Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Oklahoma
Institutions reported making the remains of more than 1,000 Native Americans available for return to the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.
The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 13,000 associated funerary objects.
Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 14,200 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*
Where Native American remains made available for return to the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma were taken from
These 26 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.
Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
These institutions have not made available for return the remains of at least 14,200 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe |
---|---|
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia | 2,139 |
Univ. of Texas at Austin | 1,867 |
Univ. of Oklahoma | 1,369 Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (1,331) Oklahoma Archeological Survey (38) |
Univ. of Arizona | 1,357 |
Dept. of the Interior | 1,099 BIA (907) New Mexico State Office (105) Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (21) Wyoming State Office (17) Jean Lafitte NHP and PRES (16) Mingo National Wildlife Refuge (15) Montana State Office (8) Ozark National Scenic Riverways (4) Reclamation, Missouri Basin Region, Montana Area Office (4) Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge (1) McGregor District, Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (1) |
Harvard Univ. | 774 |
Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture | 737 |
American Museum of Natural History | 622 |
Dept. of Defense | 620 Tulsa District (256) Fort Worth District (106) Little Rock District (74) Fort Bliss (52) Vicksburg District (52) Rock Island District (33) National Museum of Health and Medicine (16) Galveston District (13) Omaha District (9) Kansas City District (4) Fort Leonard Wood (2) White Sands Missile Range (2) St. Louis District (1) |
Dept. of Agriculture | 519 Santa Fe NF (240) Gila NF (80) Tonto NF (74) Lincoln NF (45) Prescott NF (37) Carson NF (15) Mark Twain NF (10) Cibola NF (8) Coconino NF (6) Rio Grande NF (2) Coronado NF (1) Dakota Prairie Grasslands (1) |
West Texas A and M Univ. | 277 |
Univ. of Texas at San Antonio | 231 |
Museum of Texas Tech Univ. | 218 |
Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources | 201 |
Missouri Dept. of Transportation | 194 |
Field Museum | 157 |
Yale Univ. | 112 |
Univ. of Louisiana at Monroe | 106 |
Univ. of Alabama | 98 |
Univ. of Arkansas | 87 Arkansas Archeological Survey (46) Museum (41) |
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council | 79 |
Univ. of Michigan | 75 |
Texas State Univ. | 66 |
Southeast Missouri State Univ. | 59 |
Univ. of New Mexico | 59 |
Trinidad State Junior College | 48 |
Beloit College | 47 |
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth | 47 |
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center | 44 |
Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History | 39 |
New Mexico Highlands Univ. | 35 |
Univ. of Wyoming | 35 |
Carlsbad Museum | 32 |
Univ. of the Incarnate Word | 32 |
Sul Ross State Univ. | 30 |
Western Colorado Univ. | 29 |
Witte Museum | 29 |
Univ. of Kansas | 28 |
Louisiana State Univ. | 24 Museum of Natural Science (19) Dept. of Anthropology (5) |
Houston Museum of Natural Science | 23 |
New York State Museum | 23 |
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville | 21 |
Louisiana Dept. of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism | 20 |
Missouri State Univ. | 20 |
Poverty Point World Heritage Site | 17 |
Texas Parks and Wildlife | 17 |
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum | 17 |
Univ. of Pennsylvania | 17 |
Texas A and M Univ. | 16 Dept. of Anthropology (11) Commerce (5) |
Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis | 16 |
Eastern Arizona College Foundation | 15 |
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale | 15 |
Univ. of Texas, El Paso | 15 |
History Nebraska | 13 |
No Man's Land Historical Society | 13 |
Kansas State Historical Society | 12 |
Ohio History Connection | 12 |
Wisconsin Historical Society | 12 |
Hastings Museum | 11 |
Illinois State Museum | 11 |
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum | 10 |
Montana State Univ., Museum of the Rockies | 10 |
Texas Historical Commission | 10 |
Univ. of Central Missouri | 10 |
Milwaukee Public Museum | 9 |
Museum of Northern Arizona | 9 |
New York Univ. | 9 |
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | 9 |
Univ. of California, Berkeley | 9 |
Brigham Young Univ. | 8 |
Coryell County Sheriff's Dept. | 8 |
Dartmouth College | 8 |
Missouri Historical Society | 8 |
New Mexico State Univ. Museum | 8 |
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology | 8 |
Texas Dept. of Transportation | 8 |
Tioga Point Museum | 8 |
Nassau County Dept. of Parks and Recreation | 7 |
Univ. of Iowa | 7 |
Montana State Univ., Bozeman | 6 |
Natural History Museum of Utah | 6 |
Univ. of Texas Permian Basin | 6 |
Washington Univ. | 6 |
Wichita State Univ. | 6 |
Gilcrease Museum | 5 |
Goodhue County Historical Society | 5 |
Carnegie Museum of Natural History | 4 |
Fort Concho NHL | 4 |
Montana Historical Society | 4 |
San Bernardino County Museum | 4 |
Kansas City Museum | 3 |
Rochester Museum and Science Center | 3 |
St. Joseph Museums, Inc. | 3 |
Univ. of Memphis | 3 |
Univ. of Montana | 3 |
Artesia Historical Museum and Art Center | 2 |
Bowers Museum | 2 |
Buffalo Bill Center of the West | 2 |
Cleveland Museum of Natural History | 2 |
Fort Lewis College | 2 |
Heard Museum | 2 |
Rocky Ford Historical Museum | 2 |
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer | 2 |
The Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country | 2 |
Univ. of Kentucky | 2 |
Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | 2 |
Bridgewater College | 1 |
Case Western Reserve Univ. | 1 |
Cass County Historical Society Museum | 1 |
Florida State Univ. | 1 |
Fort Smith Museum of History | 1 |
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History | 1 |
Grand Rapids Public Museum | 1 |
Grayson County Frontier Village Museum | 1 |
Grout Museum of History and Science | 1 |
Hutchinson County Historical Museum | 1 |
Louisiana Cultural Heritage Museum | 1 |
Louisiana State Exhibit Museum | 1 |
Meeteetse Museums | 1 |
Mercyhurst Univ. | 1 |
Minnesota Historical Society | 1 |
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia | 1 |
Northwestern State Univ. of Louisiana | 1 |
Putnam Museum | 1 |
Rutgers Univ. | 1 |
Saint Martin's Univ. Waynick Museum | 1 |
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History | 1 |
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | 1 |
Univ. of Tulsa | 1 |
Univ. of Vermont | 1 |
Utah Dept. of Natural Resources | 1 |
Western New Mexico Univ. Museum | 1 |
Wichita County Sherriff's Office | 1 |
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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