News about Mary Sara

Ales Hrdlicka, the first human anthropology researcher at the Washington Institute, collected brains in the early 1900s as he tried to present evidence of a now-debunked theory of ethnic differences. According to the Washington Post, the majority of non-white and indigenous people were arrested upon death without the permission of the individuals or their families. One of the brains belonged to Mary Sara, an indigenous Scandinavian woman of the Sami people who died of tuberculosis in a Seattle sanitarium at the age of 18. 'It's a crime against our families and against our people,' Fred Jack, the husband of one of Sara's cousins, said. According to the News, the brains, which were mainly collected in the 1940s, have long been off limits to public viewing, with officials only allowing descendants or members of closely connected families to view them.