Over time, many items of Native American cultural significance have been collected and placed into museums. Whether gathered for scientific study, bought via the black market or taken as artifacts from archaeological dig sites, these things have steadily filled museums and warehouses over the years. Many of these items were acquired during a time period when Native Americans had little right to their ancestral homelands and were thus powerless to stop archaeologists from exhuming the remains of their past. Now archaeologists are trying to correct their past mistakes and get these artifacts back to the original tribes that they belonged to, though it is proving to be no easy task.
The 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act served as one of the primary catalysts to this movement. The act is legally forcing museums to return the remains and artifacts that they currently
hold to the tribes from which they came. Many of these have already been returned, but museum officials are dealing with more than 100 years worth of collections. To further complicate matters, many of these items have few clues which point to their origins, meaning that museum staff have to do heavy research to find the original owners.
Each piece must be indentified and those who are to receive them notified that the item is to be returned. Unfortunately, unstaffed museums with limited resources are unable to do this in a timely and efficient manner. Though the road ahead looks daunting, at least an effort is being made to send back these stolen artifacts and perhaps some of the damage that has been done over the years can be repaired.