BARRE – More than 100 artifacts pilfered from the bodies of many of the nearly 300 Lakota people slaughtered at the Wounded Knee Massacre 132 years ago are now much closer to their rightful resting places. The massacre took place on Dec. 29, 1890, when a contingent of the U.S. 7th Cavalry surrounded a group of Lakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and opened fire. Many items taken from the site, including body parts, eventually found their way to Barre through traveling shoe salesman Frank Root. They were eventually placed into the permanent display of the Barre Museum.
On Saturday, in a symbolic handover of the artifacts, Barre Museum Association President Ann Meilus presented two representatives of the Lakota people — Cedric Broken Nose and Mike He Crow — with a box representing the items that have been in possession of the museum for many decades. It had taken 30 years of effort for the two sides to reach agreement on the transfer of ownership.
“This is a very important historical event happening here,” Broken Nose said in an interview prior to Saturday’s ceremony. “These items were taken from the ancestors of our people from the Wounded Knee Massacre. It’s been a very long time coming, and it’s very important to take the items back home.
“Chief Big Foot was my great grandfather and now I have the great honor to take these back. It’s very important to take these items back home now because there is unease within the spirit of these items. These items don’t belong to us, they belong to our ancestors, and we have to right for them.”
About 250 people packed the gymnasium at Ruggles Lane School in Barre for the event. 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.
Cedric Broken Nose said as the items are returned, the present-day Lakota will heal from the tragedy. He said it was his hope that Saturday’s event will be the first of many such ceremonies to take place around the country.
“It can open the doors to all other museums and schools and other places that have artifacts from all other tribes and massacres. What is happening today is a door-opener for that,” he said.
A ceremony celebrating the return of the artifacts was planned for Tuesday, Nov. 8. They will then be held until a ceremony takes place on Dec. 29, marking the date of the massacre.
“We’re going to take these artifacts and put them in a teepee, and we’re going to have service of bereavement. Then, throughout the whole year, we’re going to have meetings to determine who (the artifacts) belong to. And then a year from now, we will distribute them back to the descendants (of the massacre victims).”
Broken Nose said the next step being taken is an effort to wring an official apology from the U.S. government for the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Lakota also want to see the 20 medals of honor handed out to some of the participants in the massacre rescinded. “We want those medals taken away, and we want an apology, too,” he said.
Ideally, he said, Native Americans would like to receive an apology for the treatment they have endured since the arrival of Europeans on North American shores.
Troy Phillips, chairperson for the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs and an elder of the Nipmuc Tribe, said the handover of the Wounded Knee artifacts represents in small part a recognition from the ancestors of the European settlers — or invaders, depending on one’s perspective — that Native Americans were subject to injustice and cruelty.
“It’s a very small part,” he added. “There’s a long way to go. What we hope is that this is an example of the right thing to do, which is to honor our ancestors who were treated in the wrong way — even after the fact. That’s desecration right there.
“In order for the healing process to begin, we need to acknowledge those items belong to our ancestors, no matter what museum, what private collection they may be in. For our native folks to process that, we need to see those items and receive them back in order for us to grow, and for anybody else to heal. That should be the biggest takeaway; this isn’t a celebration, it’s part of the healing process.”
Speaking before the symbolic handover of artifacts, an emotional Museum President Meilus said, “Today is an historic event. Our little town of Barre has a long heritage of being a center of peace and the fight for freedom. Today, we continue to capture that tradition of peace by bringing peace to the ancestors and relatives of the Lakota Tribe.
“It is my great honor to present these artifacts that belong to the Lakota people back to the Lakota Nation, a nation which has suffered a great wrong at the hands of the U.S. government — for the unwarranted slaughter of innocent people. For that, I am truly sorry.”
Addressing the Lakota representatives, Meilus said, “I hope that by repatriating these items that you can start to heal. I wish you a destiny of peace and happiness.”
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.