Our Commitment to Repatriation
UMass Amherst respects the sovereignty and cultural practices of Native peoples and their associated rights to have their ancestral remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony respectfully returned through the process of repatriation. These legal, moral, and ethical obligations are fulfilled through respectful consultation and meaningful engagement with Tribal Nations throughout repatriation processes and a commitment to sustaining respectful and lasting relationships beyond.
To ensure that the university's processes of repatriation are accomplished respectfully, ethically, and expeditiously, the university has a full-time Director of Repatriation/NAGPRA Coordinator in Julie Woods and has established the UMass Repatriation Advisory and Oversight Committee. The committee is the oversight body for matters relating to all ancestral remains and related cultural items on the UMass Amherst campus, including compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Academic knowledge and knowledge practices are deeply implicated in the histories of colonialism and slavery. We have inherited these legacies as knowledge, methods, methodologies, and material objects used in research and teaching. Any attempts at decolonizing academia must reconcile with these legacies. Over the last three decades, UMass Amherst has been working to repatriate ancestral remains in our possession. The remains of several individuals from a number of cultures and geographic locations as well as most of the Native American ancestral remains who have been repatriated by UMass Amherst were originally transferred to the Department of Anthropology from Smith College and Amherst College between 1965 and the late 1980s.
Repatriation of Ancestors
Following consultation with Tribal Nations, UMass published 13 Notices of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register between 2004 and 2020 to repatriate all culturally affiliated Native American ancestral remains at the university, including 186 individuals and over 5,000 of their belongings. The Repatriation Coordinator continues her work to identify and locate possible Native American human remains at the university and is in consultation with Tribal Nations on the identification of several individuals who may be of Native American ancestry.
The UMass Repatriation Advisory and Oversight Committee is also committed to the respectful repatriation of human remains from other communities that were collected without informed consent. Using the NAGPRA model as a guide, the committee has been actively working to identify human remains on campus who may be affiliated with Indigenous groups or historically marginalized communities globally to begin consultations for their return to their descendants or their homelands. Through this process, we identified the remains of several individuals of African descent from the United States as well as the remains of individuals from West Africa, East Asia, Australia, Ecuador or Peru, and Mexico. Very little is known about these individuals.
Although this process is challenging and difficult, the university has committed significant resources to identify these individuals through archival research and to engage experts from descendent communities to create a plan for their respectful care and return to their descendants and homelands.
Acknowledging Our Participation in a Legacy of Racist Scientific Research and Collecting
The university acknowledges its participation in a legacy of racist scientific research and collecting like so many research universities across the United States and the globe. These practices disrupted the burials and spiritual journeys of many ancestors, violating their human rights, and causing ongoing trauma to their descendants and communities. The university is appalled and saddened that ancestors from Indigenous and marginalized communities were brought to UMass Amherst for teaching and research and that some still remain at the university. We recognize that the presence of ancestral peoples from Indigenous and marginalized groups creates a harmful campus environment for students, staff, and faculty from these communities, which is not in alignment with the university’s morals and values of inclusion and diversity nor does it align with our support for human rights and our commitment to social justice and equity.
Commitment to Changing Teaching and Research Practices
UMass Amherst executive leadership has taken action to ensure that all Native American ancestral remains are not accessible by students, staff, and faculty for any research or teaching activities. The university is actively working to ensure that all other human remains who may be from Indigenous and marginalized communities are also not utilized in teaching, and to that end is working to identify the origins of all human remains including those from Indigenous communities or marginalized communities. UMass Amherst is in the midst of and is committed to repatriating all ancestral remains from Indigenous communities as quickly as possible through consultation and providing a safe and culturally appropriate resting place for them while they wait to transition home.