Illinois Museum Completes Native Remains Inventory for Repatriation
Published Date: 3/17/2025
Notice
Summary
The Illinois State Museum has finished checking its collection and found human remains and artifacts linked to Native American tribes. Starting April 16, 2025, these items can be returned to the tribes connected to them. This is a respectful step to honor Native American heritage and history, with no costs or risks involved.
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 3 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Identified remains and 85 funerary objects
The Illinois State Museum identified human remains of at least 10 individuals and 85 associated funerary objects from the Fisher Site (11WI5) in Will County, IL. The objects include specific items such as pottery fragments and vessels, mussel shell tools and spoons, bone tools, antler fragments, and a marine shell pendant fragment, and the site dates to about A.D. 800–1400 and the late 17th century.
Which tribes may request repatriation
The notice names specific Indian Tribes that the Illinois State Museum determined are culturally affiliated and may seek repatriation, and it allows repatriation requests to be submitted on or after April 16, 2025. The named groups include the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma; Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Oklahoma; Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma; Forest County Potawatomi Community, Wisconsin; Hannahville Indian Community, Michigan; Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin; Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska; Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma; Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas; Kickapoo Tribe of Indians of the Kickapoo Reservation in Kansas; Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma; Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan; Miami Tribe of Oklahoma; Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (Fond du Lac Band and Mille Lacs Band); Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, Michigan; Omaha Tribe of Nebraska; Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians, Oklahoma; Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma; Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Michigan and Indiana; Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation; Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska; Sac & Fox Nation, Oklahoma; Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa; Shawnee Tribe; and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. The notice also allows lineal descendants or other tribes/organizations to request repatriation if they show cultural affiliation by a preponderance of the evidence.
How to request and resolve repatriation claims
Written repatriation requests must be sent to the Illinois State Museum representative listed in the notice, and repatriation may occur on or after April 16, 2025. If competing requests are received, the museum must determine the most appropriate requestor before repatriation; joint requests are treated as a single request.
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