Phillip Walker, anthropologist and great-grandson of an American Indian, is a troubled man.

For years the UC Santa Barbara professor has been studying the birth defect spina bifida. The specific objects of his research have been remains of the prehistoric Indians of the Channel Islands, where the condition was common.

Looking at the bones of the 1,000-year-old victims, Walker says, gives him clues about the environmental and genetic causes of spina bifida. That in turn might help the living.

But Walker might not be able to complete his study because the bones may be gone, the subject of a growing national movement to return Indians' remains and sacred artifacts to their descendants.

"If there aren't any remains, then I won't be able to see what the distribution of those conditions were, and what environmental and genetic factors explain it," said Walker, whose Potawatomi ancestry influenced his choice of vocations. "I feel I've been working \o7 for \f7 Native Americans."

But Indians and their advocates say reburial, which they refer to as "repatriation," represents a long-overdue way to recognize Indians as human beings and restore dignity to a people whose spiritual beliefs have been trampled on.

Laws in more than 30 states already protect American Indian graves and require negotiations with living Indians if bones and related artifacts are unearthed.

Under a bill passed by the California Legislature and sent to the governor Friday, a complete inventory of Indian remains must be undertaken and descendants must be notified of the existence of the bones. The descendants would be entitled to take possession of the bones for reburial. The University of California, which has a collection of more than 1 million bones--many of them out of the ground for decades--vigorously opposed the bill.

Legislation pending in Congress would compel museum curators to inventory their archeological holdings, then deal with the tribes most closely affiliated with the deceased. Only successful negotiations with the living Indians, or proof that the bones and grave artifacts were obtained with tribal permission, would entitle the institutions to keep them.

A federal law passed last year has already commanded the Smithsonian Institution to inventory its collection of some 30,000 skeletal remains, of which an estimated 18,500 are those of American Indians.