Sípnuuk is a community-centered digital repository and archive. We provide access to born-digital, digitized, and to-be-digitized materials containing áraar (Karuk) knowledge and cultural heritage, including topics like araráhih (Karuk language), tradition, land management, and science.
The Sípnuuk Archive is managed by the Sipnuuk Division, and is currently held under the Pikyav Field Institute within the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources. Sipnuuk works to uphold Karuk Knowledge and Data Sovereignty through Karuk-centered Data Stewardship.
We assert that Karuk individuals, families, and ancestors hold the original copyright to materials in which they are represented. Sipnuuk facilitates the assertion of intellectual ownership and sovereignty over cultural, genealogical, and other Karuk materials held in institutions away from our communities regardless of their institutional copyright holdings. We emphasize the importance of forming a connection between individuals, families, and villages represented in archival materials and effort to actively engage stewardship and/or return of copyright to living individuals and relatives. We are actively creating relationships with other institutions to return Karuk materials according to NAGPRA, Local Contexts, individual institutional protocols, and other emerging data return policy efforts.
We prioritize materials and content at risk of loss due to environmental, historical, and other causes such as material degradation, climate change, natural disasters, and housing insecurity. Materials stewarded by our People (and not otherwise recorded) hold most priority for our collections. We also repatriate materials already collected and held in other institutions/private collections.
