SCOUTING YESTERDAY: A century later, feds return Oglala Lakota remains to South Dakota tribe

This week in South Dakota History: Dec. 27 - Jan. 2

Carlisle Indian Industrial School grave. Photo: www.indianz.com

After more than 100 years in government possesion, the remains of 42 Oglala Lakota were returned to the tribe and laid to rest on the Pine Ridge reservation Dec. 29, 1998, according to the Rapid City Journal.

The majority of the dead were unidentified but anthropologists concluded all 42 were Oglala Lakota. Among those that were identified were Blackfoot and Two Face, who’d both been hanged in Laramie, Wyo.

Connie Fast Horse told the Rapid City Journal that Two Face and Blackfoot were chiefs who helped free a woman and child from the Cheyenne tribe. When the pair arrived with the woman and child at Fort Laramie, the woman claimed the men had mistreated her, for which they were executed.

The remains had been collected from 1860 until the 1890s by the U.S. Army. The Army collected the bodies from a variety of sources — some were killed in battles, some reportedly suicide victims and others taken from funerary scaffolds and graves. The Army and its Army Medical Museum had collected them for research. The Smithsonian Institution later acquired the remains, storing them in filing cabinets. It was unknown if the dead had ever been on exhibit.

NEW: Public will vote on $7.4M jail proposal in Edmunds County