PIERRE, S.D. — An Indian tribe based in North Dakota will soon get back something that was stolen from the grave of one of its leaders nearly 90 years ago.
The South Dakota State Historical Society is returning an 1801 “Peace and Friendship” medal that members of the Lewis and Clark expedition gave in late 1804 as they made their way up the Missouri River.
The medal bears a likeness of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson on the front. On the back are images of a peace pipe and tomahawk above two hands shaking. The medal had been displayed at the Cultural Heritage Center museum in Pierre for two decades.
The society’s board of trustees voted Friday to officially remove the medal from the museum’s historical collection, a process known as deaccession, so that it can be returned.
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State Historian Ben Jones asked the trustees to take the action. They also officially removed from the collection religious vestments that had come from a Catholic priest or bishop during the Phillippine-American war more than a century ago. The vestments, which had never been displayed because they bore human blood, will go the Sioux Falls Catholic diocese, likely for a de-consecration ceremony.
Jones said the Jefferson peace medal was given to an Arikara chief, Lightning Crow, and the medal was later buried with another Arikara chief, Grey Eyes, in 1823. In 1935, a teenager partially excavated the grave and took the medal. He died during World War II and his family in 2004 donated the medal to the South Dakota State Historical Society.
A tribal historic preservation officer brought up the matter of the medal this year, according to Jones. Federal law requires repatriation of cultural objects. Jones said that he and the museum’s staff realized the medal had to be returned. Jones noted that the family supports giving the medal back.
Museum staff have been in consultation with tribal officials, who are trying to find a descendant of the deceased chief, according to Jones.
Whether that search succeeds is uncertain.
“It will probably remain with the tribe, in some kind of capacity with the tribe,” Jones said.
