Burial at Pine Ridge
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.
