Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Reservation, New Mexico
A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in New Mexico
Institutions reported making the remains of more than 1,200 Native Americans available for return to the Mescalero Apache Tribe.
The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 7,000 associated funerary objects.
Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 5,000 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*
Where Native American remains made available for return to the Mescalero Apache Tribe were taken from
These 34 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Mescalero Apache Tribe.
Institution | Remains Made Available for Return To Tribe |
---|---|
U.S. Department of the Interior | 433 |
New Mexico State Univ. Museum + U.S. Dept. of Interior + U.S. Dept. of Agriculture + | 288 |
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Department of Anthropology | 198 |
Texas Department of Transportation | 71 |
University of Colorado Museum | 49 |
Witte Museum | 32 |
Denver Museum of Nature and Science | 20 |
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology | 20 |
Pittsburg State University | 19 |
University of Texas at Austin, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory | 17 |
Texas Parks and Wildlife | 16 |
Cochise College | 14 |
Colorado College | 11 |
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Department of Anthropology | 11 |
Chadron State College | 8 |
Carlsbad Museum | 6 |
Texas A and M University | 6 |
Baylor University, Mayborn Museum Complex | 4 |
Colorado Bureau of Investigation | 3 |
Michigan State University | 3 |
Brown University, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology | 2 |
Harvard University | 2 |
History Colorado | 2 |
Pejepscot Historical Society | 2 |
S'edav Va'aki Museum | 2 |
Southern Methodist University | 2 |
U.S. Department of Agriculture | 2 |
American Museum of Natural History | 1 |
Artesia Historical Museum and Art Center | 1 |
Dayton Museum of Natural History | 1 |
Fort Collins Museum of Discovery | 1 |
Kerr County | 1 |
U.S. Department of Justice | 1 |
University of Texas at San Antonio, Center for Archaeological Research | 1 |
Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Mescalero Apache Tribe
These institutions have not made available for return the remains of at least 5,000 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Mescalero Apache Tribe.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return That Were Taken From Counties of Interest to the Tribe |
---|---|
Univ. of Arizona | 1,386 |
Dept. of the Interior | 844 BIA (756) New Mexico State Office (88) |
Harvard Univ. | 510 |
Field Museum | 324 |
Univ. of Texas at Austin | 310 |
Museum of New Mexico, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture | 270 |
Dept. of Agriculture | 252 Gila NF (80) Tonto NF (74) Lincoln NF (45) Prescott NF (37) Cibola NF (8) Coconino NF (6) Apache-Sitgreaves NF (1) Coronado NF (1) |
Univ. of Texas at San Antonio | 225 |
American Museum of Natural History | 127 |
West Texas A and M Univ. | 98 |
Dept. of Defense | 60 Fort Bliss (55) White Sands Missile Range (4) National Museum of Health and Medicine (1) |
Univ. of Michigan | 50 |
Beloit College | 49 |
Trinidad State Junior College | 48 |
Univ. of New Mexico | 47 |
New York Univ. | 44 |
New Mexico Highlands Univ. | 35 |
Carlsbad Museum | 32 |
Univ. of the Incarnate Word | 32 |
Sul Ross State Univ. | 30 |
Univ. of California, Berkeley | 29 |
Univ. of Texas, El Paso | 26 |
Museum of Texas Tech Univ. | 24 |
Eastern Arizona College Foundation | 16 |
Witte Museum | 16 |
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale | 15 |
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum | 15 |
Ohio History Connection | 12 |
Texas Parks and Wildlife | 11 |
Museum of Northern Arizona | 8 |
Dartmouth College | 7 |
Hastings Museum | 5 |
Illinois State Museum | 5 |
Natural History Museum of Utah | 5 |
Univ. of Kansas | 5 |
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum | 4 |
Milwaukee Public Museum | 4 |
New Mexico State Univ. Museum | 4 |
San Bernardino County Museum | 4 |
Texas State Univ. | 4 |
Western Colorado Univ. | 4 |
Wisconsin Historical Society | 4 |
Nassau County Dept. of Parks and Recreation | 3 |
Texas A and M Univ. | 3 |
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth | 3 |
Wichita State Univ. | 3 |
Artesia Historical Museum and Art Center | 2 |
Bowers Museum | 2 |
Heard Museum | 2 |
No Man's Land Historical Society | 2 |
Rocky Ford Historical Museum | 2 |
Texas Dept. of Transportation | 2 |
Texas Historical Commission | 2 |
Univ. of Pennsylvania | 2 |
Brooklyn Museum | 1 |
Florida State Univ. | 1 |
Fort Concho NHL | 1 |
Grout Museum of History and Science | 1 |
Hutchinson County Historical Museum | 1 |
Kansas City Museum | 1 |
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council | 1 |
Putnam Museum | 1 |
Rochester Museum and Science Center | 1 |
Rutgers Univ. | 1 |
Saint Martin's Univ. Waynick Museum | 1 |
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History | 1 |
Univ. of Oklahoma | 1 |
Western New Mexico Univ. Museum | 1 |
Yale Univ. | 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