The law was not and is not self-executing.

It requires institutions to conduct inventories and make notifications, and it requires tribal nations to request repatriation.

The process has been slow, inconsistent, and marked by significant failures on the part of many institutions to comply with the law’s requirements in good faith.

Decades after NAGPRA’s passage, substantial quantities of Native American remains and sacred objects remain in museum collections — sometimes because institutions have not completed inventories, sometimes because affiliation determinations are contested, and sometimes because institutions have found ways to classify objects as “unaffiliated” in ways that avoid repatriation obligations.

The Smithsonian Institution, as noted earlier, is governed by the National Museum of the American Indian Act rather than NAGPRA directly, but its repatriation obligations are similar in structure and intent.