Fortunately these native Americans no longer need their bodies. God has seen to that.
Apparently, americans have no standing in this. I was just searching in Geneva NY. They removed more than 600 bodies to make way for a high school.
NAGPRA is nothing new. Surprised it took Wesleyan this long. This law passed while I was taking a Human Osteology class in my Anthro program.
It should be noted that the French just blew off the request for the return of Hopi Indian sacred artifacts, that they instead allowed to be auctioned off.
The Hopi are a rather unusual tribe, whose reservation is entirely surrounded by Navajo (Diné) Indian reservation. They have an extraordinarily complex religion, especially known for Kachina dolls.
Because of this complexity, the Hopi create dolls that symbolize both their multitude of traditional gods (though most are Christian) and culture, that are so intertwined they cannot dispense with one without losing the other.
Until about the 1970s, stealing their cultural artifacts was done extensively, but was finally equated with stealing religious icons from churches.