Well, color me stunned.

Apparently, the federal government has been giving a number of native tribes in Virginia a hard time, claiming that they aren't Indian enough. They wanted to see proof that they'd been there at least since the first contact with Europeans.

If you know anything at all about all European newcomers' relationships with the indigenous population, this is not at all a surprise (and no, it's not just the British/Americans who were jerks; the Spaniards were all sorts of horrifying). But what gets me the most is this:

It would mean that they could finally petition the federal government to return the bones of their ancestors from the drawers and boxes of Smithsonian warehouses to be buried with respect, something that only tribes with federal status are allowed to do.

What the hell? I'm not one for burial rituals - someone's dead and they're dead, it's over, and if it were up to me we'd just leave things back to nature without ceremony - but what is this about? You need the government to approve your culture before you can own your people's relics? That strikes me as just a pointlessly jerkish thing to do.