With Thanksgiving coming up, many educational institutions will be closing their doors for a short week. Oglala Lakota College has announced several events, including a Ribbon Skirt/Shirt Making class, which will be held on November 22, 2023, as part of Lakota Culture Day.
In November 2022, Oglala Lakota College celebrated a historic moment when it received over 100 artifacts that were repatriated from a Massachusetts museum. OLC celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021.
News reports indicate that representatives from the Oglala Sioux, descendants of Wounded Knee, and members of the International Indigenous Youth Council’s Oglala Chapter brought the artifacts back to South Dakota to rest at Oglala Lakota College until a decision is made on what to do with them.
During the summer of 2022, the Barre Museum Association in Massachusetts issued a press release stating that it was in the process of repatriating part of its Native American collection stored in its Founders Museum.
This was done in accordance with the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which came with a formal apology from Congress for the massacre of some 300 Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890.
Mia Feroleto, editor and publisher of New Horizons Magazine, was designated as a representative of the Oglala Lakota tribe and played a crucial role in organizing a trip for several individuals from the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne reservations in South Dakota during the spring of 2022.
The group included Chief Henry Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Manny Iron Hawk of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, and his wife, Renee Iron Hawk.
In a November 10, 2022, article in Smithsonian Magazine, Molly Enking reported that members of the Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes traveled to the Founders Museum for the official handoff of the items.
Jenna Kunze of Native News Online reported that the historical ceremonial pipes, moccasins, clothing, and the dried umbilical cords traditionally kept by tribal members throughout their lives were taken off the dead at Wounded Knee, sold to a Massachusetts resident, who donated the artifacts to the Founders Museum in 1892.
Since the early 1990s, the Wounded Knee Survivors Association in South Dakota had been asking the museum to return the artifacts.
In 1993, the museum’s then-curator told a New York Times reporter that she thought of the artifacts as artworks, adding, “I’m sorry I didn’t realize the significance of these things.”
In 2007, the museum board tried to return some of the artifacts to the Lakota people, but board member Elizabeth Martin previously told Native News Online that it was unclear to which entity they belonged.
A large #rematriation project that has been decades in the making is now complete. About 150 sacred Lakota cultural items are being returned to the Oglala Sioux Nation and will be stored at the Oglala Lakota College.
— Cultural Survival (@CSORG) October 17, 2022
The American West Staff Ride traveled to South Dakota. Cadets visited the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre, discussed the Ghost Dances, and met with Native American veterans. Special thanks to Prof. Karen Two Hill of Oglala Lakota College for discussing Wounded Knee with us. pic.twitter.com/I3BkI4ZTwb
— USMA History Dept (@westpointhist) March 14, 2018
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