Four Directions UK is a non-profit organisation researching and cataloguing Native Peoples' cultural patrimony held in museums and private collections in the UK and elsewhere. These items include human remains, and funerary and other sacred objects.  We work to raise public awareness of the issues surrounding cultural property rights.

We seek to achieve environments that respect and acknowledge the rights of Indigenous People to decide how the remains of their ancestors and items relating to their culture should be handled, stored, displayed and disposed of, irrespective of who holds them and where they are held.

We undertake our work in a spirit of respect and cooperation.  We do not seek confrontation but will resolutely speak out for the rights of indigenous people over their cultural property and ancestral remains.  In all things we will defer to the wishes and requests of the Indigenous Nations whose cultural property we are researching.

• We research and catalogue Native Peoples' cultural property held in museums and private collections.


• Where we locate indigenous human remains or cultural items held in public or private collections we will seek to establish their origin.  If successful we will, where possible, contact the Indigenous Nation from whom the remains originated.


• We will inform them of our findings and seek to establish what action, if any, they wish to take in respect of the remains or items.  If requested we will assist nations and lineal descendants to negotiate for the repatriation of the remains or items.


• We provide information regarding Native Peoples' cultural property rights and their attitudes towards the sacred.


• To achieve our Mission and Vision we work with various organisations, including museums and native nations, tribes and bands, and with individuals such as curators, archaeologists and native cultural resource managers.

For more background and detailed information on the issues surrounding Native property rights, human remains in museums and cultural patrimony in general please see our "Recovering the Sacred" section

We dedicate this Website to dedicated to the memory of Vine Deloria, Jr., Esq., Standing Rock Sioux
(1933 - 2005)

Vine Deloria, Jr. was one of the most important American Indian legal activists of the 20th century. Best known as the author of "Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto" (1969) he wrote more then twenty books on tribal sovereignty, American History, religion, science, and United States/Indian treaties. He worked tirelessly for legislation to protect ancestral remains, and sacred sites.