If Crazy Horse is buried in the Black Hills, or in the territory that the Lakota regard as theirs by treaty right, then the burial site is on land whose status is contested from the Lakota perspective.

The ongoing dispute over the Black Hills, combined with the ongoing mystery of the burial, represents two aspects of the same fundamental question: whose authority governs this land, and what does that authority mean for the history and the remains it contains?

The Pine Ridge Today: What The Landscape Holds

The Pine Ridge Reservation today is the second-largest Native American reservation in the United States, covering approximately 3,500 square miles.

It is home to approximately 40,000 Oglala Lakota people, though a significant additional number live off-reservation.