The land itself — Pahá Sápa — is what they want, not a financial settlement.

The unresolved status of the Black Hills claim is directly relevant to the burial mystery.

If Crazy Horse is buried in the Black Hills or in the territory that was guaranteed by the 1868 treaty, then the burial site exists on land whose ownership remains disputed from the Lakota perspective.

The connection between the burial mystery and the larger territorial dispute gives the mystery dimensions that go beyond the question of where a specific person is buried.

It is also a question about whose land this is, and who has authority over what happens on it.