At least 313 indigenous remains in Massachusetts will be returned to tribes. Federal inquiry ends for now.

Even with a 12-foot ladder, boxes containing human remains were stacked so high inside what Kenneth Alves calls "the bone room," at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University, he couldn't reach the top.

"When I was in that room, I got a headache like I've never had in all my life. I said to myself, 'I gotta get out of here. I can't stand it,'" he said. "I don’t plan on ever going back into that room again."

Thousands of skeletal remains wait inside the bone room, said Alves — human remains that were collected over time by the museum from tribal territories all over the world.

As a repatriation officer, and a member of the Assonet band of the Wampanoag Nation, Alves works within the Wampanoag Confederation to repatriate indigenous human remains back to Native American tribes of origin.

The group, which was established in 1996, has repatriated 334 indigenous skeletal remains from Massachusetts museums like Harvard's Peabody Museum to tribal nations, where they were ceremonially reburied at undisclosed locations.

Wampanoag repatriation officers found 39 additional tribal skeletons in Massachusetts museums.

According to Alves, 313 more indigenous individuals await repatriation from a host of regional museums, also within the state. Although the federal process under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation or NAGPRA Act was completed in January 2023 for those individuals, said Alves, the remains haven't yet been returned to tribal territories.

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe announced the completion of the federal process for the 313 individual remains in January on its website.

The hold up with returning individuals is rooted in museum policies that pre-date NAGPRA, said Alves. Before NAGPRA became law in 1990, human remains, articles of cultural patrimony and sacred objects were freely ferried between museums and institutions. Many of those items became displaced. Because the Wampanoag Confederation hopes to bury human remains along with funerary objects, repatriation officers began tracking items down.

In addition to the 313 individuals, there is a recent finding of 39 more tribal skeletons at museums throughout Massachusetts, according to Alves in a recent interview.

"When we are finally done with this round of repatriation, the number of 313 people will jump to 352," Alves said.

Repatriated remains are only a fraction of the thousands of people lying in Massachusetts museums.

And that number will continue to rise, said Alves, as museums uncover remains from the depths of bone rooms across the state.

Harvard's Peabody Museum alone holds human remains of at least 19 individuals who were likely enslaved, and almost 7,000 Native Americans. That's according to The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University's student newspaper, which in June 2022 said it was in possession of a draft report, dated April 19, written by Harvard's Steering Committee on Human Remains in Harvard Museum Collections.

Indigenous remains at Harvard UniversityHarvard Crimson: Draft report details thousands of Indigenous remains owned by Harvard

Harvard's Peabody Museum wouldn't confirm the number of individual remains that have been repatriated from its museum. Rachael Dane, a press official for Harvard, said the museum doesn't speak to media about the consultation process.

"We want to respect Tribal confidentiality," said Dane.

John "Jim" Peters, a member of the Wampanoag Confederation and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, said repatriation officers are preparing for remains to be released by working to find resting places for each individual.

In an emailed statement, published on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's website, Harvard University said it also plans to start consultations on remains from other parts of the state.

Other museums including the Berkshire Museum, and Worcester Historical Museum have either begun or plan to begin the process of repatriation, said the statement.

Tension once simmered. Now museum and tribal officials work together.

The repatriation process is certainly arduous, said Alves, who works in concert with public institutions, including the Peabody museums of Harvard, Essex, and Andover. The relationship between Wampanoag tribal members and museum officials has been rocky at times. Just after NAGPRA passed, Wampanoag Confederation members stopped speaking to Harvard Peabody museum officials for about two years, said Alves.

"We felt like we were doing a disservice to the ancestors by not communicating with them," he said. "We went back and everything has been great since."

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The past 30 years has been a learning curve for museums and tribal nations, said Peters, and everyone is doing their best.

"It’s quite a process to receive ancestors and re-enter them," he said. "It’s taken a lot of time and we appreciate the law that has opened the doors for us to do this. In some respects, it’s also been a burden for everyone."

Traumas uncovered: Skeleton shows 13-year-old girl cut in half, skull used as Halloween decoration

One saving grace, said Peters, is the cultural and historical information that's been gained through repatriation, including traumas endured during times of colonization.

"They (European settlers) did various unthinkable things to our people — and still today we are dealing with those efforts from the past," Peters said.

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Alves recalls the skeletal remains of a 13-year-old indigenous girl from West Bridgewater, that was located at a museum Alves didn't name. Medical evidence, said Alves, determined that she had been cut in half by a sword. On another occasion, the Confederation was contacted by a family who wished to turn over skeletal remains. Alves was dismayed to learn that the skeleton was placed on the family's mantel every Halloween with candles placed in its eye sockets.

"When we learn these horror stories, it’s an emotional experience," he said.

Peabody Museum officials helped dig graves in reburial.

Part of the pain of repatriation is relieved through ceremony and reburial, said Alves.

"We don't bundle them all up and bury them all together," he said. "The ceremonies take hours and we individually address each person the best we can."

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At one particular day of ceremony, Alves said tribal members invited Peabody Museum officials, and asked them to dig the graves.

"Of course our people were in tears, but all the Harvard people were in tears too," he said. "It helped bring us together."

Many institutions, nationally and internationally, have yet to return tribal remains and funerary items.

Although Massachusetts museums have largely complied with NAGPRA, many institutions aren't following the law, said Alves.

"NAGPRA needs to be revisited and tightening up a bit," he said.

Because NAGPRA is a federal law, museums are not required to return remains or funerary items to non-federally recognized tribes like Abenaki and Nipmuc communities. The Wampanoag Tribe sponsors repatriation for state-recognized tribes, but Alves feels any tribal community should be able to reclaim their own people.

Tribal remains and objects have also been taken to countries like France, Germany, and Holland, said Alves, and they remain outside U.S. jurisdiction.

"Doctors from around the world did medical research on our people. They are from nations that don't need to comply by our laws," he said. "It just goes on and on and on."

Contact Rachael Devaney at rdevaney@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter: @RachaelDevaney.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: The number of skeletal remains found at Mass museums continues to rise