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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Wisconsin

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 2,500 Native Americans available for return to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 5,900 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 7,200 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin were taken from

Each county is a peak
Height is amount of remains taken from county and made available by institutions for return to tribe
No remains taken from these counties made available for return to tribe
Institution that made remains available for return
Swipe interaction icon
Note: Remains of 13 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.
Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, when an institution establishes a connection between tribes and remains, it must publish a list of the tribes eligible to make a repatriation claim. The remains are then made available for return to the tribe(s). Once a tribal claim is made, physical transfer may occur. Many remains have been physically returned to tribes, but data on this is spotty because the law does not require institutions to report when these transfers occur.

These 26 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council1,173
Wisconsin Historical Society492
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist288
State Historical Society of Iowa142
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Anthropology141
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology107
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology83
U.S. Department of the Interior54
Field Museum25
Oregon State University15
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh14
Denver Museum of Nature and Science12
Neville Public Museum11
Coe College7
Illinois State Museum3
Milwaukee Public Museum3
Evanston History Center2
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology2
University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point2
Berrien County Sheriff's Office1
Bess Bower Dunn Museum1
Harvard University1
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation, State of Indiana1
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History1
Sheboygan County Historical Museum1
University of Colorado Museum1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin

Tribal and institutional capacity, funding, staffing, regulatory changes, audits, Review Committee decisions and litigation may influence timelines. Under NAGPRA, institutions determine whether Native American remains may be returned through cultural affiliation using evidence such as tribal traditional knowledge and biological and archaeological links, or through disposition based on geographic affiliation.

These institutions have not made available for return the remains of at least 7,200 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin.

These are estimates calculated using remains not made available for return from counties that the tribe has previously been eligible to claim remains from, as well as counties that the tribe has indicated interest in to the federal government. They are not comprehensive figures. The tribe may not wish to claim the remains, and other tribes may also seek to claim them.
InstitutionRemains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe
Illinois State Museum3,532
Indiana Univ.1,354
Dept. of Anthropology (1,349)
Glenn A. Black Lab. of Archeology (5)
Milwaukee Public Museum853
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign266
Harvard Univ.186
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center156
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh133
Wisconsin Historical Society132
Museum Division (94)
Historic Preservation Division (38)
Field Museum81
Dept. of Defense77
Rock Island District (72)
National Museum of Health and Medicine (3)
St. Paul District (2)
Oshkosh Public Museum55
Univ. of Iowa55
Univ. of Wisconsin, La Crosse49
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth38
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council30
Neville Public Museum26
Dept. of the Interior25
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (15)
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge (4)
Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge (3)
Voyageurs NP (3)
Western Illinois Univ.25
Cook County Forest Preserve District23
American Museum of Natural History22
Lawrence Univ.22
Grand Rapids Public Museum15
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum14
Tippecanoe County Historical Association8
Purdue Univ.7
Ball State Univ.6
Univ. of Pennsylvania6
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville6
Dept. of Anthropology (5)
Frank H. McClung Museum (1)
Kenosha Public Museum5
Elgin Public Museum3
New York State Museum3
Univ. of Michigan3
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee3
Brigham Young Univ.2
Minnesota Historical Society2
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia2
Carnegie Museum of Natural History1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation1
Indiana State Univ.1
New York Univ.1
Putnam Museum1
Rochester Museum and Science Center1
Springfield Science Museum1
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer1
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Allamakee, Boone, Buena Vista, Cass, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Clay, Clayton, Clinton, Crawford, Dallas, Dickinson, Dubuque, Fayette, Floyd, Fremont, Hamilton, Hardin, Humboldt, Ida, Jackson, Jefferson, Jones, Lee, Louisa, Lyon, Marion, Mills, Monona, Muscatine, O Brien, Page, Plymouth, Polk, Pottawattamie, Sioux, Story, Webster, Winnebago, Winneshiek, Woodbury and Worth in Iowa. Adams, Brown, Carroll, Cook, Fulton, Grundy, Hancock, Henderson, Jo Daviess, Kane, La Salle, Lake, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson, Whiteside, Will and Winnebago in Illinois. Delaware and Tippecanoe in Indiana. Berrien and Marquette in Michigan. Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carver, Cass, Clearwater, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Freeborn, Hennepin, Itasca, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Koochiching, Marshall, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Murray, Nicollet, Norman, Otter Tail, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Sherburne, St. Louis, Stearns, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Wadena, Washington, Watonwan, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine in Minnesota. Nance and Sarpy in Nebraska. Adams, Brown, Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Door, Fond Du Lac, Forest, Grant, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jackson, Jefferson, Juneau, Kenosha, Kewaunee, La Crosse, Lafayette, Marathon, Marquette, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oneida, Ozaukee, Pierce, Portage, Richland, Rock, Sauk, Sawyer, Sheboygan, Trempealeau, Vernon, Waukesha, Winnebago and Wood in Wisconsin.
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About the Data

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