The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum's collection of human remains from Saipan appears to have touched Japan's cultural, political and religious sensitivities concerning World War II, causing Japanese officials to balk at accepting UC Berkeley's offer to return the skulls and bones.

"The remains are not verified as ones of Japanese, so the Japanese government is asking for additional information," Tadayuki Mizutani, a first secretary at Japan's Embassy in Washington, said Friday.

But the museum's documentation on the remains is sketchy.

Although its card catalogs list some of the Saipan remains as "Japanese who committed suicide during the American invasion," UC anthropologists can only verify that the remains are of East Asian origin.

Japan isn't keen to repatriate the skulls and bones of non-Japanese.

Because of Japan's long history of Buddhism, a person's lineage is considered significant and human remains are treated with reverence. The dead are often cremated, and their ashes buried in a family grave.

Professor Duncan Williams, director of UC Berkeley's Center for Japanese Studies, said that Japan has good reason to tread carefully.

"This is a hot political issue in Japan for family members for whom deceased soldiers cannot be identified," he said. "This is not just any remains, but remains of those who passed away in World War II. The Japanese government and people are trying to ... come to closure with Japan's role in that war."

A chance of return

Williams said he expects that Japan ultimately will accept the museum's offer to return the Saipan remains.

"There is an appropriate location in Japan to repatriate these remains, so I think the government of Japan will provide a place for them," Williams said, referring to a Japanese cemetery that has the remains of unknown soldiers and civilians killed in war. "There may be ways to identify the actual families, to pinpoint the possible range of families."

It is unclear whether the remains are of soldiers or civilians, but experts may try to match any teeth from the skulls to Japan's military or civilian dental records.

International law experts have said that, if the remains are of soldiers who fought in World War II, the United States may be violating the Geneva Conventions and customary international law provisions by allowing the museum to keep the collection.

If the remains are those of civilians, the applicability of international laws and military regulations designed to protect civilians during war are debatable. Such protections for civilians have evolved significantly since World War II.

Museum officials now say that no research has been done on the Saipan remains, except for an inspection in the 1980s. Judson King, the museum's interim director, had written previously that the remains were used in 1995 and 1998 for osteological research funded by the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Max E. Childress, a former Navy doctor, told museum authorities he collected the remains on Saipan. Some marked bones were from hospitals where he worked, while other "unmarked specimens were collected on Saipan in 1945."

He kept the remains in his private collection, before donating them to the museum in 1974. He died five years ago.

It is unclear to what degree Childress' conduct was authorized by the Navy - or whether he violated regulations.

Childress, who later taught surgery at UCSF medical school, obtained a one-sentence note from a colleague in 1945 that authorized him to remove remains from Saipan for osteological research. Senior commanders had warned U.S. personnel not to remove enemy remains.

Changing guidelines

The Code of Ethics for Museums, approved in 1993 by the directors of the American Association of Museums, has vague guidelines for human remains, but museums are changing how they view the dead.

"Fifty years ago it was simply accepted that museums owned human remains and sacred objects from other cultures," Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums, wrote in a published essay. "Now there is considerable debate about whether and when this is ethical."

It is unclear whether the university took steps since 1974 to notify the Japanese government about the existence of the Saipan remains. Two days after The Chronicle published its first report about the remains, UC Berkeley officials sent several letters to Japanese officials offering to return the bones to Japan.

A whistle-blower apparently sent a phony letter from the museum's director to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo last year, offering to return the Saipan remains to Japan. A shrine official wrote back informing museum officials that the shrine prays for the spirits of war dead, but does not accept remains. He referred the museum to a Japanese bureau. UC officials would not say whether they notified the bureau.

"Given the sensitivity of this issue in Japan we cannot say more at this time," said Dan Mogulof, a university spokesman.