22-3-903. Definitions. As used in this part, the following definitions apply:

(1) "Agency" means any department, bureau, commission, board, council, or political subdivision of the state of Montana, except an entity that is a cemetery board or has authority over a cemetery.

(2) "Board" means the burial preservation board established in 22-3-804.

(3) "Burial site" has the meaning provided in 22-3-803.

(4) "Claimant" means a claimant for repatriation under 22-3-912 and includes a tribal group, lineal descendant, or next of kin.

(5) "Control" means having a legal interest in human skeletal remains or funerary objects sufficient to lawfully permit an agency or museum to treat the object as part of its collection for purposes of this part whether or not the human skeletal remains or funerary objects are in the physical custody of the agency or museum.

(6) "Cultural affiliation" means the existence of a shared group identity that can reasonably be traced historically or anthropologically between a tribal group and an identifiable earlier tribe. It may also include a shared identity that can reasonably be traced historically between an individual and an identifiable individual lineal descendant or next of kin.

(7) "Funerary objects" means objects that, as part of a death rite or ceremony, are reasonably believed to have been placed with human skeletal remains at a specific burial site either at the time of death or later and which human skeletal remains are currently in the possession or control of an agency, museum, or person, either along with the human skeletal remains or that can be identified by a preponderance of the evidence to be related to specific known human skeletal remains not currently in the possession or control of the agency, museum, or person.

(8) "Human skeletal remains" has the meaning provided in 22-3-803.

(9) "Inventory" means an itemized list that summarizes the collection of human skeletal remains and funerary objects in the possession or control of an agency or museum.

(10) "Marked, unmarked, unrecorded, registered, or unregistered grave or burial ground" has the meaning provided in 22-3-803.

(11) "Museum" means an entity or state or local government agency, including an educational institution, that receives state funding.

(12) "Person" includes a corporation, partnership, joint venture, estate, and any other legal entity, as well as a natural person.

(13) "Possessing entity" means an agency, museum, or person from whom repatriation is requested.

(14) (a) "Possession" means having physical custody of human skeletal remains or funerary objects with a sufficient legal interest to lawfully treat the human skeletal remains or funerary objects as part of a collection.

(b) The term does not include human skeletal remains or funerary objects on loan to an agency or museum.

(15) "Right of possession" means:

(a) possession obtained of nonculturally affiliated human skeletal remains or funerary objects; or

(b) possession obtained with the voluntary consent of a group or individual that had authority of alienation over the human skeletal remains or funerary object.

(16) "Tribal group" has the meaning provided in 22-3-803.

History: En. Sec. 3, Ch. 558, L. 2001.