They Ghost Danced for the resurrection of their relatives, then our relatives returned

Part one of a two part series

 

WOUNDED KNEE – For more than a century, upwards of 150 Indigenous artifacts, many pilfered from the Chankpé Ópi Wakpála killing fields (Wounded Knee Massacre site), were stored in a Massachusetts museum unbeknownst to descendants of the victims.

The artifacts had been stored in a collection at the Founders Museum in Barre, Massachusetts, after they were acquired from traveling shoe salesman Francis Pitkin Root in late 1891.

According to a January 14, 2023 article by Cecily Hilleary in Voices of America (VOA), Root acquired the items shortly after the Wounded Knee massacre from Pine Ridge Agency transportation manager Cornelius “Nealy” Williams, who had pilfered the items off the bodies of those slain at Wounded Knee.

After showcasing the artifacts in department storefronts, the items were placed at “a museum in connection with a public library” in Barre, Massachusetts on permanent loan from Root. There they lingered, consigned to oblivion until in 1990 activist and author Mia Feroleto contacted Alex White Plume.

White Plume had been in engaged in a four year pilgrimage to memorialize the 100th Anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre.

In 1986, Alex along with his brother Percy White Plume, Curtis Kills Ree, Birgil Kills Straight, Rocky Afraid of Hawk, Jim Garrett, and others had begun a four year 300 mile trek on horseback retracing the steps of their ancestors that would culminate in 1990 on 100th Anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Each year, the Sitanka Wokiksuye Ride began on the Standing Rock Reservation, where Tatanka Íyotake (Sitting Bull) was killed along the Grand River, through the Cheyenne River Reservation where Tatánka Íyotake’s relatives fled south after he was killed and met up with Uŋpȟáŋ Glešká’s (Spotted Elk’s (Chief Big Foot’s) band and ended at the massacre site at Chankpé Ópi Wakpála.

Feroleto informed Alex that clothing items from the bodies of his ancestors were being stored in a collection at the Founders Museum in Barre, Massachusetts.

“In the summer of 1990, a lady called me from Massachusetts and said, ‘Do you know that the clothing of all the dead people at Wounded Knee is up here in the museum at Barre?’ That just shocked me. Oh! It was hard to bear,” Alex told VOA.

Then he made the heartbreaking trip to Barre, Massachusetts and visited the Founder’s Museum.

“We went in and could just sense the spirits,” he told VOA. “I saw a clump of hair, and I said, ‘This is Bigfoot’s hair!’ And little baby clothes, totally beaded, just beautiful designs. And then you’d look at the back part, there would be a big black hole where the bullet exited the body.”

Then 27 years later Feroleto found her calling, help repatriate the 150 artifacts to their rightful owners, members of the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation). An October 15, 2022 article in the Eagle Times titled “Like I Was Coming Home: Mia Feroleto’s Quest to Repatriate Over 150 Artifacts” by journalist Layla Burke Kalinen, details Feroleto’s journey.

In 2017 Feroleto had been working as a fine artist and had just helped wrap up the last issue of the magazine on indigenous cultures, ‘New Observations’, for the legalization of industrial hemp. Her work led her to meet Alex White Plume, who had served both as President and Vice President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

“He is a hero in the industrial hemp movement. He changed the face of industrial hemp,” Feroleto told the Eagle Times.

Then a visit to the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2017 would lead to Feroleto’s unwavering quest to repatriate the Lakota artifacts she discovered at the Founders Museum.

Fereleto said during her visit to the Indian Market she had a vision of an elder with white hair, clad in white buckskin with colored embroidery who told her, “The road is clear, you’re protected on your journey, and they are waiting for you there.”

After the exhibition, Feroleto said she drove up to Pine Ridge to see Alex White Plume and upon her arrival she said she felt like she was home, “As I was driving toward Pine Ridge the feeling, I felt was immense. I definitely felt like I was coming home,” Feroleto told the Eagle Times.

She said she divided her time between staying at the White Plume family’s residence and with Henry Red Cloud, the great, great grandson of Chief Red Cloud.

After a ten-day visit Feroleto left Pine Ridge, went home to Vermont and packed her belongings and moved to Pine Ridge.

“I was back there by Thanksgiving Day in 2018,” she said. “I stayed for a year and since then I divided my time between Vermont and Pine Ridge.”

Also instrumental in the return of the artifacts was John Willis, Emeriti Professor of Marlboro College in Vermont. Willis told Native Sun News Today that he had been coming out to South Dakota for 31 years.

Willis said he became involved in 2015 when he was teaching a class with Leonard Little Finger who had been going out to visit the Museum since the 90’s. Little Finger was one of the people who fought to get the items returned to the Oceti Sakowin.

“He told me about the items. He asked myself and other people that were with me, this whole group of teachers and students, if we could go there and photograph the items and catalog a list of everything so the families and the tribes would know what we have and try and push them to give them back,” Willis said.

He said since 2015 he began visiting the museum several times a year, because he was living just over the border in Vermont. “I brought some Lakota youth there and at one point we had a cross cultural youth camp for many years in Eastern Vermont.”

Willis said the Founders Museum which is located in Barre, Massachusetts, was closed most of the year and only opened three or four afternoons a year for a few hours. In order to view the items one had to make an appointment. He said one was escorted into this big dark room with cluttered display cases where one often needed a flashlight to view the artifacts.

“They never let anyone photograph any of the items and they always followed people around making sure no one stole any of the artifacts, or take notes or photograph any of them,” he said.

After a change in the museum board of directors, and with the help of Leola One Feather, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, things began to move forward. Willis said John Wampanoag a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe from Cape Cod was also instrumental in moving the process forward.

A joint press release dated August 19, 2022 from the Barre Museum Association and Barre Library Association the two entities that manage Founders Museum and own the articles within its collection, announced that they had begun the repatriation process, “Since January 2022, the Barre Museum and Barre Library Association have taken concrete steps to start down the road to repatriation of appropriate items in the Native American Collection.”

“Discussions and museum visits were conducted with Mia Feroleto, Editor and Publisher of ‘New Horizons Magazine’ from January to March,” the press release states. They state that Feroleto was instrumental in organizing a trip comprised of members of the Cheyenne River and Oglala Sioux Tribes in April of 2022. Members of the tribes traveled to Barre, toured the museum and viewed the artifacts. Tribal members also met with board members who shortly thereafter agreed to continue the repatriation process.

After the items were carefully photographed and cataloged by John Willis and Leola One Feather, they were carefully packaged into archival-quality boxes pending the results of the repatriation process.

Board members finally came to the consensus that it was time to return 150 of the items that had been identified as from the Wounded Knee Massacre site and other Siouan items in their collection to members of the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation) because, “It was the right thing to do.”

In November of 2022 a delegation from several Sioux Tribes traveled to Barre and helped transport approximately 150 items, some taken from the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre site, back to Oceti Sakowin territory.

In a symbolic ceremony held in a gymnasium at Ruggles Lane School in Barre, Ann Meilus president of the Barre Museum Association handed over several items from their collection to representatives of the Si Tanka Ta Oyate, Cedric Broken Nose and Mike He Crow.

The ceremony included offerings and prayers for the safe return of the collection, as well as a prayer of gratitude for the people of Barre. The offerings and prayers were led by spiritual leaders Richard Moves Camp and Richard Broken Nose. Ivan Looking Horse then offered a traditional Lakota song. The members of the Lakota nation were welcomed by Nipmuc Chief Cheryll Toney Holley.

“It was always important to me to give them back,” Meilus said. “I think the museum will be remembered for being on the right side of history for returning these items.”

Next week part two: Repatriated items from Wounded Knee will not be burned

(Contact Ernestine Anunkasan Hopa at editor@nativesunnews.today)

The post They Ghost Danced for the resurrection of their relatives, then our relatives returned first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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