They named him in their language.

They governed the research that his remains made possible.

They organized a community DNA study that engaged more than 240 volunteers.

That study identified seventeen people whose mitochondrial DNA sequences matched his closely enough to indicate a shared maternal ancestor.

Those seventeen people are not simply data points in a genetic study.

They are members of communities — the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, the Tlingit communities of the Alaska Panhandle and northwestern British Columbia, and the other communities represented among the volunteers — whose daily lives are embedded in the same broad landscape that Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi traveled through centuries ago.

They speak languages descended from the languages he spoke.