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The Repatriation Database Data from Nov. 29, 2023

Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota

A federally recognized Indian tribe with headquarters in North Dakota

Institutions reported making the remains of more than 3,800 Native Americans available for return to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

The tribe was also eligible to claim more than 11,000 associated funerary objects.

Institutions continue to hold the remains of at least 2,300 Native Americans taken from counties known to be of interest to the tribe.*

Where Native American remains made available for return to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians 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 141 Native Americans with no location information were made available for return to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.
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 35 institutions made Native American remains available for return to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

InstitutionRemains Made Available for Return To Tribe
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council1,270
University of Nebraska State Museum820
University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology628
Michigan State University196
Wisconsin Historical Society188
U.S. Department of Justice138
Grand Valley State University113
Beloit College, Logan Museum of Anthropology108
Harvard University98
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology58
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Anthropology44
Marshall University38
Bess Bower Dunn Museum34
Historical Society of Saginaw County, Inc.20
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office14
U.S. Department of the Interior14
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh13
Princeton University12
Sloan Museum9
Michigan History Center8
Michigan State Police8
Museum of Ojibwa Culture and Marquette Mission Park - City of St. Ignace8
Toledo Zoological Society8
American Museum of Natural History5
Michigan Department of Transportation4
Denver Museum of Nature and Science2
Detroit Institute of Arts2
MetroParks of the Toledo Area2
Berrien County Sheriff's Office1
City of Traverse City1
Illinois State Museum1
Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites Corporation, State of Indiana1
Minnesota Historical Society1
State Historical Society of North Dakota1
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology1

Timeline of Native American remains made available for return to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians

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 2,300 Native Americans that were taken from counties known to be of interest to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

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 Michigan572
Milwaukee Public Museum571
Illinois State Museum165
Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh133
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign129
West Virginia Division of Culture and History104
Wisconsin Historical Society102
Museum Division (77)
Historic Preservation Division (25)
Ohio History Connection64
Indiana Univ.58
Dept. of Anthropology (52)
Glenn A. Black Lab. of Archeology (6)
Oshkosh Public Museum55
Virginia Dept. of Historic Resources43
Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth38
Minnesota Indian Affairs Council30
Neville Public Museum26
American Museum of Natural History23
Grand Rapids Public Museum23
Lawrence Univ.22
Harvard Univ.20
Dept. of the Interior19
Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (15)
Voyageurs NP (3)
Reclamation, Great Plains Region, Nebraska-Kansas Area Office (1)
Univ. of Toledo15
Wayne State Univ.14
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office13
Cranbrook Institute of Science11
Hastings Museum9
Field Museum5
Kenosha Public Museum5
Dept. of Defense4
National Museum of Health and Medicine (3)
Omaha District (1)
Univ. of Pennsylvania4
Elgin Public Museum3
Univ. of Nebraska State Museum3
Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee3
Alma College2
Minnesota Historical Society2
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville2
Dept. of Anthropology (1)
Frank H. McClung Museum (1)
Washington County Historical Society2
Carnegie Museum of Natural History1
Cass County Historical Society Museum1
Cleveland Museum of Natural History1
Louisiana State Exhibit Museum1
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia1
New York Univ.1
Putnam Museum1
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer1
Tioga Point Museum1
Univ. of Akron1
Univ. of Kentucky1
Univ. of Notre Dame1
Counties of interest used in estimate include: Kane, La Salle, Lake, Mchenry and Winnebago in Illinois. Dubois and La Porte in Indiana. Alcona, Allegan, Alpena, Antrim, Arenac, Barry, Bay, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Chippewa, Clinton, Delta, Emmet, Genesee, Gladwin, Gogebic, Grand Traverse, Gratiot, Hillsdale, Huron, Ingham, Ionia, Iosco, Isabella, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Lake, Lapeer, Leelanau, Lenawee, Livingston, Mackinac, Macomb, Mecosta, Midland, Missaukee, Monroe, Montcalm, Montmorency, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oakland, Oceana, Ogemaw, Otsego, Ottawa, Roscommon, Saginaw, Sanilac, Shiawassee, St. Clair, Tuscola, Van Buren, Washtenaw, Wayne and Wexford in Michigan. Aitkin, Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Big Stone, Blue Earth, Brown, Carver, Cass, Clearwater, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Freeborn, Hennepin, Itasca, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Kittson, Koochiching, Lake, Lake Of The Woods, Mahnomen, Marshall, Meeker, Mille Lacs, Murray, Nicollet, Norman, Otter Tail, Pennington, Polk, Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Roseau, Sherburne, St. Louis, Stearns, Todd, Traverse, Wabasha, Wadena, Washington, Watonwan, Wilkin, Winona, Wright and Yellow Medicine in Minnesota. Banner, Boone, Box Butte, Buffalo, Cass, Cedar, Chase, Cherry, Cuming, Custer, Dakota, Dixon, Dodge, Douglas, Fillmore, Franklin, Frontier, Furnas, Hall, Harlan, Hitchcock, Holt, Hooker, Keith, Knox, Lancaster, Lincoln, Madison, Morrill, Red Willow, Richardson, Saunders, Scotts Bluff, Stanton, Washington and Webster in Nebraska. Lucas and Madison in Ohio. Tazewell in Virginia. Barron, Brown, Crawford, Dodge, Door, Dunn, Fond Du Lac, Forest, Grant, Green Lake, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Langlade, Lincoln, Marathon, Milwaukee, Oneida, Pierce, Polk, Portage, Racine, Rock, Rusk, Sawyer, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha, Winnebago and Wood 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