Curtis Zunigha remembers shedding tears when he heard the age of one Native American whose remains were part of a reburial ceremony in Ohio several years ago. The law mandates institutions receiving federal funding must return Native American remains and cultural items to tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. Nationally, there are almost 200,000 human remains of Native Americans that have been identified under the law, according to the National Parks Service. AdvertisementThe return process is known as repatriation, and seems straightforward at first glance: identify Native American remains and cultural items in the institution’s possession, determine which tribes they belong to, then give them back. When Congress passed the act in 1990, it anticipated, and wrote into law, that creating an inventory of all Native American remains and items would take five years.

Source: Los Angeles Times July 31, 2021 09:56 UTC