Illinois museums working to return thousands of Native American remains, items by federal deadline

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Across the country, Native American tribes are struggling to reclaim what was stolen from them over centuries: the remains of their ancestors and personal sacred items, now held in museums, universities, and other institutions that are, in many cases, far from home.

Despite federal legislation passed nearly 35 years ago aimed at correcting these past crimes, the ABC 7 I-Team found little progress has been made, and the state of Illinois tops the list of having the highest number of ancestral remains that haven't been reunited with tribal descendants.

In addition, Illinois institutions including Chicago's Field Museum and the Illinois State Museum have thousands of sacred items that officials tell the I-Team they are working to identify and return.

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Under the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which US President George H. W. Bush signed into law in 1990, any institution that receives federal funding must identify any Native American, Native Alaskan, or Native Hawaiian ancestral remains, funerary objects (something placed with individual human remains usually at the time of burial), sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony in their possession.

Federally recognized tribes can make a claim that those people and objects belonged to their ancestors, and therefore should be returned to tribal lands for proper reinterment and care through a process called repatriation.

"It is that mechanism that allows Native people to have their ancestors that have been disturbed and not at rest returned to those communities so that they can properly take care of them," said Logan Pappenfort, the director of tribal relations for Illinois and a citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.

The ABC7 Data Team examined thousands of federal documents to identify how many ancestors and sacred objects are at institutions across the country. To search all U.S. institutions with collections, click here.

Native American tribal members said this problem is more than a century old, but is finally getting the attention it deserves.

'It is a moral obligation'

Pappenfort now lives on the land that his ancestors were forcibly removed from two hundred years ago.

"My people were removed in 1818," he said. "I got back here in 2021."

Pappenfort is the second director of tribal relations for the state of Illinois. In close collaboration with the Illinois State Museum, he's working to correct centuries of injustice against Native Americans in the U.S. Pappenfort said repatriations from the Illinois State Museum are a priority, and he understands the process intimately.

Before Pappenfort took this job, he says he was on the other side of negotiations, working for the Peoria Tribe to put his ancestors at rest.

"It is a moral obligation as a native person to do what I can to move that needle and to do right by my ancestors and return them to where they need to be," Pappenfort said.

Pappenfort acknowledged that the original law wasn't written with a clear roadmap of how institutions and tribes should complete consultations together.

"It was, in many ways, toothless and in a lot of ways, I think probably the bare minimum that could have been done at the time," Pappenfort said. "But I also appreciate it because it did give that avenue for tribal nations to at least engage with the conversation."

The process of repatriation requires multiple consultations with tribes, often over months or even years. Pappenfort said while many of his Peoria Tribe ancestors have been repatriated from the Illinois State Museum collections, others are still in the process of being identified and returned home.

"It's extremely hard when you visit an institution and you know that those ancestors are likely returning home, they're returning to where they need to be soon, but at least until you get the logistical paperwork, you have to put them back and reassure them that it will be alright," Pappenfort said.

Pappenfort recounts, "You're left with this almost somber feeling as you drive away, that you know you've done everything you can, but there's still so much work to be done."

A civil rights issue

Nearly 35 years after NAGPRA became law, many institutions nationwide have been slow not only to identify the Native American, Native Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian ancestors and sacred objects in their possession, but also in returning them home.

Nationwide, more than 128,000 Native American ancestors and 4.5 million sacred objects have been identified in collections across museums, universities and government agencies, according to data from the National Park Service.

Those numbers don't include more than 90,000 ancestors and 700,000 associated funerary objects that have not yet been identified in collections.

"I'm pretty sure my ancestors from long ago did not bury their relatives thinking this was going to be the outcome," said Stacy Laravie, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the indigenization director for the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO), a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving indigenous cultures and identities throughout the United States.

Laravie stressed that NAGPRA and the return of ancestors and sacred items is, above all, a civil rights issue.

"These are not just material things that are sitting somewhere in a museum," she said. "There's still that dehumanization, and we have to explain why this is important."

For the Illinois State Museum, Pappenfort stressed that nothing is off limits.

"I would say that we are completely open to discussing the affiliations with any of the ancestors in our collection," he said.

According to the National Park Service data, the Illinois State Museum has the most ancestors and sacred objects of any institution in the state - more than 7,000 ancestors, and 72,000 associated funerary objects and other sacred objects. Nearly 80% of that collection has not yet been identified.

Pappenfort says the numbers are so high, in part, because the museum serves as the repository for human remains in the state, and the land has a "great Native history" predating European expeditions in the 15th and 16th centuries.

"When you look at the archeological sites in Illinois, we have one that is absolutely unlike anything else, and that is Cahokia," Pappenfort said.

According to the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Park website, Cahokia, which was located just across the Mississippi River from where St. Louis is today, was a metropolis in the 12th and 13th centuries-nearly 20,000 people at its peak and larger than London at the time.

"As a result, there is a large population of Native people, which led to a large amount of archeological excavations at the dawn of American archeology," Pappenfort said. "This led to many ancestors being unearthed during that time."

Additionally, Pappenfort said that in the 1990s, institutions were able to say that an ancestor was "culturally unidentifiable" if there was no comprehensive documentation about who they were or where they were from.

However, with new regulations, Pappenfort said things are changing.

"In the 30 years afterwards, we understand that, of course, these people have descendants and these descendants are likely the contemporary tribes that we work with on these sites," Pappenfort said. "And so one of the big shifts in NAGPRA has been not hiding behind that 'culturally unidentifiable moniker' and moving forward and doing that right thing, doing the moral thing and collaboratively working with tribal partners to return these ancestors to where they need to be."

'We kind of had a slow start.'

Other institutions acquired their collections through different means.

In 1893, historical records from that time show Native American ancestors and sacred objects were among the exhibits on display at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

After the event, those remains were not returned home, but donated or sold to the Chicago Field Museum, museum representatives told the I-Team.

According to the Field Museum, there are approximately 1,700 Native American ancestors in the custody of the institution. Of those, about 1,300 have not yet been affiliated with any tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. A spokesperson for the museum emphasized that all of these individuals are available for repatriation, but those without affiliation still require consultation first.

June Carpenter, the Field Museum's NAGPRA Director, is a member of the Osage Nation, and like Pappenfort, worked with her tribe to bring ancestors and sacred objects home before transitioning to her role at the Field Museum.

"I do this work as a way to try to honor and respect and represent my native community and culture," Carpenter said.

She credits an update to NAGPRA that went into effect in January 2024 with expediting her work.

Under the new regulations, institutions that fall under NAGPRA cannot display Native American, Native Alaskan or Native Hawaiian ancestors or sacred items without permission of descendants, tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. Institutions also now have 90-day deadlines to respond to repatriation requests.

"The new regulations do establish more ways to establish that cultural affiliation," Carpenter said. "There is another provision that allows if absolutely no determinations can be made, there is still an avenue for return."

Carpenter also said that many tribes are now working together to push for joint repatriation requests.

In compliance with those new requirements, many exhibits in the Field Museum's Ancient Americas Hall, which encompasses the history of central and North America, including the Northwest Coast and Arctic, are now covered with murals, black boards, and butcher paper.

In some exhibits, entire sections have been removed as Carpenter said she and her staff are working with Native communities to consult about the sacred objects that were on display only a year ago.

"We may have covered more than we needed, but we need to engage in consultation with the potentially affiliated tribes before we can display those items," Carpenter said.

In 2022, the Field Museum also opened its Native Voices exhibit, which was curated in partnership with Indigenous communities to allow them to tell the stories of their own objects and cultures.

"We can help to facilitate those stories, but they're their stories," Carpenter said. "They need to be the ones who are telling them."

Carpenter hopes that someday she will "work herself out of a job." She says every time tribal members come into the Field Museum to visit with their ancestors and sacred objects, she feels a sense of accomplishment.

"I think seeing your items in the museum collections, it's difficult. It's really difficult," Carpenter said. "But at the same time, you know, it can be fulfilling in a way to be reconnected with those items."

Laravie hopes that this work will help non-Native people understand that her ancestors and items sacred to her community are more than a museum exhibit.

"When people visit museums or hear our stories, they need to keep in mind where those histories come from," Laravie said. "These came from real human beings, and some of these-the majority of these-items did not come to that museum in a good way. They came from a people that are very much alive and well. They are somebody's grandmother, somebody's grandfather."

Laravie added that with the new regulations, she has hopes that institutions will take the requirements of NAGPRA more seriously.

"I see things moving and progressing just from where I know that we were, and I really feel hopeful that things are just going to keep getting better and better," Laravie said.

Pappenfort at the Illinois State Museum hopes that this difficult work will make things better for the next generation of Native voices.

"We are righting wrongs that have been here for hundreds of years at this point," Pappenfort said. "It's not something that's super easy to put into words, but it's something that both grounds me and gives me strength."

At home, Pappenfort has a three-year-old, growing up on the land that his ancestors once inhabited.

"I think about how powerful that is, and the fact that I get to raise my daughter, a Peoria [Tribe] citizen, in her homeland, and that's something my people haven't had for centuries."