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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Montana

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Montana

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 1,500 Native Americans available for return to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 8,900 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 500 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe 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 272 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.
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 27 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
History Nebraska588
History Colorado478
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center70
University of Wyoming55
University of Colorado Museum50
U.S. Department of Defense41
U.S. Department of the Interior36
University of Northern Colorado31
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology30
Colorado State University27
Denver Museum of Nature and Science24
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist21
Fort Collins Museum of Discovery17
Harvard University15
Colorado College11
Chadron State College8
U.S. Department of Agriculture6
Columbia University, Department of Anthropology4
Colorado Bureau of Investigation3
University of Idaho, Alfred W. Bowers Laboratory of Anthropology2
American Museum of Natural History1
Baylor University, Mayborn Museum Complex1
Buffalo Bill Center of the West1
Field Museum1
Illinois State Museum1
Missouri Historical Society1
University of Nebraska State Museum1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe

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 500 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

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
Harvard Univ.132
American Museum of Natural History97
Trinidad State Junior College46
Field Museum45
Fort Lewis College30
Western Colorado Univ.29
Dept. of the Interior18
Wyoming State Office (13)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Wyoming Area Office (3)
BIA (1)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Nebraska-Kansas Area Office (1)
Kansas State Historical Society16
Univ. of Wyoming16
Hastings Museum14
Univ. of Michigan12
Univ. of Oklahoma12
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (11)
Oklahoma Archeological Survey (1)
Univ. of Kansas11
Univ. of Arizona7
Natural History Museum of Utah6
Univ. of North Texas6
Wichita State Univ.6
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum4
Buffalo Bill Center of the West3
Illinois State Museum2
No Man's Land Historical Society2
Rocky Ford Historical Museum2
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center2
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale2
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer2
Dept. of Agriculture2
Dept. of Defense2
Univ. of Kentucky2
Univ. of Montana2
West Texas A and M Univ.2
Cass County Historical Society Museum1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1
Denver Museum of Nature and Science1
Florida State Univ.1
History Nebraska1
Montana Historical Society1
New York State Museum1
Putnam Museum1
Saint Martin's Univ. Waynick Museum1
Tioga Point Museum1
Univ. of California, Berkeley1
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville1
Univ. of Texas, El Paso1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Adams, Alamosa, Arapahoe, Archuleta, Baca, Bent, Boulder, Chaffee, Cheyenne, Clear Creek, Crowley, Custer, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Elbert, Fremont, Gilpin, Grand, Huerfano, Jackson, Jefferson, Kiowa, Kit Carson, La Plata, Lake, Larimer, Las Animas, Lincoln, Logan, Mesa, Moffat, Montezuma, Morgan, Otero, Park, Phillips, Prowers, Pueblo, Saguache, Sedgwick, Summit, Teller, Washington, Weld and Yuma in Colorado. Cheyenne, Decatur, Finney, Gove, Gray, Greeley, Hamilton, Kearny, Lane, Logan, Rawlins, Scott, Sheridan, Sherman, Thomas, Wallace and Wichita in Kansas. Big Horn, Park and Rosebud in Montana. Adams, Antelope, Banner, Boone, Boyd, Burt, Cass, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Cheyenne, Cuming, Custer, Dakota, Dawes, Dawson, Deuel, Dixon, Dodge, Douglas, Dundy, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Gage, Garden, Garfield, Hall, Harlan, Hayes, Hitchcock, Hooker, Howard, Keith, Keya Paha, Kimball, Knox, Lancaster, Lincoln, Mcpherson, Morrill, Nance, Nemaha, Perkins, Platte, Red Willow, Richardson, Sarpy, Saunders, Scotts Bluff, Sherman, Sioux, Stanton, Thayer, Valley, Washington and Webster in Nebraska. Caddo and Cimarron in Oklahoma. Albany, Big Horn, Campbell, Carbon, Converse, Fremont, Goshen, Hot Springs, Johnson, Laramie, Natrona, Park, Platte, Sheridan, Washakie and Weston in Wyoming
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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