The arrest order that produced the confrontation at his camp was ordered by an agent who had wanted to remove him for years and who saw in the Ghost Dance movement the opportunity to justify doing so.

The death was not incidental or accidental — it was the intended outcome of an arrest ordered by people who expected, or at least accepted, that resistance was likely.

What happened to his belongings after his death — the taking, the century of museum custody, the repatriation, the DNA study — is a continuation of that story in a different register.

The struggle over what his legacy means, who has authority over it, and how it is documented and remembered is a continuation of the same contest that defined his life: between Lakota authority over Lakota lives and history, and the federal frameworks and institutional apparatus that have consistently sought to define that history on terms favorable to the dominant culture.

The hair came home.