National Geographic: Ancient Graves: Voices of the Dead Page #5

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The conflict is especially heated

in North America.

In the last century, countless Indian

burials have been stripped bare.

Today, museums and institutes

across the United States

house the remains of

some 300,000 Native Americans.

In 1927, this thousand-year-old

burial site in Illinois

was opened to the public.

The Dickson Mounds Museum

would prosper.

But in the 1980s,

Native Americans registered complaints

about the exposed skeletons.

By the 1990s,

protests were held outside the museum.

"...in our own land.

So this movement,

the American Indian movement,

is said to be first

a spiritual movement."

To political activist

Vernon Bellecourt,

of the Ojibwa tribe,

and to many others,

the burial display

was deeply disturbing.

"We practice our spiritual

way of life.

We still have our language,

our prayer songs and,

and many of us who follow

the traditional teachings of our,

of our grandfathers and grandmothers,

we then take exception

when we see our burial sites being

desecrated and the physical remains

of our ancestors

who are in an open burial pit

for tourists and others to witness.

We decided to take

some direct action."

In 1991, Bellecourt and four

other activists were forcibly removed

from the museum for attempting

to rebury the skeletons.

One year later, museum officials

closed the display,

and completely covered it with earth.

Under a law passed in 1990,

federally funded institutions

have begun to return Indian remains

to their tribes.

Native peoples

in Australia, New Zealand,

Africa and elsewhere are calling

for similar policies.

Across time and space,

the voices of the dead still reach us-

in the most surprising ways.

In 1991, a British housewife purchased

a book at an antique market

near her home

in the town of Bromsgrove.

Since childhood,

Elizabeth Knight had been captivated

by Native American culture.

Her new book included a 1920s essay

about an Indian chief

who visited London-

and never returned home.

It was the story of Chief Long Wolf.

Legend has it, he was a seasoned Sioux

warrior who fought at Little Big Horn.

Documents suggest he was one of

several Indian "prisoners of war"

released by the US Government

to the custody of Buffalo Bill Cody.

In 1892, Cody's Wild West Show

toured Europe.

Chief Long Wolf, at age 59,

was the oldest performer in the troupe.

In London, the show was applauded

by Queen Victoria.

But Long Wolf developed pneumonia.

As he lay dying,

he asked his wife to take his body

back to the land of his ancestors.

But on June 13th, he was buried,

under the sign of the wolf,

in London's Brompton Cemetery.

His wife and child returned home.

In time, his gravesite was forgotten.

The chief's final wish

touched Elizabeth deeply.

"I had the book for

a couple of weeks and,

I put the book back

on the shelf several times,

but eventually I had to take it down

and said to my husband,

'I'll have to do something about this

because it's really bothering me."'

Some 35,000 gravestones rise

from the grounds of Brompton Cemetery.

On May 1, 1992, Elizabeth

searched the aisles

until she found the weathered wolf.

"I made a vow to try and help him.

To try and find his family, because I

knew his spirit would forever wander."

Half a world away, in Tempe, Arizona,

Long Wolf was far from forgotten.

A retired mechanic, John Black Feather

was born and raised in South Dakota,

not far from the site of Wounded Knee.

John had always known his great

grandfather was buried in London-

but he had no idea exactly where.

"I've been hearing about Long Wolf

ever since I was about five years old.

My mother always talked about

trying to find him but still,

we didn't know how to go

about finding him.

That's like looking for

a needle in a haystack."

In 1992,

John's wife spotted a newspaper

article that changed everything.

Elizabeth Knight's letter

marked the beginning of four years

of planning and fundraising.

"Maybe you should writer her, a letter

to her right away and see what..."

"I always knew that

he would one day come home.

I never thought I'd be involved with

it a hundred years later, but, I did."

September 25th, 1997.

The Black Feather family come to

London to claim one of their own.

"It's not a sad day for us.

It's, it's, it's gonna be like

a great homecoming for him

when we get him back to South Dakota."

For Elizabeth Knight it is a day

of promises kept.

"This is a moment of resolution,

of achievement, and blessing."

"It was the most extraordinary day

of my life.

And I'm sure Long Wolf's spirit

was there."

On September 28th, 1997,

Long Wolf is laid to rest

in a small cemetery in Wolf Creek,

South Dakota.

His descendants reenact

an ancient rite,

this gesture of love beyond death.

More than anything else,

it may be what makes us human.

We all stand on the shoulders

of those who came before us.

We walk in their footsteps.

We live on their graves.

Each time we speak their names,

or honor their ways,

perhaps they do live again.

To be remembered, and nothing more.

That alone may be the secret

to immortality.

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