Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act

Long title	An Act to provide for the protection of Native American graves, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)	NAGPRA
Enacted by	the 101st United States Congress
Effective	November 16, 1990
Citations
Public law	101-601
Statutes at Large	104 Stat. 3048
Codification
Titles amended	25 U.S.C.: Indians
U.S.C. sections created	25 U.S.C. ch. 32 § 3001 et seq.
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 5237 by Mo Udall (D-AZ) on July 10, 1990 Committee consideration by House Interior and Insular Affairs Passed the House on October 22, 1990 (voice vote) Passed the Senate on October 25, 1990 (voice vote) with amendment House agreed to Senate amendment on October 27, 1990 (passed without objection) Signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on November 16, 1990

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law enacted on November 16, 1990.

The Act includes three major sets of provisions. The "repatriation" provisions of the Act require federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding^[1] to return Native American "cultural items" in their possession or control to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages, and Native Hawaiian organizations. Cultural items include human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. A program of federal grants assists in the repatriation process and the Secretary of the Interior may assess civil penalties on museums that fail to comply.

NAGPRA's "disposition" provisions establish procedures for the inadvertent discovery or planned excavation of Native American cultural items on federal or tribal lands, which includes private and state lands within the exterior boundary of an Indian reservation. These provisions do not apply to discoveries or excavations on non-federal or tribal lands, but the repatriation provisions do apply to Native American cultural items if they come under the control of an institution that receives federal funding.

NAGPRA also makes it a criminal offense to traffic in Native American human remains without right of possession or in Native American cultural items obtained in violation of the Act. In the original statute penalties for a first offense could reach 12 months imprisonment and a $100,000 fine. The statute was amended in 2022 to increase the penalty for a first conviction for trafficking Native American human remains from 12 months imprisonment to one year and one day (a felony) and for a subsequent conviction from five years to ten years. An initial conviction for trafficking of Native American cultural items remains a misdemeanor (imprisonment of up to one year), but the penalty for a subsequent conviction was likewise changed from five to ten years.

The Department of the Interior revised the regulations implementing NAGPRA in 2024 to clarify steps for its implementation. The revised regulations, which went into effect on January 12, 2024, state "...museums and Federal agencies must defer to the Native American traditional knowledge of lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations."^[2]