The Battle of Wounded Pride
How city’s repatriation of ‘souvenirs’ from massacre of Native Americans is being delayed by reams of red tape
THEY are revered artefacts set to return to their ancestral home.
But the repatriation of items looted from victims of the Wounded Knee Massacre – also called the Battle of Wounded Knee – has been delayed by red tape.
Glasgow Museums has committed to returning to the Cheyenne River and Oglala Sioux tribes around 25 items of clothing and jewellery taken after the infamous incident in South Dakota.
However, because some of the artefacts contain feathers and porcupine quills, they fall foul of US laws and so efforts to repatriate them have reached an impasse.
The macabre items were purreturned. chased by the city from George Crager, a Lakota interpreter for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, which played to capacity audiences across Scotland in late 1891 and early 1892.
They had been stripped from the victims of the 1890 massacre – nearly half of whom were women and children – when around 300 largely defenceless Lakota Native Americans were cut down by troops of the US 7th Cavalry.
Some of the items, including yellow buckskin child’s leggings, contain porcupine quills, prohibited in the US as a potential vector for diseases such as monkeypox.
The Oceti Sakowin Nation, which represents the Sioux tribes, has long demanded the items be But feathers in some other items are prohibited from entry to the US without a permit under the American Migratory Bird Treaty Act, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
A spokesman for Glasgow Museums said: ‘We are continuing to progress plans for the repatriation of 25 Oceti Sakowin cultural items belonging to the Cheyenne River and Oglala Sioux tribes of South Dakota.
‘The planning and coordination of packing and transporting fragile artefacts to remote indigenous communities is complex, involving bureaucratic procedures necessary to satisfy both UK and US border agencies.’
The spokesman added: ‘As yet, we do not have confirmed dates for the return, but we are working closely with the tribes to arrange the physical repatriation of these ancestral items to South Dakota.’
Glasgow has already repatriated one of the most notorious ‘souvenirs’ of the Wounded Knee Massacre, with the return in 1999 of the sacred Ghost Dance shirt which had been on display in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
Marcella LeBeau, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation chapter of the Wounded Knee Survivors Association, was instrumental in the bloodstained shirt’s return. She campaigned for other items to be sent back until her death in 2021, aged 102.
Her work was continued by Charles New Holy, acting chief of the association. At the time of her death he said: ‘We would like these items returned. We have every right to our ancestors’ belongings.’
Michael He Crow, from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, said the objects embodied the spirit of those killed, adding: ‘They are more than objects – they are almost a part of their bodies. So when they were taken from them, it’s like taking a part of those people.’
‘Transporting fragile artefacts is complex’