This belt has been identified as an object of cultural patrimony, and in coordination with the appropriate Tribal Governments, the GRPM is working diligently to repatriate them in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

Matthew Williams Stirling, archaeologist and Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1928-1957), was born on August 28, 1896 in Salinas, California. After serving as an Ensign in the Navy from 1917-1919, he graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology in 1920 from the University of California, Berkeley studying under T.T. Waterman, Alfred L. Kroeber, and E.W. Gifford. From 1920-1921 he worked as a teaching fellow at the university, where he taught William Duncan Strong. Stirling's first tenure at the Smithsonian (then the U.S. National Museum (USNM)) was from 1921-1924, first as a museum aide, then as an Assistant Curator of Ethnology. While in the position he took night classes at George Washington University and received his M.A. in 1922. He received an honorary Sc.D. from Tampa University in 1943. In 1924, Stirling resigned his position at the museum and embarked on a journey to South American with his friend Perry Patton. From 1925-1927 he embarked on the Smithsonian sponsored American-Dutch Expedition to Papua New Guinea to explore the previously unknown interior region of Dutch New Guinea. Stirling was appointed Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution in 1928 and married Marion Illig in 1933. They worked together for the next 40 years studying Olmec culture and the connection to greater Mesoamerica and South America. They had two children (Matthew W. Stirling Jr. in 1938 and Ariana Stirling in 1942). Stirling retired as Director of the B.A.E. on December 31, 1957. He died January 23, 1975 in Washington, D.C.

Sources consulted:

Collins, Henry B. "Matthew Williams Stirling, 1896-1975."

American Anthropologist, New Series, 78, no. 4 (1976): 886-88.

Coe, Michael D. "Matthew Williams Stirling, 1896-1975."

American Antiquity 41, no. 1 (1976): 67-73.

(Source: Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives, National Anthropological Archives, Guide to the Matthew Williams Stirling and Marion Stirling Pugh Papers, 1876-2004 (bulk 1921-1975) https://sova.si.edu/record/naa.2016-24).