NAGPRA
An important acronym to know when discussing Indigenous rights and Indigenous history is NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The National Parks Service, the portion of the Department of the Interior responsible for enforcing NAGPRA, states that the Act “has provided for the repatriation and disposition of certain Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.” Indigenous peoples had been arguing for a long time that the remains of their ancestors and important cultural artifacts have been wrongfully kept by various cultural institutions such as museums and universities. In theory, this Act provides legal groundwork for communities to properly bury ancestors and regain culturally valuable objects. The reality, of course, is much more complicated.
Starting in 1995, Toledo's American Indian Intertribal Association (AIIA) began to petition the University of Toledo for the remains of Native Americans held in their collection for proper reburial. AIIA argued that, especially in relation to remains from excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, remains should be returned to local peoples for proper burial and ceremonies. The University of Toledo argued that there needed to be proof that the remains were related to the peoples attempting to claim them and that the remains were an integral part of the research at the University of Toledo. This was one of many instances in which the AIIA would work to regain control of the remains of the ancestors of Indigenous peoples in the area. Read local news coverage about the debate below.
