American Indian Culture and Research Journal

This paper focuses on the access of unacknowledged or unrecognized tribes, especially those in California, to legal rights of repatriation-that is, rights founded in statutes or administrative rules that are enforceable through the courts. Some tribes have been able to secure repatriation through negotiation even where legal rights have been uncertain or nonexistent by persuading a state or federal agency to cooperate in the return of skeletal remains or objects. Such negotiations have spared all interested parties the cost and distress of litigation. Often, however, it is difficult for tribes to conduct such negotiations unless they can make at least a colorable claim of legal entitlement to repatriation. For the many federally unacknowledged tribes in California, therefore, it is important to know whether they can invoke legal rights of repatriation. Initially, it is worth clarifying exactly what it means to be an unacknowledged or unrecognized tribe. I want to underscore that a Native American group does not need to be acknowledged or recognized by the federal government to be a tribe. Federal recognition is merely an affirmative act by the federal government to acknowledge its trust responsibility and its statutory and other obligations to provide services and pro rams to Indian groups. The fact that the federal government a as not provided this recognition or acknowledgment does not mean that an Indian group is not a tribe. But certain consequences flow from this recognition, the most important being the many services and programs in education, health, and welfare that the federal government provides to Indian people.