After reckoning over Smithsonian's 'racial brain collection,' woman's brain returned

The brain of an Alaska woman who died nearly a century ago was finally returned to her burial site after the Smithsonian Institution released it from its collection.

Relatives of Mary Sara, an 18-year-old Sami woman who died from tuberculosis in 1933, gathered at her burial plot in Seattle late last month to bury her brain with the rest of her remains, the Washington Post reports. Martha Sara Jack, Sara's cousin, traveled with her husband Fred from Wasilla, Alaska, along with Rachel Twitchell-Justiss, a distant cousin from Spokane, Washington.

After Sara died under his care, Dr. Charles Firestone removed her brain without her family's consent and sent it to Ales Hrdlicka, an anthropologist who believed in the superiority of white people and was also the curator of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, according to the Post.

“Without the knowledge or consent from her family, Dr. Firestone maliciously desecrated Mary’s young body,” Jack told the Post. “Now, 90 years later, Mary’s body will be made whole and laid to rest until the Resurrection.”

Attempts to reach Sara's family for comment were unsuccessful.

The Smithsonian Institution issued an apology in a Washington Post op-ed.

"I condemn these past actions and apologize for the pain caused by Hrdlicka and others at the institution who acted unethically in the name of science, regardless of the era in which their actions occurred," wrote Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III.

Bunch called Hrdlicka's work "abhorrent and dehumanizing," adding that the Smithsonian is in talks with the Philippine government to return the remains of Filipino citizens stolen by Hrdlicka at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

A policy adopted by the Smithsonian in April of last year authorizes the museum to return some human remains based on ethical considerations.

A spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution declined to comment further when reached by USA Today on Friday.

Sara's family found out that her brain was being held in a collection at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History following an investigation into the institution's "racial brain collection" by the Post.

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Only four brains in the Smithsonian of the 255 still kept are documented as coming from people or families who consented to the donation, according to records uncovered by the Post. The majority of the brains were taken from the bodies of Black and Indigenous people without the consent of their families, the Post report found.

Cybele Mayes-Osterman covers breaking news for USA Today. You can reach her over email at cmayesosterman@usatoday.com or on X at @CybeleMO.