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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in Oklahoma

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 4,000 Native Americans available for return to the Pawnee Nation.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 18,500 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 1,500 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Pawnee Nation 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 260 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Pawnee Nation.
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 31 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Pawnee Nation.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
University of Nebraska State Museum1,841
History Nebraska719
History Colorado489
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist208
State Historical Society of Iowa142
Kansas State University109
U.S. Department of the Interior104
Hastings Museum96
Harvard University65
University of Colorado Museum49
U.S. Department of Defense40
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology38
Denver Museum of Nature and Science26
Kansas State Historical Society25
Fort Collins Museum of Discovery17
Chadron State College8
Colorado Bureau of Investigation3
Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly Maryland Historical Society)3
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology3
New York University, College of Dentistry2
University of Tennessee, Knoxville2
University of Wyoming2
Yale University, Peabody Museum of Natural History2
Autry Museum of the American West1
Carnegie Museum of Natural History1
Colorado College1
Field Museum1
Kansas City Museum1
Milwaukee Public Museum1
New Jersey State Museum1
Wisconsin Historical Society1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Pawnee Nation

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 1,500 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Pawnee Nation.

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
Univ. of Kansas234
Harvard Univ.220
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville131
West Texas A and M Univ.105
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia99
Kansas State Historical Society96
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center95
American Museum of Natural History81
Dept. of Defense73
Rock Island District (72)
Omaha District (1)
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign70
Illinois State Museum64
Dept. of the Interior56
Trinidad State Junior College46
Univ. of Iowa42
Western Colorado Univ.25
Fort Lewis College21
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum15
Univ. of Oklahoma13
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (12)
Oklahoma Archeological Survey (1)
Hastings Museum12
Univ. of Michigan12
History Nebraska9
Wisconsin Historical Society8
Univ. of Arizona7
Museum of Texas Tech Univ.5
Field Museum3
New York Univ.3
Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources2
Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale2
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer2
Dept. of Agriculture2
Wichita State Univ.2
Cass County Historical Society Museum1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1
Denver Museum of Nature and Science1
Florida State Univ.1
Hutchinson County Historical Museum1
Kansas State Univ.1
Tioga Point Museum1
Univ. of California, Berkeley1
Univ. of Kentucky1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Adams, Alamosa, Arapahoe, Baca, Boulder, Crowley, Custer, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Elbert, Fremont, Gilpin, Huerfano, Jefferson, Kiowa, La Plata, Larimer, Las Animas, Lincoln, Logan, Mesa, Moffat, Morgan, Prowers, Pueblo, Saguache, Sedgwick, Weld and Yuma in Colorado. 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, Woodbury and Worth in Iowa. Brown in Illinois. Clay, Cloud, Decatur, Dickinson, Doniphan, Graham, Jewell, Lincoln, Mitchell, Nemaha, Norton, Osborne, Ottawa, Phillips, Republic, Rooks, Saline, Sheridan, Smith, Washington and Wyandotte in Kansas. Andrew and Platte in Missouri. Adams, Antelope, Banner, Blaine, Boone, Box Butte, Boyd, Brown, Buffalo, Burt, Butler, Cass, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Clay, Colfax, Cuming, Custer, Dakota, Dawes, Dawson, Dixon, Dodge, Douglas, Dundy, Fillmore, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Gage, Garden, Garfield, Gosper, Greeley, Hall, Hamilton, Harlan, Hitchcock, Holt, Hooker, Howard, Jefferson, Kearney, Keith, Keya Paha, Knox, Lancaster, Lincoln, Logan, Loup, Madison, Mcpherson, Merrick, Morrill, Nance, Nemaha, Nuckolls, Phelps, Platte, Polk, Red Willow, Richardson, Rock, Saline, Sarpy, Saunders, Scotts Bluff, Seward, Sherman, Sioux, Stanton, Thayer, Thomas, Valley, Washington, Webster, Wheeler and York in Nebraska. Kay, Murray, Osage, Pawnee and Pontotoc in Oklahoma. Hutchinson, Moore and Potter in Texas.
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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