The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Michigan

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 1,900 Native Americans available for return to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 9,200 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 3,000 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians 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

Note: Remains of 51 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.

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 37 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.

Institution	Remains Made Available for Return To Tribe
University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology	669
Michigan State University	175
Central Michigan University, Museum of Cultural and Natural History	144
Grand Valley State University	113
Grand Rapids Public Museum	111
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology	108
Wisconsin Historical Society	108
Harvard University	65
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology	58
Wayne State University	57
University of Toledo	46
Field Museum	43
Bess Bower Dunn Museum	34
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Anthropology	27
Ball State University, Applied Anthropology Laboratories	22
Illinois State Museum	13
Princeton University	13
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh	13
Denver Museum of Nature and Science	10
Sloan Museum	9
Michigan State Police	8
Museum of Ojibwa Culture and Marquette Mission Park - City of St. Ignace	8
Toledo Zoological Society	8
Historical Society of Saginaw County, Inc.	7
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office	7
Michigan Department of Transportation	4
City of Saugatuck	3
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation, State of Indiana	3
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology	3
American Museum of Natural History	2
City of Traverse City	2
Detroit Institute of Arts	2
Evanston History Center	2
MetroParks of the Toledo Area	2
Berrien County Sheriff's Office	1
S'edav Va'aki Museum	1
Western Michigan University, Department of Anthropology	1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians

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 3,000 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.

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.

Institution	Remains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe
Milwaukee Public Museum	573
Indiana Univ.	566 Dept. of Anthropology (555) Glenn A. Black Lab. of Archeology (11)
Univ. of Michigan	520
Illinois State Museum	284
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	220
Ball State Univ.	148
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh	133
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center	95
Wisconsin Historical Society	78 Museum Division (43) Historic Preservation Division (35)
Ohio History Connection	64
Oshkosh Public Museum	55
Field Museum	43
Neville Public Museum	26
Cook County Forest Preserve District	23
Grand Rapids Public Museum	23
Lawrence Univ.	22
American Museum of Natural History	20
Univ. of Toledo	15
Wayne State Univ.	14
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office	13
Cranbrook Institute of Science	11
Harvard Univ.	11
Tippecanoe County Historical Association	8
Purdue Univ.	7
Kenosha Public Museum	5
Univ. of Pennsylvania	5
Elgin Public Museum	3
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee	3
Alma College	2
Dept. of Defense	2
Washington County Historical Society	2
Cleveland Museum of Natural History	1
Henry County Historical Society	1
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation	1
Indiana State Univ.	1
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia	1
New York Univ.	1
Putnam Museum	1
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum	1
Univ. of Notre Dame	1
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville	1

Counties of interest used in estimate include: Brown, Cook, Grundy, Kane, La Salle, Lake, Mchenry, Will and Winnebago in Illinois. Dubois, Henry, La Porte, Starke, Steuben and Tippecanoe in Indiana. Allegan, Arenac, Barry, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Delta, Emmet, Genesee, Grand Traverse, Hillsdale, Huron, Ingham, Ionia, Isabella, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Lapeer, Lenawee, Livingston, Mackinac, Macomb, Mecosta, Missaukee, Monroe, Montcalm, Newaygo, Oakland, Oceana, Ottawa, Saginaw, Sanilac, Shiawassee, St. Clair, St. Joseph, Tuscola, Van Buren, Washtenaw and Wayne in Michigan. Lucas and Madison in Ohio. Brown, Crawford, Dodge, Door, Fond Du Lac, Forest, Grant, Green Lake, Jefferson, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Marathon, Milwaukee, Oneida, Pierce, Racine, Rock, Sawyer, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha and Winnebago in Wisconsin.

Search for institutions holding Native American remains and tribes seeking to reclaim them

Try the University of California, Berkeley, the Chickasaw Nation or Arizona.

Institutions that have not submitted information to the federal government are not listed.

These tribes were also listed when institutions culturally affiliated Native American remains to the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians. Institutions often make remains available for return to multiple tribes, so the amount of remains listed below may be counted for more than one tribe.

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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

by Ash Ngu and Andrea Suozzo Jan. 11, 2023 Data from Nov. 29, 2023 Additional reporting by Asia Fields, Mary Hudetz and Logan Jaffe for ProPublica and Graham Brewer for NBC News. Additional development by Alec Glassford.