The remains of 42 Oglala Indians, stored for years in
numbered, steel drawers at the Smithsonian Institution, have now
been laid to rest in South Dakota. The burial marks the end of a
long journey that began more than 100 years ago. Some of the bones
were pilfered from graves and others were stolen from burial
scaffolds. In December, tribal members buried the remains at the
Episcopal cemetery on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation after a
caravan of tribal members collected them in Washington,
D.C.
Only a handful of the remains have been
identified, but anthropologists have determined that all 42 were
Oglala Lakota who died on the Northern Plains from 1860 to the
1890s. Among the dead were Blackfoot, a man in his 50s, and Two
Face, 60, both hanged at Laramie, Wyo., and Fish Belly, a man shot
resisting arrest at Fort Robinson, Neb. Some of the dead were
battle casualties. Others were said to have committed
suicide.
The bones were first collected by the
U.S. Army and its Army Medical Museum, founded during the Civil War
for battle wound research. They later were passed on to the
Smithsonian, which offered to return the remains a decade ago under
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The
tribe has worked ever since to bring them
back.
“Now they’re free,” says Christine Wheeler,
a member of the tribe’s cultural committee. “They’re back in their
homeland; they’re back with their people. And it’s something I will
never forget that I have done.”
*Heidi
Bell
Heidi Bell writes for the
Rapid City Journal.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Burial at Pine Ridge.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
