NAGPRA at PEM
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), enacted by the United States Congress on November 16, 1990, is codified in the U.S. Code as 25 U.S.C. §§ 3001-3013.
NAGPRA is a piece of landmark civil rights legislation created to facilitate the repatriation of Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian human remains or objects of cultural patrimony, sacred objects or funerary objects from museums, universities, federal agencies or other organizations that receive federal funds and possess Native American (including Alaska Native) or Native Hawaiian collections. NAGPRA outlines specific criteria for determining lineal descent or kinship, cultural affiliation, tribal land status or standing and aboriginal land status or standing. In January 2024, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued updated regulations to NAGPRA to streamline and strengthen the repatriation process, emphasizing the role of Native traditional knowledge and the requirement of collaborative consent in the care and exhibition of these collections.
PEM is committed to the letter and spirit of NAGPRA and works continuously to: stay in compliance with NAGPRA; be a responsible steward of its Native American collection; and foster active, productive relationships with Native communities in Massachusetts and across the nation.
For more information, you may visit the Department of the Interior National Park Service’s NAGPRA website or visit these external links for the NAGPRA Statute and NAGPRA Regulations.
FAQs
PEM has a longstanding commitment to NAGPRA, dating to the enactment of the legislation in 1990. PEM's former Executive Director and CEO Dan Monroe was one of the original authors of NAGPRA and served on the NAGPRA Review Committee from 1992-1997 (nominated by American Association of Museums and Museum Trustees Association), 2004-2009 (nominated by American Association of Museums) and 2009-2011 (nominated by Association of Art Museum Directors).
Since that time, under the guidance of PEM's Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Executive Director and CEO Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, PEM staff members have continued the museum's work on the implementation of NAGPRA and a rigorous, respectful review of PEM's holdings in collaboration with descendant communities. PEM will continue to fully support and advance PEM's NAGPRA work when Kurt Steinberg assumes the role of Acting Executive Director and CEO on July 1, 2026.
In 2025, PEM hired a dedicated NAGPRA project manager to help facilitate the museum's federal compliance and ensure direct and ongoing communication with tribal communities across the country, working with PEM staff in Curatorial, Registration, Collection Services and other departments as required.
To initiate a claim or learn more about PEM's NAGPRA compliance, please email NAGPRA@pem.org. Our staff members look forward to working with tribal representatives and will provide access to all lists, provenance information and collections history we have available. We will do our best to make this process as transparent and respectful as possible. On the national NAGPRA website, you may find Steps to Repatriation resources that provide helpful information and guidance for this process.
PEM houses some of the oldest active collections of Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian art and culture in the Western Hemisphere, commencing with the museum's founding in 1799 and continuing through today.
Spanning more than 10,000 years of Indigenous visual expression in the Americas, PEM's collection of Native American (including Alaska Native) and Native Hawaiian art and culture crosses boundaries of region, period and medium, and emphasizes the continuum of creativity and resilient character that undergird Native American art. This distinguished collection is a vital testament to thousands of individual artists from hundreds of distinct Native nations, each with its own history, language and artistic expressions.
The majority of PEM's Native American and Native Hawaiian holdings date to the 19th century. East India Marine Society sea captains collected works during trade voyages to the Pacific, Pacific Northwest Coast, South America, New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Federal Indian agents, missionaries, anthropologists and members of exploring expeditions augmented the collection across the 19th and 20th centuries. These historical acquisitions reflect a complex era of global trade, cross-cultural encounters, and shifting political landscapes. While some interactions involved unequal power dynamics, many others were characterized by mutual exchange, diplomatic gifting, and formal transfers of stewardship. Many of these objects are significant for their singular nature, superior quality, and known provenance.
In the late 20th century, PEM began to create critical bridges between the historical and the contemporary in Native American and Native Hawaiian art and culture by acquiring modern and contemporary Native art to complement our superlative historic works. Our collection now includes several hundred late 20th- and early 21st-century works, including new media installations, fashion, photography, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, paintings and works on paper.
PEM is regarded as a leader in the progressive interpretation, research, acquisition and presentation of Indigenous art and culture. PEM works closely with Native American and Native Hawaiian community members, including scholars, artists, elders, educators and other stakeholders, to mount culturally responsive exhibitions, and the museum actively consults with descendant communities regarding the ongoing display and care of cultural items to ensure the museum's exhibitions are grounded in collaborative consent. In addition to assessing, stewarding and presenting historic works of Native art and culture, PEM acquires and displays works by contemporary Native American and Native Hawaiian artists, several of which are on view in PEM's ongoing 10,000 square-foot collection gallery installation On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America, which opened in 2022, and the reinstallation of PEM's East India Marine Hall which opened in 2026.
PEM works to cultivate the next generation of Native American, Alaska Native, Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders in the cultural heritage sector through its Native American Fellowship Program. Running for nearly twenty years, the program offers a summer fellowship for participants to do hands-on learning and leadership training at PEM and long-term fellowships for up to two years, helping to create a broader, deeper professional network.
While federal law defines specific categories for repatriation within the U.S., PEM recognizes that some requests for the return of ancestral remains and cultural items fall outside the scope of NAGPRA, including requests from international Indigenous communities or non-federally-recognized tribes.
PEM will responsibly address both domestic and international requests for the return of Indigenous ancestral remains and cultural items that lie beyond the scope of NAGPRA. The review process will be on a case-by-case basis and include careful assessment, due diligence in provenance research, consultation and thoughtful deliberation.
These commitments are guided and informed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), specifically Article 12, Section 1, which states: "Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains."
To initiate a request for the return of Indigenous ancestral remains or cultural items that may lie beyond the scope of NAGPRA, please email an inquiry to pem_collections@pem.org.