“I believe it’s a good cause because indigenous people over the century have been annihilated, removed from their homeland,” he said at a press conference in Washington.

His perspective reflects the dual concern that animates the descendants’ position: the specific question of what happened to Geronimo’s remains, and the broader question of how any Apache remains came to be in the possession of a private elite organization.

Even if the skull at Skull and Bones is not Geronimo’s — even if it belongs to an unknown Apache soldier or prisoner — the question of its return and proper treatment would remain.

NAGPRA was designed to address exactly this category of situation: Indigenous human remains held by institutions or organizations, separated from their communities of origin.