Children who might have learned specific traditions, specific ceremonies, specific pieces of community history from grandparents and parents were instead placed in institutions where English was enforced, Lakota was punished, and the specific practices of knowledge transmission in Lakota culture were absent.

The impact of these policies on the transmission of specific pieces of knowledge — including potentially the knowledge of Crazy Horse’s burial location — is not something that can be precisely quantified.

What can be said is that the period between the 1880s and the 1930s was a period of significant disruption in the cultural knowledge systems of Lakota communities at Pine Ridge.

Some knowledge survived.