Traditional Cultural Properties (NPS 38)

What are traditional cultural properties?

The National Register of Historic Places contains a wide range of historic property types, reflecting the diversity of the nation's history and culture. Buildings, structures, and sites; groups of buildings, structures or sites forming historic districts; landscapes; and individual objects are all included in the Register if they meet the criteria specified in the National Register's Criteria for Evaluation (36 CFR 60.4). Such properties reflect many kinds of significance in architecture, history, archeology, engineering, and culture.
There are many definitions of the word "culture;" but in the National Register programs the word is understood to mean the traditions, beliefs, practices, lifeways, arts, crafts, and social institutions of any community, be it an Indian tribe, a local ethnic group, or the people of the nation as a whole (see Appendix 1).

One kind of cultural significance a property may possess, and that may make it eligible for inclusion in the Register, is traditional cultural significance. "Traditional" in this context refers to those beliefs, customs, and practices of a living community of people that have been passed down through the generations, usually orally or through practice. The traditional cultural significance of a historic property, then, is significance derived from the role the property plays in a community's historically rooted beliefs, customs, and practices. Examples of properties possessing such significance include:

a location associated with the traditional beliefs of a Native American group about its origins, its cultural history, or the nature of the world;
a rural community whose organization, buildings and structures, or patterns of land use reflect the cultural traditions valued by its long-term residents;
an urban neighborhood that is the traditional home of a particular cultural group, and that reflects its beliefs and practices;
a location where Native American religious practitioners have historically gone, and are known or thought to go today, to perform ceremonial activities in accordance with traditional cultural rules of practice; and
a location where a community has traditionally carried out economic, artistic, or other cultural practices important in maintaining its historic identity.
A traditional cultural property, then, can be defined generally as one that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community's history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community. Various kinds of traditional cultural properties will be discussed, illustrated, and related specifically to the National Register Criteria.
In my newspaper column about the June 14 traditional cultural property listing for a large tract north of Grants, I referenced the National Park Service's Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties (NPS Bulletin 38) (See http://www.nps.gov/history/nR/publications/bulletins/nrb38).
I did this because the flyer from the State Register of Cultural Properties distributed at the June 14 meeting described a Traditional Cultural Property with two sentences. One said, "A Traditional Cultural Property is a place that matters," which is meaningless at best. At the risk of politically incorrect, my back yard "matters." The following material is taken from the Bulletin.

"What are traditional cultural properties?

"The National Register of Historic Places contains a wide range of historic property types, reflecting the diversity of the nation's history and culture. Buildings, structures, and sites; groups of buildings, structures or sites forming historic districts; landscapes; and individual objects are all included in the Register if they meet the criteria specified in the National Register's Criteria for Evaluation (36 CFR 60.4). Such properties reflect many kinds of significance in architecture, history, archeology, engineering, and culture.
"There are many definitions of the word "culture;" but in the National Register programs the word is understood to mean the traditions, beliefs, practices, lifeways, arts, crafts, and social institutions of any community, be it an Indian tribe, a local ethnic group, or the people of the nation as a whole (see Appendix 1).

"One kind of cultural significance a property may possess, and that may make it eligible for inclusion in the Register, is traditional cultural significance. "Traditional" in this context refers to those beliefs, customs, and practices of a living community of people that have been passed down through the generations, usually orally or through practice. The traditional cultural significance of a historic property, then, is significance derived from the role the property plays in a community's historically rooted beliefs, customs, and practices. Examples of properties possessing such significance include:

'a location associated with the traditional beliefs of a Native American group about its origins, its cultural history, or the nature of the world;
"a rural community whose organization, buildings and structures, or patterns of land use reflect the cultural traditions valued by its long-term residents;
an urban neighborhood that is the traditional home of a particular cultural group, and that reflects its beliefs and practices;
"a location where Native American religious practitioners have historically gone, and are known or thought to go today, to perform ceremonial activities in accordance with traditional cultural rules of practice; and
"a location where a community has traditionally carried out economic, artistic, or other cultural practices important in maintaining its historic identity.
"A traditional cultural property, then, can be defined generally as one that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community's history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community. Various kinds of traditional cultural properties will be discussed, illustrated, and related specifically to the National Register Criteria."

"Traditional cultural values are often central to the way a community or group defines itself, and maintaining such values is often vital to maintaining the group's sense of identity and self respect. Properties to which traditional cultural value is ascribed often take on this kind of vital significance, so that any damage to or infringement upon them is perceived to be deeply offensive to, and even destructive of, the group that values them. As a result, it is extremely important that traditional cultural properties be considered carefully in planning; hence it is important that such properties, when they are eligible for inclusion in the National Register, be nominated to the Register or otherwise identified in inventories for planning purposes.
Traditional cultural properties are often hard to recognize. A traditional ceremonial location may look like merely a mountaintop, a lake, or a stretch of river; a culturally important neighborhood may look like any other aggregation of houses, and an area where culturally important economic or artistic activities have been carried out may look like any other building, field of grass, or piece of forest in the area. As a result, such places may not necessarily come to light through the conduct of archeological, historical, or architectural surveys. The existence and significance of such locations often can be ascertained only through interviews with knowledgeable users of the area, or through other forms of ethnographic research. The subtlety with which the significance of such locations may be expressed makes it easy to ignore them; on the other hand it makes it difficult to distinguish between properties having real significance and those whose putative significance is spurious. As a result, clear guidelines for evaluation of such properties are needed."