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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023 Arizona

Navajo County, Arizona

Institutions reported making 60% of the more than 2,400 Native American remains taken from Navajo County, Arizona available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.

remains of 1,444 Native Americans made available for return to tribes
remains of at least 979 Native Americans not made available for return

There are 14 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Navajo County, Arizona.

InstitutionRemains Not Made Available for ReturnRemains Made Available for Return% of Remains Made Available for Return
Harvard University45810%
University of Arizona, Arizona State Museum18363%
American Museum of Natural History1182316%
University of California, Berkeley8911%
Field Museum686950%
U.S. Department of the Interior591,31596%
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology400%
California Department of Parks and Recreation01100%
Colorado College02100%
Denver Museum of Nature and Science01100%
Heard Museum01100%
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum01100%
Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner01100%
U.S. Department of Agriculture022100%
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 Navajo County, Arizona available for return to 23 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
Hopi Tribe of Arizona1,427
Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New Mexico1,401
Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico27
White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona14
Pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico5
Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah4
Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico (formerly the Pueblo of San Juan)3
Pueblo of Cochiti, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Nambe, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Picuris, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Pojoaque, New Mexico3
Pueblo of San Felipe, New Mexico3
Pueblo of San Ildefonso, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Sandia, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Santa Ana, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Santa Clara, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Tesuque, New Mexico3
Pueblo of Zia, New Mexico3
Santo Domingo Pueblo3
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo3
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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