Sacramento State has 114,000 Native American items. It plans to return half of them soon

Sacramento State leaders said Tuesday that 49% of the Native American cultural items the university possesses and has not yet repatriated, and nearly three-quarters of its human remains, have been claimed by tribal nations and will likely be repatriated within a year.

A state audit completed in June found that 6% of nearly 700,000 collected human remains and cultural items in the California State University system have been repatriated.

Institutions were required to submit inventories and summaries of their collections to the U.S. government under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act by 1995, according to university officials. Historically, submission was done poorly or not at all, state officials said.

The audit found Sacramento State had the third-largest collection of Native American remains at 114,400 items. Sonoma State has the most and Chico State the second-most.

Forty-nine percent of entries means about 55,424 items are slated to be returned within the next 12 months, school officials said.

Wood said that 73% of all ancestors, or human remains, are projected to be returned in that timeline. The university houses 1,484 ancestral remains, according to the audit, meaning close to 1,100 are expected to be repatriated within the year.

“A lot of factors will be at play that could affect that rough timeline, but that is our goal,” said Brian Blomster, a university spokesman.

In the Tuesday news conference, Sacramento State President Luke Wood said he would like to see 100% of the items repatriated within the next few years.

“(It) is a very aggressive timeline, but it needs to be done,” Wood said.

Sarah Eckhardt, the university’s NAGPRA coordinator, said it is difficult to provide a definitive timeline for the rest of the items, as the work is done at the pace dictated by the consulting tribes.

“These are human beings,” Wood said. “The focus has been trying to make sure that what was supposed to occur has occurred. We’re talking about lives that have passed on from this life to the next. That’s what I heard very strongly from our native community, the deep level of pain that still emanates from it (to) this day.”

Sacramento State sits on Miwok, Maidu and Nisenan land in California’s capital city. The remains were likely collected in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, according to Wood.

“We have had ongoing dialogue with our sovereign tribal nations in the local area,” Wood said.

He said the university has three liaisons sitting on a campus NAGPRA committee, including representatives from a Shingle Springs-based band of Miwok Indians, the United Auburn Indian Community and the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in Yolo County.

He said the campus historically did not provide the resources, staffing or funding to make repatriation possible.

In terms of staffing, the college has hired two full-time employees to coordinate NAGPRA artifacts, and it set aside funding from the provost’s office of academic affairs to aid in repatriation efforts, according to Wood.

“But, that is simply not enough,” Wood said. “We feel it is important to acknowledge that the past has not been what it should have been and to apologize to our tribal partners and those that are a part of our native and indigenous community.

“The process of waiting for repatriation for their ancestors and cultural items has been unacceptable. It is disheartening, and we must do better.”

Where are Native American items stored at Sacramento State?

The Native American remains that the campus possesses are held in a location within the archaeology department, according to campus officials.

“The ancestors and cultural objects held by Sacramento State are securely stored on campus in locked rooms that have limited access,” Eckhardt said.

She said most objects and human remains are stored in a manner required by federal curation standards, but the school is working with tribal partners to rehouse items when possible into culturally appropriate containers.

Labeling and tracking is typically done on the outsides of boxes on paper tags, officials said. Historically, archaeologists would write tracking information directly on the objects, “though this practice is no longer employed at the university,” Eckhardt said.

Officials said the repatriation process begins with consultations with tribal nations to determine cultural affiliation, tribal preferences for appropriate handling and what cultural objects in a collection should be repatriated.

Then, appropriate notices are published in the Federal Register. After a 30-day waiting period, transfer of control may proceed.

Eckhardt said the college will frequently enter into agreements with a tribe to hold a collection until the tribe is ready to take possession. She said this will happen in cases where the tribe is waiting for land to rebury the remains.

“We know the names of some of these people,” Wood said. “There are people who are related to the people that are in your facility. So, there’s a sense of anger at the timeline.”

Notices of repatriation are published on Sacramento State’s website.

California lawmakers hold hearing on repatriation

Wood’s repatriation announcement came hours after he answered questions from lawmakers about the issue during a hearing in the California State Assembly conducted by a joint legislative audit and the Select Committee on Native American Affairs, which is chaired by Assemblyman James Ramos, D-San Bernardino. Ramos is California’s first elected Native American lawmaker; he was elected in 2018.

Some of the university presidents present at the hearing said repatriation has lagged to due a lack of funding and guidance from the CSU Office of the Chancellor, according to Maria Lopez, a spokeswoman for Ramos.

Lopez said NAGPRA can issue $7,475 in civil penalties for every campus violation; and CalNAGPRA, a state-level supplement to the federal law, allows for up to $20,000 in penalties depending on the number of violations committed by a campus and the level of additional damage caused to items.

Since 1995, “neither state nor federal authorities have enforced penalties that Ramos’ office is aware of,” Lopez said.

She said institutions like Harvard University and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History have also violated repatriation laws unpunished.