Imagine trying to identify the owner of the objects in every lost and found collection across the University.

Harvard's Peabody Museum has to complete a task far more difficult.

As a result of a 1990 law, the museum is required to compile a detailed summary or inventory of the approximately eight million North American artifacts in its possession.

The law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), requires museums to identify and possibly return all human remains and many types of burial artifacts to the Native American tribes with which they originated.

But because cataloging and inventorying the more than eight million pieces in its collection is such a time consuming task, the museum may be forced to cut back on other activities to comply with NAGPRA.

The Act

NAGPRA requires the cataloging of all human remains and associated funerary objects, unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony, which are objects owned by the entire group or tribe and not by one individual or family.

Each museum or agency which falls under the act was required to produce a summary, rather than an item by item description, of unassociated funerary objects, sacred objects and cultural patrimony by November 1993.

By November 1995, the museums are required to produce a complete inventory, including cultural and geographic affiliation, of all human remains and associated funerary objects.

Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations have been granted access by request to records and data from any museum to determine the ownership and method of acquisition of all relevant objects.

Once a claim is established and a native group shows a right of possession, the museum must carry out the repatriation of the object or remains unless it can show that the objects were obtained by legal means. The museum pays for the inventory and the consultation with the tribes, and the tribes must pay for the repatriation of the object, said Barbara Isaac, the assistant director of the Peabody Museum and the coordinator of the repatriation project.

Disputes regarding right of possession or repatriation of objects are reviewed by a seven-member committee organized by the Secretary of the Interior.

Although the definitions and responsibilities are given in the act, many agree that NAGPRA is subject to many different interpretations.

According to an internal document provided by Isaac, various topics within the legislation remain unclarified.

For example, the document says conflicts can occur in such areas as what is meant by a "culturally unaffiliated" object and the problems of claims by unrecognized Native American groups.

Staffing and Finances