The tribe has its own relationship to Sitting Bull’s legacy — both as a historical figure of enormous significance to the community and as a subject of ongoing disputes about burial sites, commemorative sites, and cultural patrimony.

The relationship between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s governmental claims and the LaPointe family’s individual family claims is one of the more complex dimensions of the contemporary story around Sitting Bull’s legacy.

These two claims are not necessarily in opposition — family claims and tribal governmental claims can both be valid and can both be relevant in different contexts — but they have sometimes been in tension in the specific context of disputes about the burial site and related questions.

The DNA study did not adjudicate this tension.