It provided scientific documentation of the family relationship that LaPointe and his sisters had claimed, which strengthens the family’s standing in institutional contexts where such documentation matters.

It did not determine what the tribal government’s rights or authority are in relation to Sitting Bull’s burial or legacy.

The broader Lakota Nation — including the seven council fires and the communities and reservations across the northern Great Plains that constitute it — maintains the cultural and historical memory of Sitting Bull in ways that go beyond any specific legal or scientific framework.

He is part of the living historical consciousness of the Lakota people, a figure whose life and death and legacy are understood through frameworks that predate and exceed the DNA study, the repatriation legislation, and the museum collection that held his hair for a century.