Native American burial sites, including this cemetery, were raided across the country by anthropologists. In the 19th century, Indigenous remains were studied like objects and viewed as less than human because Native people were seen as an inferior race or as a dying culture, said Dowdle.
"After the excavation date of that cemetery, my great grandmother never buried another person in an Indian cemetery," Dowdle said. "She sent them to the Catholic cemeteries from that day on."
Dowdle works to bring ancestors back from museums, libraries, state agencies, federal agencies and universities as the NAGPRA manager at Wilton Rancheria. She communicates with institutions holding ancestors and family items traced back to the Miwok and Nisenan.
Stories like Dowdle's are the reason why the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act exists. Passed 30 years ago, colleges and universities were required to start the return of ancestors and family items by putting them into inventory and beginning the repatriation process.
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