Kansas
Institutions reported making 19% of the more than 1,200 Native American remains taken from Kansas available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.
There are seven institutions located in Kansas that reported Native American remains taken from across the country.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
University of Kansas | 458 | 12 | 3% |
Kansas State Historical Society | 305 | 103 | 25% |
Wichita State University, Department of Anthropology | 33 | 0 | 0% |
Kansas State University | 13 | 137 | 91% |
Fellow-Reeve Museum of History and Science | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Fort Hays State University, Sternburg Museum of Natural History | 1 | 2 | 67% |
Pittsburg State University | 0 | 19 | 100% |
There are 20 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Kansas.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
University of Kansas | 354 | 0 | 0% |
Kansas State Historical Society | 287 | 103 | 26% |
Harvard University | 155 | 1 | 1% |
University of Tennessee, Knoxville | 134 | 10 | 7% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 55 | 0 | 0% |
Wichita State University, Department of Anthropology | 10 | 0 | 0% |
Kansas State University | 8 | 125 | 94% |
Hastings Museum | 4 | 1 | 20% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 3 | 1 | 25% |
Goshen College | 2 | 0 | 0% |
New York University, College of Dentistry | 2 | 0 | 0% |
American Museum of Natural History | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Field Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Illinois State Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Kansas City Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Seton Hall University | 1 | 0 | 0% |
University of Nebraska State Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Yale University, Peabody Museum of Natural History | 1 | 4 | 80% |
History Nebraska | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Sierra Mono Museum | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Institutions made Native American remains taken from Kansas available for return to 20 tribes.
Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return to Tribe |
---|---|
Kaw Nation, Oklahoma | 151 |
Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma | 140 |
Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska | 110 |
Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma | 109 |
Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians, Oklahoma | 91 |
Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma | 81 |
Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, Keechi, Waco and Tawakonie), Oklahoma | 68 |
Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska | 32 |
Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma | 31 |
Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa | 31 |
Kickapoo Tribe of Indians of the Kickapoo Reservation in Kansas | 30 |
Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota | 29 |
Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas | 28 |
Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma | 28 |
Ponca Tribe of Nebraska | 28 |
Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation | 7 |
Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Oklahoma | 6 |
Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, Oklahoma | 5 |
Northern Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming | 1 |
Osage Nation | 1 |
Institutions reported Native American remains taken from 74 counties in Kansas.
County | Remains Taken From County Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Geary County | 174 | 0 | 0% |
Clay County | 162 | 0 | 0% |
Doniphan County | 147 | 50 | 25% |
Wyandotte County | 133 | 81 | 38% |
Mitchell County | 42 | 0 | 0% |
Jewell County | 41 | 0 | 0% |
Riley County | 30 | 0 | 0% |
Phillips County | 24 | 0 | 0% |
Ness County | 19 | 2 | 10% |
Osborne County | 19 | 0 | 0% |
Morris County | 14 | 0 | 0% |
Atchison County | 12 | 2 | 14% |
McPherson County | 11 | 6 | 35% |
Greenwood County | 10 | 0 | 0% |
Bourbon County | 8 | 0 | 0% |
Meade County | 8 | 0 | 0% |
Shawnee County | 8 | 11 | 58% |
Pottawatomie County | 6 | 5 | 45% |
Ellsworth County | 5 | 1 | 17% |
Ford County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Greeley County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Harper County | 5 | 8 | 62% |
Labette County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Leavenworth County | 5 | 9 | 64% |
Rawlins County | 5 | 1 | 17% |
Republic County | 5 | 20 | 80% |
Cowley County | 4 | 16 | 80% |
Finney County | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Neosho County | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Osage County | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Rooks County | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Wichita County | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Brown County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Coffey County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Douglas County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Jefferson County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Lyon County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Trego County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Butler County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Chase County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Decatur County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Gray County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Montgomery County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Reno County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Saline County | 2 | 12 | 86% |
Sedgwick County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Sheridan County | 2 | 3 | 60% |
Stevens County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Sumner County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Wabaunsee County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Barton County | 1 | 1 | 50% |
Cherokee County | 1 | 1 | 50% |
Cloud County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Ellis County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Gove County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Graham County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Haskell County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Hodgeman County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Johnson County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Kiowa County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Lincoln County | 1 | 2 | 67% |
Logan County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Marion County | 1 | 1 | 50% |
Norton County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Ottawa County | 1 | 1 | 50% |
Pawnee County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Russell County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Scott County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Seward County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Smith County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Barber County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Cheyenne County | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Dickinson County | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Rice County | 0 | 6 | 100% |
Know how an institution is handling repatriation? Have a personal story to share? We'd like to hear from you.
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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