Graves Protection Act Often Comes Up Short of Serving Indigenous People, Hearing Witnesses Say

The 30-year-old Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, was passed to give Tribes a legal avenue for the return of ancestral remains and some cultural objects. But many remains and objects remain in storage and collections of federal agencies and museums.

During a federal hearing on a 30-year-old law designed to give Indigenous tribes a path toward getting cultural items and ancestral remains returned to them – lawmakers learned how they could make that law better. 

Rosita Worl has a Ph.D. in anthropology and served on a national NAGPRA review committee for 12 years. She told the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that Tribes spend a lot of time trying to work their way through this process and it doesn’t always pay off. 

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