Repatriation Project 2025
Ancestral Dena remains come back to their resting place.
Repatriation 2025. A story of many years.
It all began many, many years ago… This Dena (Yukon-Koyukon Athabaskan) man, who had been fishing, hunting, living, and subsisting on the banks of the Yukon River, had just died. A person in their fifties was considered an elder back in those times, and very probably, his family and friends gathered to grieve him. They dug his grave in the traditional area where this particular clan buried their people, in a high location in a bend of the river. By his body, as it was customary, they deposited some of his most valuable possessions. Then, they said their last goodbyes… and life continued.
Let’s leap many years forward, we don’t know exactly how many, but we are now in 1935. Dr. Frederica de Laguna was sitting on the banks of the Yukon River. She, an archeologist by trade and education, has been exploring the area, conducting an expedition sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Her mission was to learn, explore, record, and important in those times, collect articles for the Museum. It was on that beach that something caught her trained eye… Were those bones? Some artifacts?
This is a fragment of the expedition’s recollection, as told by Frederica de Laguna in her book “Travels Among the Dena: Exploring Alaska’s Yukon Valley”
“We camped, July 10, on a gravel beach at a point below Old Louden, now deserted except for one white man, Edgar Nollmer. He told us that the former telegraph station, or “New Louden,” had been above the point. We were camped only a half mile from an “old” village site, but did not discover that until the next day. On the high bench behind us were a number of Indian graves. As we were to learn later, there had been several sites called “Louden” or “Lowden,” the name a corruption from the Native designation for a location on the south bank of the river, Tsaxadalodin (Jetté: Tsaradaloten, “Where the River Bends Toward”). In addition to New Louden above the point, there were three former Native settlements, all called Old Louden…
…at one place the bank had sloughed off and carried two graves with it onto the beach. The bones looked quite fresh. In the fallen dirt near them I found several glass beads (white, red, and dark blue), three dentalium shells (from someone’s necklace or bandoleer), a flint blade, and an iron knife with carved wooden handle, much decayed. At one place the bank had sloughed off and carried two graves with it onto the beach. The bones looked quite fresh. In the fallen dirt near them I found several glass beads (white, red, and dark blue), three dentalium shells (from someone’s necklace or bandoleer), a flint blade, and an iron knife with carved wooden handle, much decayed. “
Left: Dr. Frederica de Laguna, 1935. Right: Map or the expedition area, 1935
This is how the remains of our Dena man and his possessions end up on the shelves of a museum thousands of miles from his land and resting place.
However, things keep changing, as they always do. So we now move forward another fifty some years… our societies review their ways, including the way we respect cultures and traditions. The perception of collecting artifacts, sacred objects, and remains, and removing them from their original places, owners, and cultures, is not seen as “standard procedure” anymore. More and more, the idea of returning any remains to their original sites, when possible, is becoming more common. It is in this context that the Federal Government of the United States enacted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990.
A new leap forward, and we are now in early 2023. The area where our ancestor man lived and died is now close to what is now called Galena, AK. In early 2023, the Louden Tribe was contacted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to inform that the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology had discovered they had human remains and funerary objects that were taken from “Old Louden Graveyard”. Through NAGPRA, the Louden Tribe could request that they be returned to Louden. The Council decided that they wanted to begin the repatriation process.
On September 8, 2023, BLM finalized their process for the transfer, and Louden was notified that we could request the return of the remains and objects at any time. We began by holding a small meeting with Council representatives and elders to discuss the proper and respectful way to return them to the cemetery. The project also included the application and award of the Natinal Park Service NAGPRA grant in late 2024, providing financial support for the process.
Who and what is being returned?
The University of Pennsylvania Museum has shared the following information with the Tribe:
The remains and funerary objects were taken by an Archaeologist named Frederica de Laguna during a summer expedition in July 1935. She took two sets of beads, a knife, a blade and a skull. The skull belonged to an Athabascan male who was at least 50 years old and dated between 1700-1900 CE. She wrote a book titled Travels Among the Dena: Exploring Alaska’s Yukon Valley about her summer on the Yukon River.
How will they be returned?
University of Pennsylvania staff members have agreed to fly our ancestor home to Galena. They will be arriving the morning of August 5th and we will have a Memorial Service at 10:30 am at the Community Hall. Anyone who would like to attend the burial can request reimbursement for boat gas from Louden. Then at 6:00 pm there will be a potlatch at the Hall.
Activities Schedule
August 5th, 2025
9am: Remains arrival to Galena
10.30am: Memorial Service at the Community Hall in Galena.
Noon: Burial ceremony at the Traditional Louden Cemetery. (Louden reimburses for gas for the trip)
6pm: Potlach at Community Hall.
TBD: Community Workshop conducted by Stacey O. Espenlaub, Ph.D, and Lucy Fowler Williams, Ph.D., staff members from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
If you have any questions about repatriation, please contact the Tribe at 907-656-1711. We hope that the community will join us in a day of reflection and celebration as we welcome our ancestor home.
Learn more
If you want to learn more, here are some links of interest
