A Notice of Intended Repatriation of Cultural Items has been published in the Federal Register.  

To request repatriation on the above notice, we have provided template request for repatriation/claim letters below for your convenience. Please contact the Megon Noble, Repatriation Coodinator (mnoble@ucdavis.edu) if you have any questions.

Template Repatriation/Claim Letter

The Notice includes the following: 

A total of seven cultural items have been requested for repatriation. The seven sacred objects are four baskets and three lots of regalia. The University is unaware of any treatment of the sacred objects with pesticides, preservatives, or other substances that represent a potential hazard to the objects or to persons handling the objects.

There are four baskets, (CHM-384, 385, 386, 387) that were purchased by C. Hart Merriam on August 21, 1906, from “the Indian village near Kelseyville” in Lake County, California. Merriam spells the village as, “Ho-hla-nap'po” but descendants spell it as Xa-Be-Na-Po or Xa-La-Na-Po. The Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians Tribal members are descendants of Xa-Ben-Na-Po.

There are three catalog numbers/lots of feather sticks (CHM-1517 A-H, 1519 A-B, 1520), that were collected by C. Hart Merriam at some point between 1894 and the mid-1930s. Consultation indicates these items are associated with Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians of the Big Valley Rancheria, California. Original documentation for these items is unknown, however, after consultation with several tribes, the regalia had been identified as likely made by Pomo or Patwin tribes.