Lakota sacred belongings repatriated from Scotland
This baby bonnet was taken following the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and given to a Scottish museum. Alan Broadfoot/Glasgow Museums and Libraries Collections
A war necklace made of deer hooves is one of the artifacts a Native American group hopes to see returned. Alan Broadfoot/Glasgow Museums and Libraries Collections
More than 130 years ago a Glasgow, Scotland, museum acquired a collection of Lakota belongings from George Crager, the Lakota interpreter with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show on European tour. Crager had lived and worked among the Pine Ridge Lakota before the Wounded Knee massacre and for a short time afterward.
More than 15 years ago, the late Marcella LeBeau (Cheyenne River Lakota) approached the museum for repatriation. LeBeau was still in the process of negotiating for those artifacts at the time of her death in 2021 at age 102. Now, the sacred belongings are finally coming home.
Glasgow Museums’ archives show that Crager sold fourteen and donated another fourteen Native American items to the Museums’ collections in January 1892. The collection included five objects Crager associated with Wounded Knee, including a pair of moccasins he said were taken from the son of Spotted Elk, a deer hoof war necklace Crager alleged was taken from the body of a dead warrior, a cradleboard cover he claimed was found at the site of the massacre, and a Ghost Dance Shirt.
Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has since housed the collection with the exception of the Ghost Dance Shirt, which was returned to the Wounded Knee Survivors’ Association on the Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota in November 1998, following prolonged negotiation and several appeals.
The current return will include the belongings collected by Crager and traced back to the Lakota, including the remaining items associated with the Wounded Knee massacre site. Also, returning are items of clothing associated with named ancestors of the Oceti Sakowin, four sacred tobacco pipes, and other items collected in the time period immediately before the 1890 massacre or taken from the Lakota performers on the Wild West Show’s European tour.
The return of these and similar artifacts in the United States are governed under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). However, no such agreement exists between the United States and foreign governments. The return of such artifacts by overseas institutions is at the discretion of each museum.
According to Gerri LeBeau (Cheyenne River Lakota), “The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and Oglala Sioux Tribe are … working together to recover sacred cultural objects from Wounded Knee, which are now housed with the Glasgow museums in Scotland. These cultural items are sacred to our people. The cooperation between our Tribes is important to respect the spirits of our ancestors who lost their lives as they sought freedom to live with their relatives according to their traditions. …”
David McDonald is deputy leader and chair of Glasgow Life, an organization that manages several museums in the Scottish capital. McDonald says, “Each case (of repatriation) is highly individual and involves complex logistics, bureaucracy and costs.”
Honor Keeler (Cherokee) works in international repatriation, sacred lands protection, and Indigenous human rights issues in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries. With ceremonial leaders and Indigenous governments, she often helps locate Indigenous ancestors and items held in overseas collections by museums, governments, and private collectors. She also advocates at the United Nations for international repatriation and with countries that claim to hold jurisdiction/land bases overlapping Indigenous communities. She is also a legal scholar and is currently working as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University. However, her international repatriation work is voluntary and outside the scope of her teaching at Brown.
Keeler provided this statement for this story: “I came to know Marcella LeBeau and her family over 13 years ago when I was conducting an international study on the holdings of Indigenous Ancestors and cultural items in European institutions and offered my assistance after she passed away to her family and Native Nation who wished to complete her repatriation work at Museums Glasgow.
“Indigenous Nations, communities, and ceremonial leaders have worked tirelessly over many decades to bring home (repatriate) their Ancestors, funerary objects, sacred items, and cultural patrimony. This is part of a global Indigenous Movement about Indigenous Human Rights and the Laws of Indigenous Nations that is finally beginning to be recognized by institutions and collectors who are seeking to address this terrible injustice and recognize their opportunity to change the outcomes of this legacy that dehumanized Indigenous people.”
Patricia Allan is the Curator of World Cultures for Glasgow Museums. She wrote in a personal email to this writer, “We are currently reaching the final stages of preparation for the transportation of the 25 artefacts to South Dakota. …I was initially approached by the late Marcella LeBeau in 2008, and following her death continued to gather evidence in support of the claim with members of her family and other members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.”
She continued, “Their formal claim was submitted on February 28th, 2020. It was approved by the Repatriation Working Group and final approval given Glasgow City Council’s City Administration Committee on April 7, 2022. …Our part in the story is nearly over, and we are merely returning what was never ours. …Any other planning for the return will be decided and carried out by the rightful owners; we do not set conditions on the fate of objects that were taken illegally. …It was our honour to care for these ancestors, and it was with great humility that we send them home, with profound apologies for the great wrong that was done 130 years ago.”
At press time, no one interviewed for this story would estimate when the sacred belongings will actually be back in the hands of the Lakota descendants. Future issues of the Native Sun News Today will report any progress in the repatriation of these sacred belongings.
The U.S. Army murdered estimated 300 unarmed Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee in 1890 on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. Following the massacre, clothing and other objects were stolen from the dead.
Congress awarded twenty Medals of Honor to soldiers for the shameful acts that occurred during the Wounded Knee Massacre. In addition to repatriation of the items stolen from the dead, descendants of Wounded Knee victims are campaigning for the revocation of these 20 Medals of Honor. The Remove the Stain Act first introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 116th Congress (2019- 2020) would rescind these medals.
SD Governor Kristi Noem recently spoke about the Wounded Knee Massacre at a press conference. “Wounded Knee was horrific,” she said. “Our students should absolutely learn about the atrocities that happened there. I’m hopeful at some point the tribe will come to the table and work with me. I think that’s something the state could partner with them on.”
SOURCES:
Personal email communications with Patricia Allan, Honor Keelor, and Gerri LeBeau
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September 29, 2023