A/HRC/45/35 C. Repatriations of intangible cultural heritage 71. While it is an emerging field, there are notable examples of repatriations of intangible cultural heritage and capacity-building for indigenous peoples to better protect their intellectual property and traditional cultural knowledge. 72. In the 1960s, researchers in the United States of America took blood samples from the Yanomami people in Brazil without their free, prior and informed consent. The Yanomami later discovered that 2,693 such blood samples were being kept, in violation of Yanomami beliefs and funerary practices, and that in the 1990s, DNA was extracted without consent. Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa said, “these Americans robbed our blood. They did not say anything in our language about the tests they were going to do. Nobody knew that they were going to use our blood to do research”. In 2015, the Yanomami successfully fought for repatriation and the blood was buried at home in a ceremony presided over by spiritual leaders.56 73. Another example concerns historic recordings of indigenous language speakers made by anthropologists and ethnomusicologists. Decades after they were made, indigenous peoples discovered that the recordings of their ancestors’ voices were being kept in universities and other archives. Indigenous peoples may seek to ensure spiritual recordings are not played inappropriately and that they serve as a resource to facilitate language instruction for contemporary members of their communities, an issue of heightened concern when many indigenous languages are endangered. Columbia University holds copies of and rights to songs from Inupiaq, Navajo and Hopi communities recorded in the 1900s. Columbia University’s Center for Ethnomusicology has indicated its commitment to repatriating the recordings, with an initiative to bring the songs “back home” to the tribe, through communitypartnered repatriation.57 Repatriation could range from digitization to return of the original wax cylinders and allocation of attribution, copying, performance and other rights. 74. In the Russian Federation, a register of intangible cultural heritage of the peoples of Ugra is being maintained. As at the beginning of 2020, 61 items were included in the register, relating to performing arts, techniques and technologies, festive and ceremonial culture, and oral folk art. The register provides high-quality ethnographic material for research and is an important resource and channel for the transmission of ritual traditions to younger generations. In 2016, a project on the “ritual system of northern Khants bear games” was recognized as intangible heritage of the Russian Federation and registered in the federal catalogue of intangible cultural heritage of the peoples of Russia. 58 75. Capacity-building is crucial for indigenous peoples to protect their intangible cultural heritage and navigate the complex national and international intellectual property regimes. In this regard, WIPO worked with the Maasai in Kenya in 2008 in order to strengthen their capacity to protect their intangible heritage. Thanks to this training programme, the Maasai developed practical skills and technical knowledge in cultural documentation, archiving and intellectual property management. They recorded, archived and managed access to their own cultural heritage, developed their own intellectual property policies and protocols, and used technology to record their intangible heritage.59 D. Legal and policy frameworks for repatriation and cultural heritage protection 76. One vital area of good practice is the development, adoption and implementation of national legal and policy frameworks for the repatriation of ceremonial objects and human 56 57 58 59 Survival International, “Brazil: blood samples returned to Yanomami after nearly 50 years”, 13 April 2015; and BBC News, “Indigenous tribe’s blood returned to Brazil after decades”, 3 April 2015. See https://music.columbia.edu/news/center-for-ethnomusicology-announces-hopi-musicrepatriation-project; and Trevor Reed, “Reclaiming ownership of the indigenous voice: the Hopi Music Repatriation Project”, in The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation, Frank Gunderson, Robert C. Lancefield and Bret Woods, eds. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019). Submission from the Russian Federation. See also www.rusfolknasledie.ru (in Russian). See www.wipo.int/tk/en/folklore/digitizing_traditional_culture.html. 15