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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Omaha Tribe of Nebraska

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Nebraska

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 2,200 Native Americans available for return to the Omaha Tribe.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 14,600 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 1,600 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Omaha 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
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Note: Remains of 24 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Omaha 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 20 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Omaha Tribe.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
University of Nebraska State Museum845
History Nebraska592
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist366
State Historical Society of Iowa145
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center70
U.S. Department of Defense62
U.S. Department of the Interior60
Marshall University38
St. Joseph Museums, Inc.15
Kansas State University12
Chadron State College8
Coe College7
Denver Museum of Nature and Science4
Hastings Museum4
Oregon State University3
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology2
Milwaukee Public Museum2
History Colorado1
Princeton University1
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Omaha 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 1,600 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Omaha 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.250
Illinois State Museum189
Ball State Univ.154
Univ. of Kansas135
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia116
West Virginia Division of Culture and History104
Dept. of Defense81
Rock Island District (72)
Fort Leonard Wood (6)
Omaha District (2)
National Museum of Health and Medicine (1)
Ohio History Connection64
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville64
Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources61
Indiana Univ.50
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center45
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale45
Virginia Dept. of Historic Resources43
Univ. of Iowa42
Kansas State Historical Society36
Milwaukee Public Museum30
American Museum of Natural History24
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum15
Hastings Museum13
Univ. of Michigan12
Univ. of Central Missouri10
Grand Rapids Public Museum9
Wisconsin Historical Society8
Tioga Point Museum6
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign6
Field Museum3
Dept. of Agriculture3
Dept. of the Interior3
BIA (2)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Nebraska-Kansas Area Office (1)
Brigham Young Univ.2
New York Univ.2
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center2
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer2
Cass County Historical Society Museum1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1
Henry County Historical Society1
History Nebraska1
Louisiana State Exhibit Museum1
Madison County Historical Society1
Missouri Dept. of Transportation1
Rochester Museum and Science Center1
Springfield Science Museum1
St. Joseph Museums, Inc.1
Univ. of Akron1
Univ. of Kentucky1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Adair, Adams, Allamakee, Audubon, Boone, Buena Vista, Calhoun, Carroll, Cass, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Clay, Clayton, Clinton, Crawford, Dallas, Des Moines, Dickinson, Dubuque, Fayette, Floyd, Fremont, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hardin, Harrison, Humboldt, Ida, Jackson, Jefferson, Jones, Lee, Louisa, Lyon, Marion, Mills, Monona, Montgomery, Muscatine, O Brien, O'brien, Page, Plymouth, Pocahontas, Polk, Pottawattamie, Ringgold, Sac, Shelby, Sioux, Story, Taylor, Union, Webster, Winnebago, Woodbury and Worth in Iowa. Hancock, Jo Daviess, Randolph and White in Illinois. Delaware and Henry in Indiana. Atchison, Doniphan, Leavenworth and Wyandotte in Kansas. Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Clay, Clinton, Dekalb, Gentry, Holt, Jackson, Nodaway, Platte, Pulaski and Worth in Missouri. Adams, Antelope, Banner, Boone, Box Butte, Boyd, Buffalo, Burt, Cass, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Colfax, Cuming, Custer, Dakota, Dawes, Dawson, Dixon, Dodge, Douglas, Dundy, Fillmore, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Gage, Garden, Garfield, Hall, Harlan, Hitchcock, Holt, Hooker, Howard, Keith, Keya Paha, Knox, Lancaster, Lincoln, Madison, Mcpherson, Morrill, Nance, Nemaha, Otoe, Pierce, Platte, Red Willow, Richardson, Sarpy, Saunders, Scotts Bluff, Sherman, Sioux, Stanton, Thayer, Thurston, Valley, Washington, Wayne and Webster in Nebraska. Madison in Ohio. Tazewell in Virginia. Crawford 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