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Glasgow's Ghost Dance Shirt

Sam Maddra is a postgraduate student in the Department of Modern History working on her PhD dissertation, Cultures in Collision: The 1891/92 Tour of Britain by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and it’s Continuing Legacy.

After following a rather unconventional path - having graduated in 1987 with a BA in Photographic Studies - I came to the department with a specific research interest. I had previously been researching the history of Glasgow Museum’s Lakota Ghost Dance shirt, which was reportedly removed from the body of a warrior after the massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890. The shirt was donated to the museum by George Crager, the Lakota Interpreter for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and a hundred years later was the subject of a repatriation request by the Wounded Knee Survivors Association

I was asked to present evidence to Glasgow City Council’s Repatriation Working Group on the history of the Ghost Dance shirt, and was fortunate enough to witness the negotiations between the Council and the Survivors Association. After the Council’s decision in November 1998 to repatriate the garment to South Dakota, I was commissioned by Glasgow Museums to write a booklet on the history of their Wounded Knee artefacts.

At the end of July 1999 I travelled as part of a delegation including councillors and museum staff from Glasgow to South Dakota. The purpose of the trip was to return the Ghost Dance shirt to the Lakota Indians. This was the first such repatriation from outside the U.S., and the process of the return brought to light the limitations of American repatriation laws, which did not anticipate repatriations from out with the country.

The shirts’ association with the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee means that the garment is considered sacred by the Lakota, and this became very evident at the ceremonies that the delegation attended. These highly charged and emotional ceremonies took place over a period of four days. They began at Eagle Butte on the Cheyenne River Reservation, where the majority of descendants of both massacre victims, and survivors, live today. This was the first time the majority had spoken publicly about what had happened to their relatives. On Sunday August 1st we travelled in convoy to the massacre site at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It was here that the official hand over of the shirt took place under the watchful eye of a spotted eagle, known to the Lakota as Waa-wa-yanka, the Caretaker, and thought to protect ancient spirits. It’s presence was seen as a sign of atonement and a welcoming message from God. The next day at Pierre, the State Capitol, the ceremonies were concluded at the Museum of the South Dakota State Historical Society, where the shirt will be stored until such time that the Lakota have their own museum.

This was my second research trip to America. In the Summer of 1998 I spent a month working in a number of archives across the US, including the National Archives in Washington DC, the Federal Archives in Kansas City, various sites in South Dakota and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, in Cody, Wyoming. The trip, which was partly funded by the American Philosophical Society’s Phillips Fund for Native American Research, proved to be extremely fruitful.

Sam Maddra