Yale, Harvard Return Ancestors and Artifacts to Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians

After decades apart, ancestral remains and sacred objects belonging to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians were returned home late last month.  

Those artifacts — dating back thousands of years — were long confined to wood trays and boxes at Yale and Harvard’s Peabody museums, Chumash representatives described. They called this treatment of their ancestors “cruel and inhumane.” 

“Our ancestors and their belongings were stolen from their resting place, a place where their families and communities prayed and grieved, leaving them to rest,” said Kathleen Marshall, Museum Board Chair and Lead Language Teacher for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. 

The tribe was separated from their ancestors for more than a hundred years, Marshall said, noting that the earliest collection was in 1877. 

Marshall was in Boston when they packed up the semi-truck with more than 2,000 remains and artifacts — filling it almost to the brim — and flew home to meet them at the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center on June 27. She tracked the truck on GPS for its entire, multi-day journey to the Central Coast.

Its arrival marked an emotional milestone for the tribe as they work to bring their ancestors and cultural items home. 

“With these returns, the ancestors receive a proper ceremony with all Chumash nations,” Marshall said. “We are guaranteeing their return to our Mother Earth is done privately, and they are placed back to the land they came from.”

Their ancestors’ belongings were originally buried with them, meant to not be seen or used again. Through those items — things such as stone bowls, pestles, arrowheads, and effigies — “you can see who the person was,” Marshall said. Sadly, in most cases, their ancestors’ individual belongings were separated from their owners. 

While their ancestors will be reburied, returned objects will be archived with the tribe and used to teach future generations, Marshall said. Ceremonial items will be used once again in ceremonies. 

Called repatriation — the act of returning a person, item, or asset back to its place or group of origin — the process followed two separate Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) notices issued by Harvard and Yale. 

The act is a federal law enacted in 1990. It established a process for federally recognized tribes to seek the return of human remains and artifacts held by institutions receiving federal funding. 

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is still the only federally recognized Chumash tribe since receiving the recognition in 1901. 

The repatriation process took four years to complete, involving many visits to the East Coast by Chumash representatives. It was the culmination of years of consultation and collaboration between the tribe and both institutions, said Marshall, who is the tribe’s NAGPRA representative.

“I promised my ancestors that I was gonna bring them back, and it took a while, but we did it,” she said. There were many difficult conversations, and turnover of staff at Harvard forced Marshall to retell her story repeatedly. The scale of the repatriation also prolonged the process.

Ultimately, though, Marshall said they created a relationship with both institutions that was transparent and genuine. 

“They learned from us; they listened. It did not come without conflict and hard conversations, but ultimately, they did the right thing,” Marshall said. “The people who are in place now respect cultural knowledge, and it ended up with our ancestors and their belongings coming home in a positive way, leaving behind respectful relationships.”

Each institution described the opportunity for repatriation as an “honor” and “privilege.” 

“We are tremendously grateful for [the tribe’s] generosity and trust as we worked through the process to return these important items home,”  said Jane Pickering, William & Muriel Seabury Howells Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. 

It was Yale Peabody Museum’s largest repatriation of cultural items to date.

“The removal of these materials from traditional Chumash homelands has caused trauma and harm, and we hope their return brings healing to the tribe,” said Jessie Cohen, assistant director of repatriation at Yale Peabody Museum.

It’s relieving to have their ancestors and cultural items returned home, Marshall said, but “there’s so much more out there.”

“The work definitely isn’t finished,” she said. 

The Santa Ynez Chumash has gone through a similar process with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and UC Santa Barbara. In 2022, the museum returned more than 1,000 human remains and UCSB returned more than 400 remains and 4,000 funerary objects to the tribe. Additionally, in 2024, the Museum of Natural History temporarily closed off its Chumash Life exhibit pending consultation with the Santa Ynez Chumash on what it could respectfully display. Marshall said their work with both institutions is still ongoing. 

“This is the process I work through with every institution,” Marshall said. “Normally, we don’t advertise repatriation. But we want to let other federally recognized tribes know that we have a seat at the table. It takes a lot of work, but if these major institutions did the right thing, hopefully everyone else will follow suit.”