His hair is back with his family.

His descendants know who they are.

The DNA confirmed what they had always known.

What the story of the hair does, if read carefully, is illuminate the structures that made all of this — the taking, the century of custody, the repatriation, the scientific study, the ongoing disputes — necessary.

Those structures are not historical curiosities.

They are the contexts within which Indigenous communities continue to navigate the relationship between what they know and what institutional frameworks require them to prove.

The hair was small enough to hold between two fingers.