Native American tribe members working to retrieve historical items stolen from the bodies of the dead at the U.S. Army’s massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota claim bureaucracy has stalled the return of the artifacts.
Members of the Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne River Sioux claimed the Barre Museum in Barre, Massachusetts, reversed its April decision to return the items. However, the museum said it still planned to return the items but had to follow certain protocols, according to the Washington Post.
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“They said they were going to give them back verbally,” Manny Iron Hawk, a member of the Lakota, said, the newspaper reported Sunday. “Now they seem to have changed their mind and gone back on their word about returning them to us. We’re used to that as natives, people haven’t kept their word to us for centuries.”
“It’s a stolen collection,” Iron Hawk also said of the Barre objects. “Just like they stole our lands; it’s the same.”
Native American tribes have spent decades attempting to retrieve lost items from U.S. history museums but were often dismissed. In April, board members at the Barre Museum Association agreed to return items after certain stipulations were met during a visit from representatives of the tribe. The stipulations included an expert checking the authenticity of the items, testing the items for arsenic, which would preserve the artifacts, and getting resolutions passed by the tribal councils, according to the report.
The president of the association board, Ann Meilus, said she was in favor of returning the artifacts.
“If you meet the people, they are still in a great deal of pain,” Meilus told the outlet. “It’s multigenerational pain, and if we can help them, the Oglala Sioux people, get closure, I’m all for it.”
The artifacts were donated to the museum in 1892 by a traveling shoe salesman named Frank Root, who was known for buying Native American artifacts that he used in his roadshow, the outlet reported. Lakota members said the artifacts stemmed from the 1890 massacre that killed approximately 250 Native Americans at Wounded Knee Creek. However, the museum said it believes the artifacts could stem from as many as 30 different tribes.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the museum for comment.
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In 1990, Congress issued a sincere apology for the massacre. Later that year, Congress said museums receiving federal funding needed to return any Native American remains or objects to their rightful owners.
The Lakota saw a recent victory overseas in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this year after the City Council agreed to return items to the United States, India, and Nigeria.
