Museums should not fear repatriation from Native Americans and foreign
entities if their collections have been derived ethically and legally in
the universal sense.  Because a museum represented a colonial power and
collected because of its colonial domination status that museum does not
ethically or legally own those objects.  If a collection was made with
informed
consent and title was transferred then the museum owns those objects.
An example of uninformed consent was the recent case of "Sue" the T.
rex.  Commercial collectors, knowing the value of a single bone found
would offset their payment to the land owner; deceived the land owner and
tried to make off with a multi-million dollar specimen under the guise of
making it the center piece of their museum.  I imagine that bonafide
museums have many items that have been stolen by unscrupulous or
overzealous collectors.  We cannot hide behind the premise that returning
these items to their rightful owners will disrupt our practice of museology.