Help Us Investigate Museums’ Failure to Return Native American Human Remains and Cultural Items

Museums and other American institutions hold the remains of more than 100,000 Native American individuals and several hundred thousand funerary objects, despite a 1990 law requiring that they be “expeditiously” returned to tribes.

ProPublica reported on how institutions amassed these remains in the context of violent colonization and created a tool allowing readers to explore the data.

We’d like to hear from you to further our reporting. We’re interested in learning:

• If institutions have reported incorrect data on human remains or funerary objects subject to NAGPRA.
• What’s happened behind the scenes at institutions, especially private ones, that has prevented repatriation.
• How institutions are responding to reporting from ProPublica and other outlets.

We’re also interested in hearing from our Indigenous readers, whether it’s feedback about our project, personal stories about repatriation or ideas for future reporting.

We take your privacy seriously, and we will contact you if we wish to publish any part of your story. We may not be able to respond to everyone, but we read each submission and they help inform our work.

Institutions that believe ProPublica’s data is incorrect should email repatriation@propublica.org instead of filling out this form.