The specific circumstances of how different objects were removed have been documented to varying degrees, but the pattern is clear: in the chaos and aftermath of his death, things that belonged to Sitting Bull — and things that were Sitting Bull — moved into the hands of people who had no right to them.

A lock of his hair was among the items that were taken.

Leggings that he had been wearing or that were associated with him were also removed.

These objects eventually made their way into the collection of the Army Medical Museum and, from there, into the collections of what would become the Smithsonian Institution — the country’s largest complex of museums and research institutions, maintained by the federal government as a public trust.

The Smithsonian’s collection of Native American human remains and sacred objects was, by the late twentieth century, a subject of intense ethical and political controversy.