The National Park Service is awarding $1,663,382 in grants to assist Native American tribes, Alaska Native villages and museums with implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which assists in the return of human remains and cultural objects to their native people.
"Returning cultural items to their inheritors and human beings to their descendants so they may be interred with dignity is unequivocally the right thing to do," Secretary Salazar said in a statement. "With these grants, I am pleased that we are continuing to take steps to right a historic wrong."
Of the total Fiscal Year 2012 grant allocations, the Park Service is awarding $1,559,888 to 21 recipients for projects to support the efforts of museums, Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations in the documentation of NAGPRA-related objects (consultation/documentation grants), while the remaining $103,494 is going to 10 recipients for costs associated with the return of the remains and objects to their native people (repatriation grants).
Today's funding is in addition to FY12 grants announced in February that will assist in the repatriation of over 150 individuals and over 15,000 sacred objects, objects of cultural patrimony and funerary objects back to the tribes.