National Museum of American Indian Act - Inventory and Repatriation

Inventory and Repatriation

Prior to enactment of the NMAIA, representatives of the Native American Rights Fund and the Association for Native American Affairs told Congressional staffers that they would oppose the bill if repatriation provisions were not included. At a August, 1989, meeting in Santa Fe, NM, Secretary of the Smithsonian Robert McCormick Adams, Jr., agreed that the Smithsonian would abide by new repatriation provisions. As a result of the law, the Secretary of the Smithsonian is required to inventory Indian and Native Hawaiian human remains and funerary objects in the possession or control of the Smithsonian Institution and return them upon request by a descendant or culturally affiliated Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization. These artifacts are housed primarily in the National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of Natural History, and National Museum of American History.

The Smithsonian had amassed a huge collection of Native American artifacts and memorabilia including:

• 4,000 Native American remains. In 1867, the Surgeon General of the United States Army requested Army medical officers to send skeletal remains of Native Americans to the Army Medical Museum. These remains were later transferred to the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1898.
• Through archaeological excavations, individual donations, and museum donations, the Smithsonian was able to acquire about 14,000 additional Native American remains.
• The acquisition of the Heye Foundation's collections added 800,000 artifacts to the Smithsonian's Native American collections.