Here Lies Sitting Bull

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Here Lies Sitting Bull
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Here, on a snow-dusted bluff overlooking the
Missouri River, rests Sitting Bull. Or so it is
said.
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Stand before the monument, in background, and see
the pocks left in the granite by bullets. And
wonder, along with the rest of the Dakotas Is
Sitting Bull here?
The sites poor condition annoyed Rhett A.
Albers, left, and Bryan J. Defender, so in 2005,
they bought the monument and the 40-acre parcel
from a private owner for 55,000. They mowed the
grass, trucked away 50 cubic yards of debris, and
established a non-profit corporation with plans
to recoup their expenses and establish a cultural
and educational center.
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The government buried Sitting Bull in Fort Yates,
on the North Dakota side of the Standing Rock
Indian Reservation. Then, in 1953, some Chamber
of Commerce types from the small South Dakota
city of Mobridge executed a startling plan. With
the blessing of a few of Sitting Bull's
descendants, they crossed into North Dakota after
midnight and exhumed what they believed were
Sitting Bull's remains.
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A Mobridge mortician supervising the exhumation
was photographed holding a cigarette in one hand
and a human femur in the other.
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The men raced 55 miles back to bury the remains
on this bluff, across the river from Mobridge.
They scoffed at North Dakota's contention that
they had taken the wrong bones, and justified
their actions by saying that Sitting Bull was
born near here and that the sculptor Korczak
Ziolkowski would soon create a more fitting
monument to him.
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When asked whether he believes Sitting Bull is
buried on that bluff in South Dakota, Ron His
Horse Is Thunder, the chairman of the Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe and a great-great-great grandson
of Sitting Bull, slowly shook his head no.
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Then where is Sitting Bull? LaDonna Brave Bull
Allard, a tribal historian and storyteller, said,
"A person like Sitting Bull was never meant to
just die and disappear."
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Credit
http//www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/01/26/us/200
70127_SITTING_SLIDESHOW_1.html