A Native American Scalp in the Karl May Museum near Dresden in Germany is going to be subject to a study over its origins & acquisition, which the museum concedes may provide the basis for its eventual restitution.

Native American exhibition at the Karl May museum

From:
Phys.org

German museum agrees to study on contested Native American scalp (Update)
Sep 04, 2014 by Kate Millar

A German museum said Thursday it will look into the origins of a scalp claimed by a Native American tribe as an ancestral artefact.

Scientists from the Karl May Museum in the eastern town of Radebeul near Dresden will begin an investigation to shed light on the provenance of one of 17 scalps in its collections, a museum spokeswoman said.
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71 native American masks are being auctioned, despite protests from the tribes that they belonged to. There are laws in place in many countries now that cover return of human remains & there are also laws in the US relating to Native American artefacts. However, these items are not covered by any of these & as such the auction is legal. One has to ask the question though of whether it is Moral though? These items could not be taken now from native tribes in the same way as happened originally.

From:
Indian Country Today Media Network

71 Hopi and Zuni Masks to be Auctioned in Paris
ICTMN Staff
March 07, 2013

On April 12, a collection of 71 Hopi and Zuni masks will be auctioned by Neret-Minet at the Druout Richelieu gallery and auction house in Paris, France. The array of katsinam masks was amassed by a collector over the course of 30 years, and date to the late 19th and early 20th century, according to the description at Druout.com (a translated version can be found at ArtDaily.org).

“The idea that a people would dedicate so much time and energy to the rise of celestial bodies fascinated our collector,” reads the auction’s description. “In his collection, the CROW MOTHER mask, Angwusnasomtaqa in the Hopi language, held pride of place, and he had to wait over 20 years to attend the Powamu rituals in early February, the only time the mother of all the Katsinam appears in the village. By his own admission, you have to see the masks in dances to fully appreciate them.”
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An interesting look at 10 different cases (some well known, some more obscure) where countries are involved in disputes over the ownership of looted cultural property. Some of the cases have been resolved, but many are still no closer to reaching a conclusion than the day after the artefacts were originally taken.

From:
Business Insider

10 Ancient Artifacts That Countries Are Still Fighting Over
Vivian Giang | Jul. 14, 2011, 7:51 PM

Legendary historical artifacts have traded hands from conquerors to thieves and ended up thousands of miles from their origin.

The question of ownership is extremely murky.

With a black market in looted art worth as much as $6.3 billion a year, the mantra of “finder’s keepers” can be tempting. Past and present owners, however, may claim an object, sometimes leading to disputes and wars between nations.
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A Native American artefact stolen from Wisconsin Historical Society museum by disgraced curator David Wooley has now been returned by a New York museum.

From:
Wisconsin State Journal

Stolen artifact returned to Historical Society
GEORGE HESSELBERG
Posted: Monday, December 6, 2010 6:20 am

A Native American artifact stolen in the 1990s by a disgraced Wisconsin Historical Society museum curator has wended its way back to the institution’s collection, nurturing a faint but persistent hope that other stolen artifacts might follow.

The path to the recovery of the beaded, northern Plains knife sheath began in January, but the return of the sheath from an unnamed museum in New York was not announced until last week in an understated notice in a monthly society publication.
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