Utah
Institutions reported making 27% of the more than 1,800 Native American remains taken from Utah available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.
There are seven institutions located in Utah 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 |
---|---|---|---|
Natural History Museum of Utah | 416 | 67 | 14% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 220 | 245 | 53% |
Utah Department of Natural Resources | 102 | 37 | 27% |
Brigham Young University, Museum of Peoples and Cultures | 81 | 47 | 37% |
Southern Utah University Archeological Repository | 64 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 8 | 9 | 53% |
Utah State University, Eastern Prehistoric Museum | 3 | 16 | 84% |
There are 32 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Utah.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
American Museum of Natural History | 422 | 0 | 0% |
Natural History Museum of Utah | 308 | 67 | 18% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 224 | 248 | 53% |
Utah Department of Natural Resources | 65 | 36 | 36% |
Southern Utah University Archeological Repository | 64 | 0 | 0% |
Museum of Western Colorado | 53 | 0 | 0% |
Field Museum | 51 | 0 | 0% |
Brigham Young University, Museum of Peoples and Cultures | 48 | 46 | 49% |
Harvard University | 37 | 0 | 0% |
University of California, Berkeley | 27 | 0 | 0% |
Carnegie Museum of Natural History | 9 | 0 | 0% |
Texas State University | 8 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 8 | 11 | 58% |
Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture | 7 | 0 | 0% |
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum | 6 | 0 | 0% |
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | 6 | 0 | 0% |
University of Arizona, Arizona State Museum | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Peabody Essex Museum | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Utah State University, Eastern Prehistoric Museum | 3 | 16 | 84% |
Hastings Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Illinois State Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Rocky Ford Historical Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 1 | 2 | 67% |
University of Wyoming | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Wisconsin Historical Society | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Colorado College | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Denver Museum of Nature and Science | 0 | 5 | 100% |
History Colorado | 0 | 4 | 100% |
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History | 0 | 3 | 100% |
University of California, Los Angeles, Fowler Museum of Cultural History | 0 | 48 | 100% |
University of Colorado Museum | 0 | 4 | 100% |
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Anthropology | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Institutions made Native American remains taken from Utah available for return to 59 tribes.
Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return to Tribe |
---|---|
Hopi Tribe of Arizona | 357 |
Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New Mexico | 237 |
Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico | 137 |
Pueblo of Santa Clara, New Mexico | 137 |
Pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico | 126 |
Pueblo of Pojoaque, New Mexico | 126 |
Pueblo of San Felipe, New Mexico | 126 |
Pueblo of San Ildefonso, New Mexico | 126 |
Pueblo of Sandia, New Mexico | 126 |
Santo Domingo Pueblo | 126 |
Pueblo of Zia, New Mexico | 105 |
Pueblo of Santa Ana, New Mexico | 104 |
Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico | 96 |
Pueblo of Tesuque, New Mexico | 96 |
Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico (formerly the Pueblo of San Juan) | 93 |
Pueblo of Cochiti, New Mexico | 93 |
Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico | 93 |
Pueblo of Nambe, New Mexico | 93 |
Pueblo of Picuris, New Mexico | 93 |
Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico | 93 |
Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah | 91 |
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo | 87 |
Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Utah | 65 |
Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians of the Kaibab Indian Reservation, Arizona | 52 |
Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah | 43 |
Ute Mountain Ute Tribe | 29 |
Northwestern Band of Shoshoni Nation | 27 |
San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe of Arizona | 20 |
Southern Ute Indian Tribe of the Southern Ute Reservation, Colorado | 20 |
Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, Nevada and Utah | 15 |
Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians of the Las Vegas Indian Colony, Nevada | 12 |
Moapa Band of Paiute Indians of the Moapa River Indian Reservation, Nevada | 11 |
Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of the Fallon Reservation and Colony, Nevada | 8 |
Summit Lake Paiute Tribe of Nevada | 7 |
Walker River Paiute Tribe of the Walker River Reservation, Nevada | 7 |
Yerington Paiute Tribe of the Yerington Colony and Campbell Ranch, Nevada | 7 |
Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley | 6 |
Bishop Paiute Tribe | 6 |
Bridgeport Indian Colony | 6 |
Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribes of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, Nevada and Oregon | 6 |
Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Tribe | 6 |
Lovelock Paiute Tribe of the Lovelock Indian Colony, Nevada | 6 |
Northern Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming | 6 |
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, Nevada | 6 |
Burns Paiute Tribe | 5 |
Fort Independence Indian Community of Paiute Indians of the Fort Independence Reservation, California | 5 |
Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of the Pyramid Lake Reservation, Nevada | 5 |
Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute Tribe of the Benton Paiute Reservation, California | 5 |
Duckwater Shoshone Tribe of the Duckwater Reservation, Nevada | 1 |
Eastern Shoshone Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming | 1 |
Ely Shoshone Tribe of Nevada | 1 |
Havasupai Tribe of the Havasupai Reservation, Arizona | 1 |
Lineal Descendant | 1 |
Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Nevada | 1 |
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation | 1 |
Susanville Indian Rancheria, California | 1 |
Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada | 1 |
Washoe Tribe of Nevada & California | 1 |
Yomba Shoshone Tribe of the Yomba Reservation, Nevada | 1 |
Institutions reported Native American remains taken from 25 counties in Utah.
County | Remains Taken From County Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
San Juan County | 799 | 228 | 22% |
Iron County | 109 | 49 | 31% |
Grand County | 78 | 10 | 11% |
Salt Lake County | 47 | 1 | 2% |
Sevier County | 44 | 11 | 20% |
Uintah County | 40 | 40 | 50% |
Utah County | 39 | 6 | 13% |
Weber County | 32 | 10 | 24% |
Tooele County | 17 | 3 | 15% |
Carbon County | 12 | 4 | 25% |
Emery County | 12 | 12 | 50% |
Washington County | 11 | 21 | 66% |
Garfield County | 10 | 41 | 80% |
Kane County | 10 | 15 | 60% |
Millard County | 10 | 10 | 50% |
Box Elder County | 7 | 13 | 65% |
Wayne County | 7 | 2 | 22% |
Davis County | 6 | 1 | 14% |
Juab County | 6 | 0 | 0% |
Wasatch County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Duchesne County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Sanpete County | 2 | 1 | 33% |
Summit County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Daggett County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Beaver County | 0 | 1 | 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