Property as a Bundle of Rights: Using Legal Theory to Re-Own Relationships to Sacred Places

A common notion of property law is that property is really a bundle of rights concerning the thing owned by someone. This article draws from that notion to suggest ways Native people and Peoples can start to recover, or “re-own,” their relationships to their sacred places that have slipped into “ownership” by non-Native people or governments. First it provides a brief summary of the roots of US property law and an explanation of the bundle of rights concept with respect to land. Then it discusses how in many Indigenous worldviews the notion of “rights” has less primacy than it does in the US and other related legal systems. Finally, it explores several examples where the bundle of sticks notion might be used by Native people and Peoples to show continued relationship to, and thus continued ownership, of sacred places.