State Historical Society of Iowa
The State Historical Society of Iowa has made available for return 100% of the 221 Native American remains that it reported to the federal government.
Where Native American remains reported by the State Historical Society of Iowa were taken from
Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to tribes by the State Historical Society of Iowa
How the State Historical Society of Iowa compares to other institutions
The State Historical Society of Iowa made Native American remains available for return to 33 tribes.
| Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return To |
|---|---|
| Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska | 190 |
| Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma | 190 |
| Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians, Oklahoma | 190 |
| Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota | 167 |
| Omaha Tribe of Nebraska | 145 |
| Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 145 |
| Ponca Tribe of Nebraska | 145 |
| Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska | 144 |
| Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma | 144 |
| Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa | 144 |
| Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota | 143 |
| Lower Sioux Indian Community in the State of Minnesota | 143 |
| Santee Sioux Nation, Nebraska | 143 |
| Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, South Dakota | 143 |
| Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota | 143 |
| Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Oklahoma | 142 |
| Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin | 142 |
| Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma | 142 |
| Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 142 |
| Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation | 142 |
| Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska | 142 |
| Institution could not determine a culturally affiliated tribe and remains were transferred or reinterred according to state or other law | 5 |
| Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana | 1 |
| Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota | 1 |
| Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of the Crow Creek Reservation, South Dakota | 1 |
| Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of the Lower Brule Reservation, South Dakota | 1 |
| Oglala Sioux Tribe | 1 |
| Prairie Island Indian Community in the State of Minnesota | 1 |
| Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota | 1 |
| Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Minnesota | 1 |
| Spirit Lake Tribe, North Dakota | 1 |
| Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota | 1 |
| Upper Sioux Community, Minnesota | 1 |
The State Historical Society of Iowa reported making 100% of more than 400 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