Autry Museum of the American West
The Autry Museum of the American West has the 87th largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S. The institution reported still having the remains of at least 100 Native Americans that it has not made available for return to tribes.
The institution has made available for return 26% of the more than 100 Native American remains that it reported to the federal government.
Where Native American remains reported by the Autry Museum of the American West were taken from
Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to tribes by the Autry Museum of the American West
How the Autry Museum of the American West compares to other institutions
The Autry Museum of the American West made Native American remains available for return to 49 tribes.
| Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return To |
|---|---|
| Santa Rosa Indian Community of the Santa Rosa Rancheria, California | 34 |
| Table Mountain Rancheria | 34 |
| Tule River Indian Tribe of the Tule River Reservation, California | 34 |
| Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria of California | 34 |
| Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians of California | 28 |
| Big Sandy Rancheria of Western Mono Indians of California | 15 |
| Cold Springs Rancheria of Mono Indians of California | 15 |
| Northfork Rancheria of Mono Indians of California | 15 |
| Susanville Indian Rancheria, California | 4 |
| Berry Creek Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California | 3 |
| Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California | 3 |
| California Valley Miwok Tribe, California | 3 |
| Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California | 3 |
| Enterprise Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California | 3 |
| Greenville Rancheria | 3 |
| Ione Band of Miwok Indians of California | 3 |
| Jackson Band of Miwuk Indians | 3 |
| Mooretown Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California | 3 |
| Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, California | 3 |
| Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Shingle Springs Rancheria (Verona Tract), California | 3 |
| Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation | 3 |
| Moapa Band of Paiute Indians of the Moapa River Indian Reservation, Nevada | 2 |
| Seneca Nation of Indians | 2 |
| Seneca-Cayuga Nation | 2 |
| Tonawanda Band of Seneca | 2 |
| Bishop Paiute Tribe | 1 |
| Bridgeport Indian Colony | 1 |
| Duckwater Shoshone Tribe of the Duckwater Reservation, Nevada | 1 |
| Ely Shoshone Tribe of Nevada | 1 |
| Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska | 1 |
| Kasaan, Organized Village of | 1 |
| Kaw Nation, Oklahoma | 1 |
| Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians of the Las Vegas Indian Colony, Nevada | 1 |
| Lovelock Paiute Tribe of the Lovelock Indian Colony, Nevada | 1 |
| Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians, Oklahoma | 1 |
| Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of the Fallon Reservation and Colony, Nevada | 1 |
| Pauma Band of Luiseno Mission Indians of the Pauma and Yuima Reservation, California | 1 |
| Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma | 1 |
| Pechanga Band of Indians | 1 |
| Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Nevada | 1 |
| Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians | 1 |
| Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska | 1 |
| Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma | 1 |
| Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa | 1 |
| Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, Nevada | 1 |
| Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada | 1 |
| Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota | 1 |
| Washoe Tribe of Nevada & California | 1 |
| Yomba Shoshone Tribe of the Yomba Reservation, Nevada | 1 |
The Autry Museum of the American West reported making 93% of more than 1,000 associated funerary objects available for return to tribes.
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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