Repatriation to Lineal Descendants of Sitting Bull

Summary

Despite numerous books and historical accounts of the 1890 death of Sitting Bull, only one obscure 1893 magazine article mentions that a U.S. Army surgeon cut off a lock of Sitting Bull’s hair and took leggings from his body. These items were loaned to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History back in 1896 and were recently evaluated for repatriation and were returned to Sitting Bull’s family. This poster reviews the research that determined which descendants had the highest standing under the law, describes the return of these items to Sitting Bull’s descendants and discusses how the repatriation has affected the family.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• NAGPRA and Beyond: successes and shared benefits of collaboration

Keywords

Spatial Coverage