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The Repatriation Database Data from Jan. 6, 2025 California

San Bernardino County, California

Institutions reported making 94% of the remains of 51 Native Americans taken from San Bernardino County, California available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.

remains of 48 Native Americans made available for return to tribes
remains of at least 3 Native Americans not made available for return

There are eight institutions that reported Native American remains taken from San Bernardino County, California.

InstitutionRemains Not Made Available for ReturnRemains Made Available for Return% of Remains Made Available for Return
San Bernardino County Museum21588%
Lackawanna Historical Society100%
California Department of Parks and Recreation01100%
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum04100%
U.S. Department of the Interior024100%
University of California, Los Angeles, Fowler Museum of Cultural History01100%
University of California, Riverside02100%
University of South Florida01100%
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 San Bernardino County, California available for return to 16 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
Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation42
Morongo Band of Mission Indians, California27
Cabazon Band of Cahuilla Indians15
Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians, California15
Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, California15
Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians of California13
Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, California and Arizona11
Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation, California5
Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, California4
Cahuilla Band of Indians4
Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians, California4
Ramona Band of Cahuilla, California4
Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation, California2
Timbisha Shoshone Tribe2
Colorado River Indian Tribes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, Arizona and California1
Fort Mojave Indian Tribe of Arizona, California and Nevada1
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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