controversial and contested. It includes provisions that delineate the legal processes by which museums and federal agencies are required to return certain Native American cultural items--human remains, gravesite materials, and other objects of cultural patrimony--to proven lineal descendants, culturally-related Native American tribes, and Native Hawaiian groups.

Outcomes of NAGPRA repatriation efforts are slow and cumbersome, leading many tribes to spend considerable effort documenting their requests; collections' holders are obliged