The Willamette Meteorite is an extremely rare scientific example. The meteorite is made of nickel iron, and it weighs over 15.5 tons. It is 3.1 meters long, 2.1 meters wide, and 1.3 meters tall. This meteorite is the largest to be found in the United States, and is the sixth largest in the world. Most meteorites are formless lumps, but the Willamette Meteorite has huge craters all over the surface The nickel iron rock is a very rare kind of meteorite and is part of a "class that comprises of about 600 out of a total of 25,000 meteorites so far found on the Earth's surface"(AMNH Cullman Hall).

Around 4.5 billion of years ago, a planet that was orbiting the sun broke into millions of pieces. Part of these fragments was the Willamette Meteorite. This planet was composed of an iron-nickel core, and the planet breaking up and cooling is evident within the meteorites microscopic make-up. After spending a long time orbiting in space the Willamette meteorite was involved in two large impacts. These impacts caused the meteori

2) to share with Native Americans information from Museum collections and research about their history, and help to restore their ancestral traditions;

The Willamette meteorite crashed into earth long before the Native Americans even arrived in North America. Thousands of years later the Clackamas people inhabited the Willamette Valley area. Although they did not have sophisticated scientific equipment, the Clackamas people knew of where this large rock came from. They knew that sometimes shooting stars fall to the earth, and that was their explanation. They called it Tomonowos, and that can be translated as "Heavenly Visitor" or "Visitor From the Moon" (Kohnen). Just like all different cultures around the word the Clackamas people created a spiritual story that explained the presence of the meteorite. Young men went to the meteorite to have secret initiations. The Clackamas believed the water that collected in the cavities was holy, and they would wash their faces in it, and dip their arrowheads in it. "A Blackfoot Indian, Ryan Heavy Head says that because of the hollows filled with rainwater and air, the meteorite represents all three elements in native religion: air, water and earth" (Oregon Live). However, by the time the meteorite was discovered by Ellis Hughes in 1902, the Clackamas no longer existed as a tribe.

In 1999, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde began their struggle to reclaim the Willamette Meteorite. The tribes claimed the meteorite as a sacred object under native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This law was intended to help Native American tribes to reclaim human remains and other important cultural and religious objects. In the nearly 100 years of legal battle over the meteorite this is the first time a Native American tribe has tried to claim the meteorite as its own. "If it wasn't really important to the religion and to the people, then with the 100 years that have gone by, we still wouldn't be talking about it, songs wouldn't be remembered about it, people wouldn't be trained to take care of it in case it came back," Heavy Head said (Oregon Live). The tribes want to return it to the Grand Ronde Reservation. The problem now though is that the Rose Center for Earth and Space would have to have a very large portion removed to get the meteorite out. "The meteorite had to go in first," said Todd Schliemann, one of the architects who worked on the Rose Center. "It went in before the planetarium sphere,

It will remain at the Museum for scientific and educational purposes. The Confederate Tribes will be able to make scheduled ceremonial visits. The President of the Museum Ellen Futter says, "Our agreement reflects mutual respect and understanding and signals new possibilities for an ongoing and fruitful relationship..." (AMNH Internship). The Con

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Approximate Word count = 1896
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)