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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, South Dakota

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in South Dakota, North Dakota

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 3,600 Native Americans available for return to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 13,500 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 Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate 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 161 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.
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 28 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council1,651
History Nebraska586
U.S. Department of Justice412
University of Iowa, Office of the State Archaeologist280
State Historical Society of Iowa143
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology104
Wisconsin Historical Society87
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center81
U.S. Department of Defense78
U.S. Department of the Interior69
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology39
University of Denver, Museum of Anthropology35
Denver Museum of Nature and Science21
Carter County Museum14
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh13
Coe College7
Yale University, Peabody Museum of Natural History5
Oberlin College2
State Historical Society of North Dakota2
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Anthropology2
American Museum of Natural History1
Field Museum1
Harvard University1
History Colorado1
Missouri Historical Society1
Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, Phillips Academy1
Sheboygan County Historical Museum1
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate

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 Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.

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
Milwaukee Public Museum532
Harvard Univ.208
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh130
Wisconsin Historical Society88
Museum Division (51)
Historic Preservation Division (37)
Dept. of Defense78
Rock Island District (72)
National Museum of Health and Medicine (2)
Omaha District (2)
St. Paul District (2)
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council76
Oshkosh Public Museum55
Univ. of Wisconsin, La Crosse49
Trinidad State Junior College46
Center for American Archeology, Kampsville Archeological Center45
Univ. of Iowa42
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth38
South Dakota State Historical Society, State Archaeological Research Center31
Neville Public Museum26
Dept. of the Interior26
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (15)
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge (4)
Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge (3)
Voyageurs NP (3)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Nebraska-Kansas Area Office (1)
American Museum of Natural History24
Lawrence Univ.22
Grand Rapids Public Museum15
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum15
Univ. of Michigan14
Illinois State Museum11
Hastings Museum8
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign7
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville7
Dept. of Anthropology (6)
Frank H. McClung Museum (1)
Univ. of Wyoming7
Ball State Univ.6
Goodhue County Historical Society5
Kenosha Public Museum5
Field Museum3
Brigham Young Univ.2
Minnesota Historical Society2
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer2
Univ. of Missouri, Columbia2
Carnegie Museum of Natural History1
Cass County Historical Society Museum1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1
Denver Museum of Nature and Science1
Florida State Univ.1
Putnam Museum1
Rochester Museum and Science Center1
Springfield Science Museum1
Tioga Point Museum1
Univ. of California, Berkeley1
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Adams, Baca, Crowley, Douglas, Elbert, Huerfano, Jefferson, Kiowa, Las Animas, Lincoln, Prowers and Weld in Colorado. Allamakee, Boone, Buena Vista, Butler, Cass, Cerro Gordo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Clay, Clayton, Clinton, Crawford, Dallas, Dickinson, Dubuque, Emmet, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Fremont, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Howard, Humboldt, Ida, Jackson, Jefferson, Jones, Kossuth, Lee, Louisa, Lyon, Marion, Mills, Mitchell, Monona, Muscatine, O Brien, O'brien, Osceola, Page, Palo Alto, Plymouth, Pocahontas, Polk, Pottawattamie, Sioux, Story, Webster, Winnebago, Winneshiek, Woodbury and Worth in Iowa. Hancock and Jo Daviess in Illinois. Delaware in Indiana. Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carver, Cass, Chippewa, Chisago, Clay, Clearwater, Cottonwood, Crow Wing, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Faribault, Fillmore, Freeborn, Goodhue, Grant, Hennepin, Houston, Itasca, Jackson, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Koochiching, Lac Qui Parle, Le Sueur, Lincoln, Lyon, Marshall, Martin, Mcleod, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Mower, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Norman, Olmsted, Otter Tail, Pipestone, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, St. Louis, Stearns, Steele, Stevens, Swift, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Wadena, Waseca, Washington, Watonwan, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine in Minnesota. Carter and Fallon in Montana. Adams, Antelope, Boone, Boyd, Burt, Cass, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Cuming, Custer, Dakota, Dawes, Dawson, Dixon, Dodge, Douglas, Dundy, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Gage, Garden, Garfield, Hall, Harlan, Hitchcock, Hooker, Howard, Keith, Keya Paha, Knox, Lancaster, Lincoln, Mcpherson, Morrill, Nance, Nemaha, Platte, Red Willow, Richardson, Sarpy, Saunders, Sherman, Sioux, Stanton, Thayer, Valley, Washington and Webster in Nebraska. Brown, Buffalo, Crawford, Door, Dunn, Forest, Grant, Green Lake, Jackson, Jefferson, Kenosha, La Crosse, Marathon, Milwaukee, Oneida, Pepin, Pierce, Richland, Rock, Sheboygan, Trempealeau, Vernon, Waukesha and Winnebago 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