American Museum of Natural History to Repatriate 2,700 Native American Hair Samples
The American Museum of Natural History is preparing to return 2,700 hair samples taken from Native Americans in the 19th century, a move that places one of New York’s most prominent museums squarely within the evolving scope of cultural restitution. The samples, collected for display at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and held by the institution ever since, are now slated for repatriation under the Native American Graves Repatriation Act.
The decision follows a federal update that made hair an explicit part of what counts as human remains under NAGPRA, unless an institution can prove it was given freely or naturally shed. For decades, some museums interpreted the law as applying to skulls and bones but not hair, even as Native communities and government officials argued otherwise. The issue gained new momentum after Harvard’s Peabody Museum agreed to repatriate hair in 2022.
The American Museum of Natural History first identified the material in the early 1990s, shortly after NAGPRA passed. Since then, the museum has expanded its approach to consultation and restitution, including work tied to the renovation of its Northwest Coast Hall and plans to revise two galleries focused on Native American cultures.
Museum officials have reached out to about 150 tribes associated with the samples, including the Choctaw, Cree, Sioux, Chippewa, Crow, Menomini, Munsee, Omaha, and Oneida. The institution has also asked Congress to increase funding for NAGPRA-related programs, underscoring a practical problem that has shadowed restitution efforts across the country: the legal mandate has widened, but the resources to carry it out have not kept pace.
“As the work to accelerate compliance with NAGPRA around the country has gained an elevated importance at the Department of Interior,” museum president Sean M. Decatur said, “the investment in resources to make this work possible nationally hasn’t kept pace.”
The repatriation marks another step in a broader reckoning over museum collections assembled through 19th-century scientific and exhibition practices, and over the obligations institutions now face to the communities from which those materials were taken.
