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The Repatriation Database Data from Jan. 6, 2025 Arizona

Maricopa County, Arizona

Institutions reported making 31% of the more than 1,800 Native American remains taken from Maricopa County, Arizona available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.

remains of 568 Native Americans made available for return to tribes
remains of at least 1,265 Native Americans not made available for return

There are 29 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Maricopa County, Arizona.

InstitutionRemains Not Made Available for ReturnRemains Made Available for Return% of Remains Made Available for Return
Arizona State University, School of Human Evolution and Social Change773354%
University of Arizona, Arizona State Museum31893%
Harvard University14800%
U.S. Department of the Interior155478%
American Museum of Natural History400%
University of Nebraska State Museum200%
S'edav Va'aki Museum1228100%
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology100%
Grand Rapids Public Museum100%
Sul Ross State University, Museum of the Big Bend100%
University of Kansas100%
Arizona Capitol Museum02100%
Arizona Museum of Natural History084100%
Brown University, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology02100%
Denver Museum of Nature and Science01100%
Heard Museum018100%
History Colorado05100%
Indiana University01100%
Milwaukee Public Museum02100%
Museum of Northern Arizona087100%
Pomona College, Montgomery Gallery02100%
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, Phillips Academy08100%
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History01100%
U.S. Department of Agriculture022100%
U.S. Department of Defense01100%
University of California, Los Angeles, Fowler Museum of Cultural History01100%
University of Colorado Museum02100%
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology01100%
University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History02100%
Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, when an institution establishes a connection between tribes and remains, it must publish a list of the tribes eligible to make a repatriation claim. The remains are then made available for return to the tribe(s). Once a tribal claim is made, physical transfer may occur. Many remains have been physically returned to tribes, but data on this is spotty because the law does not require institutions to report when these transfers occur.

Institutions made Native American remains taken from Maricopa County, Arizona available for return to 22 tribes.

Institutions often make remains available for return to multiple tribes, so the amount of remains listed below may be counted for more than one tribe.
TribeRemains Made Available for Return to Tribe
Tohono O'odham Nation of Arizona550
Gila River Indian Community of the Gila River Indian Reservation, Arizona546
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community of the Salt River Reservation, Arizona543
Ak-Chin Indian Community538
Hopi Tribe of Arizona535
Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New Mexico449
Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah7
Cocopah Tribe of Arizona4
Colorado River Indian Tribes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, Arizona and California4
Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, California and Arizona3
Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Arizona2
Fort Mojave Indian Tribe of Arizona, California and Nevada2
Havasupai Tribe of the Havasupai Reservation, Arizona2
Hualapai Indian Tribe of the Hualapai Indian Reservation, Arizona2
Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians of the Kaibab Indian Reservation, Arizona2
Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona2
San Carlos Apache Tribe of the San Carlos Reservation, Arizona2
San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe of Arizona2
Tonto Apache Tribe of Arizona2
White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona2
Yavapai-Apache Nation of the Camp Verde Indian Reservation, Arizona2
Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe2
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About the Data

This tool presents a dataset maintained by the National Park Service containing all the Native American human remains and associated funerary objects that institutions have reported to the federal government under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The dataset includes information about the state and county where remains and objects were taken from, which institutions hold them and whether they have been made available for return to tribes.

The data is self-reported by institutions. The amount of unrepatriated Native American remains reported by institutions is a minimum estimate of individuals and institutions frequently adjust these numbers when they reinventory groups of remains. Some institutions that are subject to NAGPRA have also entirely failed to report the remains in their possession. As a result, the numbers provided are best taken as estimates. The actual number and geographic scope of what’s held by publicly funded institutions is larger than what is presently documented.

ProPublica supplemented this dataset with information about cultural affiliation and disposition to specific tribes by systematically parsing the text of Notices of Inventory Completion published in the Federal Register. An additional dataset from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Tribal Directory Assessment Tool, was used for the section on remains not made available for return from counties that each tribe has indicated interest in to the federal government.

Institution location and tribal headquarters location information was provided by National NAGPRA. The location of some groups that are not federally recognized was provided through research by ProPublica.

Institutions that are part of a larger entity are grouped. (For example, the Mesa Verde National Park is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.)

Institutions that have not submitted information to the federal government are not listed. The Smithsonian Institution is not listed because its repatriation process falls under the National Museum of the American Indian Act and it is not required to publicly report its holdings with the same detail as institutions subject to NAGPRA.

If you work for an institution and would like to provide comment on your institution’s repatriation efforts, please email [email protected]. If you think the data is incorrect or have a data request, please get in touch. We are aware of some issues with the accuracy of location information and tribes mistakenly being identified for disposition of Native American remains in published notices.

If you want to share something else with ProPublica, we’d like to hear from you.

If you have questions about implementing or complying with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, get in touch with National NAGPRA or the NAGPRA Community of Practice.

We use the word “tribes” to refer to all groups that institutions made Native American remains available to under NAGPRA. This includes tribes, nations, bands, pueblos, communities, Native Alaskan villages, Native Hawaiian organizations and non-federally recognized groups.

Data sources from Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National NAGPRA Program, the Federal Register, Department of Housing and Development, Tribal Directory Assessment Tool