke-Agulu, Nigerian art historian and African art professor, made exactly that case in a 2021 interview published by the CBC and reproduced on the University website. However, the PAW article doesn’t even mention the problem of cultural artifacts maintained by others. Instead, the article seems to brag that Princeton has “one of the largest collections in the world” of these Maya Native language documents, including “nine of the 20 known versions” of one particular tome from the 1550s.
It is admittedly a nontrivial challenge to figure out who exactly should take possession of documents from so long ago. Nevertheless, governments and museums around the world are making the effort to identify more rightful owners and repatriate artifacts. If Princeton’s collection contains anything which cannot be readily found in the Maya’s own repositories, the University needs to step up and return the documents to the Maya people.