University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology
The Univ. of Michigan has the 24th largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains in the U.S. The institution reported still having the remains of at least 700 Native Americans that it has not made available for return to tribes.
The institution has made available for return 53% of the more than 1,600 Native American remains that it reported to the federal government.
Where Native American remains reported by the Univ. of Michigan were taken from
Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to tribes by the Univ. of Michigan
How the Univ. of Michigan compares to other institutions
The Univ. of Michigan made Native American remains available for return to 67 tribes.
| Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return To |
|---|---|
| Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, Michigan | 841 |
| Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Michigan | 841 |
| Bay Mills Indian Community, Michigan | 839 |
| Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Michigan | 839 |
| Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan | 839 |
| Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Michigan | 839 |
| Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan | 786 |
| Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Michigan | 778 |
| Hannahville Indian Community, Michigan | 669 |
| Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan | 669 |
| Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, Michigan (formerly the Huron Potawatomi, Inc.) | 669 |
| Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Michigan and Indiana | 669 |
| Chippewa Cree Indians of the Rocky Boy's Reservation, Montana | 637 |
| Bois Forte Band (Nett Lake) of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 628 |
| Fond du Lac Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 628 |
| Grand Portage Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 628 |
| Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin | 628 |
| Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation of Wisconsin | 628 |
| Leech Lake Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 628 |
| Mille Lacs Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 628 |
| Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin | 628 |
| Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, Minnesota | 628 |
| Sokaogon Chippewa Community, Wisconsin | 628 |
| St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin | 628 |
| Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota | 628 |
| White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 628 |
| Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians of the Bad River Reservation, Wisconsin | 626 |
| Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma | 561 |
| Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Oklahoma | 456 |
| Forest County Potawatomi Community, Wisconsin | 456 |
| Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation | 456 |
| Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, California and Arizona | 455 |
| Wyandotte Nation | 432 |
| Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas | 172 |
| Kickapoo Tribe of Indians of the Kickapoo Reservation in Kansas | 172 |
| Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma | 172 |
| Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska | 171 |
| Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma | 171 |
| Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa | 171 |
| Miami Tribe of Oklahoma | 127 |
| Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 126 |
| Seneca Nation of Indians | 126 |
| Seneca-Cayuga Nation | 126 |
| Tonawanda Band of Seneca | 126 |
| Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 123 |
| Delaware Nation, Oklahoma | 123 |
| Delaware Tribe of Indians | 123 |
| Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma | 123 |
| Shawnee Tribe | 123 |
| Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana | 50 |
| Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin | 30 |
| Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minnesota | 28 |
| Chickasaw Nation | 5 |
| Quapaw Nation | 4 |
| Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas | 1 |
| Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Oklahoma | 1 |
| Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma | 1 |
| Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana | 1 |
| Jena Band of Choctaw Indians | 1 |
| Miccosukee Tribe of Indians | 1 |
| Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians | 1 |
| Muscogee (Creek) Nation | 1 |
| Poarch Band of Creek Indians | 1 |
| Seminole Tribe of Florida | 1 |
| Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota | 1 |
| The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma | 1 |
| Thlopthlocco Tribal Town | 1 |
The Univ. of Michigan reported making 22% of more than 11,200 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