Oregon
Institutions reported making 85% of the 1,300 Native American remains taken from Oregon available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.
There are 19 institutions located in Oregon 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 |
---|---|---|---|
Portland State University | 79 | 0 | 0% |
University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History | 73 | 479 | 87% |
Oregon State University | 63 | 147 | 70% |
Oregon Historical Society | 14 | 1 | 7% |
Willamette University, Hallie Ford Museum of Art | 11 | 4 | 27% |
Southern Oregon University | 4 | 0 | 0% |
High Desert Museum | 3 | 4 | 57% |
Klamath County Museum | 2 | 10 | 83% |
Benton County Historical Society | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Lane County Historical Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 1 | 34 | 97% |
Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Northwest Christian College, Kellenberger Library | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Oregon Parks and Recreation Department | 0 | 16 | 100% |
Southern Oregon Historical Society | 0 | 2 | 100% |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 0 | 16 | 100% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 0 | 212 | 100% |
Wasco County Dalles City Museum Commission | 0 | 3 | 100% |
There are 43 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Oregon.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Field Museum | 68 | 3 | 4% |
University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History | 29 | 353 | 92% |
University of California, Berkeley | 28 | 4 | 13% |
American Museum of Natural History | 18 | 29 | 62% |
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | 12 | 1 | 8% |
Portland State University | 9 | 0 | 0% |
Harvard University | 7 | 2 | 22% |
Oregon State University | 4 | 99 | 96% |
Southern Oregon University | 4 | 0 | 0% |
The History Museum | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Idaho State University, Idaho Museum of Natural History | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Oregon Historical Society | 2 | 1 | 33% |
Willamette University, Hallie Ford Museum of Art | 2 | 3 | 60% |
Earlham College | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Hastings Museum | 1 | 1 | 50% |
Idaho State Historical Society | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Illinois State Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Lane County Historical Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 1 | 181 | 99% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 1 | 35 | 97% |
University of Alaska Museum of the North | 1 | 0 | 0% |
University of California, Davis | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Western Washington University | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Whitman College, Maxey Museum | 1 | 4 | 80% |
Yale University, Peabody Museum of Natural History | 1 | 280 | 100% |
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Central Washington University | 0 | 17 | 100% |
High Desert Museum | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Karshner Museum | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Klamath County Museum | 0 | 5 | 100% |
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Milwaukee Public Museum | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Museum of Us | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Oregon Parks and Recreation Department | 0 | 16 | 100% |
Southern Oregon Historical Society | 0 | 2 | 100% |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 0 | 10 | 100% |
U.S. Department of Homeland Security | 0 | 1 | 100% |
University of Connecticut, Connecticut State Museum of Natural History | 0 | 11 | 100% |
University of Puget Sound, Puget Sound Museum of Natural History | 0 | 5 | 100% |
University of Washington | 0 | 6 | 100% |
University of Wyoming | 0 | 18 | 100% |
Wasco County Dalles City Museum Commission | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Institutions made Native American remains taken from Oregon available for return to 28 tribes.
Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return to Tribe |
---|---|
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon | 579 |
Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation | 502 |
Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians of Oregon | 349 |
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon | 283 |
Klamath Tribes | 123 |
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation | 87 |
Coquille Indian Tribe | 66 |
Burns Paiute Tribe | 65 |
Elk Valley Rancheria, California | 48 |
Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation | 48 |
Modoc Nation | 46 |
Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe of the Shoalwater Bay Indian Reservation | 34 |
Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians of Oregon | 32 |
Nez Perce Tribe | 27 |
Quinault Indian Nation | 16 |
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation | 8 |
Quartz Valley Indian Community of the Quartz Valley Reservation of California | 6 |
Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation | 4 |
Fort Bidwell Indian Community of the Fort Bidwell Reservation of California | 4 |
Kalispel Indian Community of the Kalispel Reservation | 4 |
Spokane Tribe of the Spokane Reservation | 4 |
Alturas Indian Rancheria, California | 3 |
Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians | 3 |
Pit River Tribe, California | 3 |
Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation, California | 3 |
Susanville Indian Rancheria, California | 3 |
Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribes of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, Nevada and Oregon | 2 |
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, Nevada | 1 |
Institutions reported Native American remains taken from 32 counties in Oregon.
County | Remains Taken From County Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Wasco County | 76 | 355 | 82% |
Curry County | 21 | 82 | 80% |
Clatsop County | 7 | 8 | 53% |
Multnomah County | 7 | 3 | 30% |
Tillamook County | 7 | 6 | 46% |
Columbia County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Jackson County | 5 | 50 | 91% |
Benton County | 3 | 13 | 81% |
Linn County | 3 | 60 | 95% |
Lake County | 2 | 40 | 95% |
Morrow County | 2 | 2 | 50% |
Wallowa County | 2 | 3 | 60% |
Douglas County | 1 | 1 | 50% |
Marion County | 1 | 2 | 67% |
Umatilla County | 1 | 17 | 94% |
Wheeler County | 1 | 2 | 67% |
Yamhill County | 1 | 67 | 99% |
Clackamas County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Coos County | 0 | 39 | 100% |
Deschutes County | 0 | 5 | 100% |
Gilliam County | 0 | 141 | 100% |
Grant County | 0 | 10 | 100% |
Harney County | 0 | 22 | 100% |
Hood River County | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Jefferson County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Josephine County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Klamath County | 0 | 75 | 100% |
Lane County | 0 | 17 | 100% |
Lincoln County | 0 | 21 | 100% |
Malheur County | 0 | 8 | 100% |
Sherman County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Washington County | 0 | 8 | 100% |
Know how an institution is handling repatriation? Have a personal story to share? We'd like to hear from you.
Watch an informational webinar with our reporters.
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