The work happens in storage rooms and conference calls, and it rarely produces an exhibition.

Federal law has required museums receiving federal funds to inventory human remains and certain cultural items and consult with descendant communities since 1990. Revised regulations that took effect recently strengthened the requirements substantially, shifting the default: institutions must now obtain free, prior and informed consent from lineal descendants or tribal nations before exhibiting or researching covered items.

The immediate effect at institutions nationwide was visible — galleries closed, cases covered, objects removed from display while consultation proceeds.

Minnesota institutions had begun earlier than most, in part because the state's relationship with its eleven tribal nations includes decades of prior negotiation.

The work itself is unglamorous. Determining cultural affiliation for an object acquired in 1912 from a dealer who recorded no provenance requires archival research, consultation with multiple nations, and frequently an admission that the answer is unknown.

"People imagine a dramatic handover," a curator involved in the process said. "It is mostly spreadsheets, and it should be. Getting it right matters more than getting it photographed."

Tribal historic preservation officers describe an uneven landscape. Some institutions have been genuinely collaborative, funding staff positions and traveling for consultation. Others have complied narrowly.

Capacity is a real constraint on the tribal side as well. A nation may be consulted by dozens of institutions simultaneously, each requesting review of collections, and the offices doing that work are frequently one or two people with many other responsibilities.

Several museums have responded by funding those positions directly, an arrangement that raises its own questions about independence and has generally been judged preferable to the alternative of no capacity at all.

The exhibition consequences are being worked through in public. Some galleries have reopened with objects returned to display under agreements specifying interpretation and duration. Others remain closed and may not reopen.

Curators are largely comfortable with this. "A museum is not entitled to show something," one said. "We have operated for a century as though it were. Unwinding that is the job now."