UT tells Miakan-Garza Band it will look into legal repatriation process

Following the Miakan-Garza Band’s request to have the remains of three ancestors unearthed in Hays County returned from the University of Texas at Austin, the university announced it will reverse course and seek the authority to have the remains reinterred. 

The Miakan-Garza Band’s request was previously denied because UT was unable to identify a shared group identity between the remains and any group. UT’s Texas Archeological Research Laboratory also stated that “faculty in the Department of Anthropology who are affiliated with the Native American and Indigenous Studies program are working with our colleagues in NAIS to carefully examine the ongoing requests of the Miakan-Garza Band that Texas Archeological Research Laboratory repatriate ancestral remains they claim as their own.”

UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell announced in a letter addressed to Dr. Mario Garza, cultural preservation officer for the Miakan-Garza Band, on Sept. 25 that the university would promptly seek authority from the National Park Services to have the remains reinterred by requesting a recommendation from its Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Review Committee. The recommendation would allow the university to offer the remains promptly for reburial, Hartzell’s letter said. 

“The University of Texas at Austin respects the indigienous people who live and have lived in Texas and recognizes the spiritual and cultural significance of interment of their ancestors,” Hartzell wrote. “I also acknowledge the particular significance of this issue to you and the Miakan-Garza Band. We are committed to honoring your cultural and religious perspectives, while continuing to follow the established legal procedures outlined in federal law.” 

The Miakan-Garza Band said in a news release sent in August that documentation of shared group identity is considered during the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Process, which requires institutions to convey remains back to tribes for reburial. 

“These remains are classified as ‘culturally unidentifiable’ which means that they are too old to associate with any known, federally recognized tribes in existence today,” Mario Garza said. “We submitted documentation that our Coahuiltecan people are original Texas Natives who have lived here continuously for the past 14,000 years — these ancient remains belong to us.”

The Miakan-Garza Band recently collaborated in 2016 with the City of San Marcos to establish the first city repatriation site in Texas and has reinterred seven remains there over the last three years. 

“We believe that when a person is buried, they depart on their spiritual journey. When they are unearthed, their spiritual journey is interrupted and they are suspended in agony,” Mario Garza said. “It is our obligation as indigenous people to return our ancestors to Mother Earth so they can proceed to the Great Mystery of the Cosmos.”