Danish scientists identify Sitting Bulls great-grandson
The study, published in Science Advances, was led by professor and DNA detective Eske Willerslev. The scientists analysed a fragment of hair from the legendary Native American leader. Now his great-grandson wants to dig up his ancestor’s concrete-sealed bones.
Brave people who die in the fight against injustice and superior forces sometimes end up winning in the long run – in the history books.
That’s how it is with Tatanka-Iyotanka, better known as the Native American leader and military leader Sitting Bull (1831-1890), who led some 1,500 Lakota warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and wiped out US General Custer and five companies of soldiers. A blood-soaked feat – also known as ‘the Battle of the Greasy Grass’ – that will forever symbolise the resistance of Native Americans to the white man’s insatiable appetite for empire-building.
Sitting Bull was assassinated in 1890 by the so-called Indian Police, who were acting on behalf of the US government – and presumably they assumed that by doing so they would prevent him ever again playing a leading role in identity politics. But things went just the opposite way, because since 1890, popular fascination with the story of the man’s heroism has merely grown.
Now, 131 years after his murder, Sitting Bull is playing the starring role in a research story that is based on sophisticated analysis of some highly degraded DNA extracted from a lock of his hair, which had been languishing for more than a century at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington.
The DNA analyses, carried out using a specially developed method, were undertaken by a team of Danish scientists led by Professor Eske Willerslev of the Lundbeck Foundation Geogenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen. A researcher from the Smithsonian Museum also took part.
The team’s task was to investigate whether it was possible, on the basis of the nearly disintegrated DNA from a lock of Sitting Bull’s hair, to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question: Is Ernie Lapointe, b. 1948, the renowned Native American’s great-grandchild, and his closest living descendant?
The results of the study have just been published in the scientific journal Science Advances – and the answer is yes: Ernie is the great-grandson of Sitting Bull.
But in addition to the news interest and debate about Sitting Bull that the scientific article may generate, it also paves the way for similar DNA testing of the relationship between many other long-dead historical figures and their possible living descendants, says Professor Willerslev:
‘In principle, you could investigate whoever you want – from outlaws like Jesse James to the Russian tsar’s family, the Romanovs. In many cases, they can be examined in the same way, but the prerequisite, of course, is that you have access to old DNA – typically extracted from bones, hair or teeth.’
The method the research team developed to entice the much-deteriorated DNA from Sitting Bull’s hair to give up its secrets could also be used for purposes other than genealogy, says Professor Willerslev:
‘It could, for example, be applied in the fields of population genetics, history or forensic science. Here, the method will also in many cases make it possible to answer important questions based on old human DNA which has otherwise been considered so degraded that it was not thought worthwhile to try to obtain reliable information from it.’
The lock of hair must be handed over
The road from the initial idea to the finished scientific article on Sitting Bull has been a long one. It has taken 14 years, and the path has been particularly rocky for Eske Willerslev and the four other scientists at the University of Copenhagen who helped him: Ida Moltke, Thorfinn Sand Korneliussen, Andaine Seguin-Orlando and J. Victor Moreno-Mayar.
‘Actually, at times it has almost been surreal,’ begins Eske Willerslev, as he tries to sort out the whole story and tell it ‘right from Adam and Eve’, as he puts it:
‘The thing is, Sitting Bull has always been my hero – ever since I was a boy. I admire his courage and his drive. There is a Sitting Bull poster in my office, where it has hung for many years, and every day I look at him and give him a nod of respect. That’s why I almost choked on my coffee one morning in the autumn of 2007, when I read in a magazine that the Smithsonian Museum had decided to return Sitting Bull’s hair and leggings to Ernie Lapointe and his three sisters – two of whom have since sadly died – in accordance with new US legislation on the so-called repatriation of certain museum objects.’
Since 2004, the museum had been studying various documents, including birth and death certificates, a family tree and various historical documents that Ernie and his sisters had submitted to support their long-standing claim that they were Sitting Bull’s closest living relatives, says Eske Willerslev:
‘And the museum ended up agreeing with them. “My God!”, I thought, when I read that. Because this could be an opportunity to work with Sitting Bull’s DNA, and in my opinion it doesn’t get any bigger than that – unless we’re talking Jesus or Buddha. So I wrote to Ernie Lapointe and explained that I specialised in the analysis of ancient DNA, and that I was an admirer of Sitting Bull, and I would consider it a great honour if I could be allowed to compare the DNA of Ernie and his sisters with the DNA of the Native American leader’s hair when it was returned to them. But I also made no secret of the fact that such a study could end up showing that there was no family relationship, and that they should take that into account in their deliberations.”
When the answer came, it was a yes: Professor Willerslev would be welcome to come to Ernie Lapointe’s house in South Dakota, just outside the Pine Ridge Reservation near the Black Hills, on 15 December 2007. He had to show up without fear – but he also should know that he couldn’t avoid detection if he had sinister intentions – and he should bring an offering in the form of good tobacco.
‘It was an experience – a ceremony – that will be etched in my memory until the day I die,’ says Eske Willerslev: ‘It was so very different from the biological and mathematical reality that I deal with every day that something inside me protested loudly. But another part of me – and luckily, this was the part I listened to – chose to sit back and accept that reality is diverse and sometimes quite surprising.’
In Ernie’s basement
The 15th of December arrived: It was a Saturday, and Eske Willerslev reached Ernie’s house after a stressful transatlantic flight and a long drive. The professor was carrying a tin of ‘My Own Blend’ pipe tobacco and was in no way under the influence of alcohol or narcotics – another condition for attending the ceremony that was to take place shortly afterwards in Ernie’s basement.
First of all, however, they greeted each other, he recalls: ‘There was Ernie, and two of his three sisters. Then there was the anthropologist Bill Billeck from the Smithsonian – he’s also one of the authors of the new scientific paper in Science Advances – as well as a medicine man, Marvin, and six other Native Americans who both sang and beat drums, as it turned out. And finally, there was me.’
Before the lights went out, Eske Willerslev had seen that Marvin had brought two leather bags with him. One of these was large and was treated so gently and respectfully that it must be assumed to represent Sitting Bull himself.
The group went down to Ernie’s basement, into a room which was in all respects ordinary, and where a buffalo skin had been spread out on the floor. The medicine man sat on this, and the six singers and drummers positioned themselves in a semicircle in front of him. The rest of the party also had to sit on the floor, but closer to the wall.
Then the lights went out, the basement was plunged into darkness, and the six singers and drummers began in earnest to deliver a kind of prelude. When it died away it was time to contact Sitting Bull, who had three questions to answer from the spirit world, says Eske Willerslev:
‘It was Marvin, the medicine man, who spoke to Sitting Bull, and since I don’t speak Lakota, I obviously didn’t understand a word. But I was later told what Marvin had asked Sitting Bull, namely: Is the lock of hair that the Smithsonian has kept since 1896, and which Bill Billeck brings today to give to Ernie and his sisters, your lock of hair? And what do you wish to happen to your hair, Sitting Bull? May Eske take a sample to study?”
Before the lights went out, Eske Willerslev had seen that Marvin had brought two leather bags with him. One of these was large and was treated so gently and respectfully that it must be assumed to represent Sitting Bull himself. The other was small – it seemed to be part of Marvin’s ceremonial equipment – and both bags were filled with something that rattled.
‘It might have been stones, but it could also have been dried peas,’ recalls Eske Willerslev. ‘But either way, I sensed – as Marvin talked to Sitting Bull in the dark – that the large skin bag had begun to move around my body with a rather annoying rattle. It circled in strange paths – in a pattern that was confusing and completely unpredictable. I had no sense that it was being led by a hand – nor had I noticed that any of the participants had stood up. The bag just sort of floated around me. All by itself.’
This continued until the bag stopped floating, because it just disappeared – and was replaced by a blue-green light, right in front of the medicine man, says Eske Willerslev: ‘It was very faint, at first just a microscopic dot. But it moved straight towards me, and the closer it got, the bigger and more powerful it became. And then finally – maybe just for a second, but it felt like much longer – the light stood still like a bluish-green disc in front of my face, before disappearing straight up my nose. At the same second, the large skin bag flew through the air with violent force, smashing into the basement wall right behind me.’
That signalled the end of the session, and the participants smoked a peace pipe with something that was neither traditional tobacco nor cannabis, but nonetheless had a distinctly pleasant effect. After the pipe-smoking, they went up to Ernie’s living room, where a kind of meat broth was served.
During the meal, Ernie said that the contact with Sitting Bull had been very good – and that the chief had fully confirmed that the lock of hair was his, and that it was all right for Eske Willerslev to take a sample, albeit a moderate one. The rest of the hair was then to be wrapped in a white cloth and later burned – which has since been done.
‘And that’s how I managed to obtain five or six centimetres of Sitting Bull’s hair before I went home to the University of Copenhagen – and in my luggage I also had DNA samples from Ernie and his three then-living sisters. So the material was there, but I never imagined that it would be so difficult and take all of 14 years to obtain usable DNA from the fragment of hair,’ says Eske Willerslev.
Under the concrete shell
Ernie Lapointe has signed on to Skype.
The scientific article in Science Advances is about to be published, and he is smiling – but not in any way triumphantly – at the thought that very soon, with DNA science behind him, he will be able to say:
‘I am Sitting Bull’s great-grandchild’ – or ‘I am the only great son of Sitting Bull,’ as he puts it. ‘And my older sister (Ethel Little Spotted Horse-Bates, b. 1937, ed.) is his other now-living great-grandchild. Our other sisters are of course also his great-grandchildren, but they are in the spirit world now.’
Ernie Lapointe says that over the years, ‘many people have tried to question the relationship that I and my sisters have to Sitting Bull. But we know who we are – I know who I am – so it’s not something I’ve been concerned about.’
Nonetheless, it still means a great deal to Ernie Lapointe that he now has DNA evidence to back up his claim of a bloodline to the great Native American leader. Because Lapointe, who has studied his ancestor extensively over the past 30 years, and has written books and lectured about him, has something very special in mind. He says he is planning to rebury Sitting Bull, possibly in the Black Hills of South Dakota:
‘In a wilderness area that is owned by a number of Lakota tribes. That would be appropriate, because here he would have a dignified resting place. Unlike the grave he has today in Mobridge – also here in South Dakota. That is not at all a dignified burial place!’
In Mobridge, the leader’s bones apparently lie in a metal box in a kind of concrete vault. But today, the vault is located off the main road and in a place that has no significant connection to Sitting Bull and the culture he represented – and disrespectful behaviour is regularly observed at the grave, says Ernie Lapointe:
‘Some people throw alcohol on it – others urinate on it. My mother always said: If he can be moved, then do it.’
Ernie Lapointe says that in order to carry out this plan, he will now try to raise funds to open the grave in Mobridge, disinter the bones, and then begin the very extensive process of reburial.
And it’s not just a question of money. Permits must be obtained, and DNA analyses must also be carried out on the bones that are presumed to lie in the vault, to see if they are a genetic match with the lock of hair. Finally, there is the risk of a possible conflict of interest with a site at Fort Yates in North Dakota, which also claims to be the burial place of Sitting Bull.
As the article in Science Advances puts it, ‘There are two different official burial sites for Sitting Bull. Both places receive visitors.’
Mother and the digger
When Sitting Bull was killed by Indian police in 1890, his body was taken to Fort Yates in North Dakota – to the so-called Standing Rock Agency, which today has changed its name to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
Here, an American army doctor, Horace Deeble, cut off Sitting Bull’s scalp lock and removed the leader’s leggings. Both were donated on long-term loan to the Smithsonian Museum in 1896, where they remained until Ernie Lapointe and his sisters had them returned in 2007.
The idea that Sitting Bull’s bones could still be in Fort Yates is something that Ernie Lapointe firmly denies several times during the Skype conversation:
‘My mother (Angeline Spotted Horse,1903-1959, ed.) and two of my aunts arranged for his bones to be moved to Mobridge in 1953. Fort Yates is a deplorable place. He certainly didn’t belong there, and that’s why they had him moved.’
Ernie Lapointe says the women hired a crew and a digger to secretly open the grave in Fort Yates one dark night, where they found the bones wrapped in some blue canvas:
‘It’s known from the sources that Horace Deeble – who in addition to being a doctor also had a sideline as a kind of undertaker – wrapped blue canvas around Sitting Bull’s body before placing it in a very primitive wooden box, which could hardly have been called a real coffin. The box was gone when my mother and my two aunts saw the grave being opened – which is hardly surprising, because by then Sitting Bull had been dead for 63 years. But my mother told me that there were still pieces of blue canvas around the bones, and that the skull had been smashed in a way that matches the account of how he was killed. She had no doubt at all that it was Sitting Bull’s remains that they dug up at Fort Yates that night.’
But it was not a good solution or location for the bones to end up in the vault in Mobridge, Ernie Lapointe points out again. ‘My mother was against it, but she was in a minority, so that’s what happened. But now we’re going to try and do something about it.’
Eske Willerslev and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen will probably be back in action when the bones in Mobridge need to be analysed to determine whether they are the remains of Sitting Bull, because Ernie Lapointe owns the legal rights to Sitting Bull’s genetic data under US law – and he can therefore decide who should carry out the analyses.
‘We would very much like to do it – it would be an honour,’ says Eske Willerslev.
‘The analyses will obviously be of symbolic significance for large groups of America’s indigenous peoples, the Native Americans, who widely and across the various tribes regard Sitting Bull as a symbol of freedom and integrity. So what happens to his bones, if they turn out to be in Mobridge – whether they are reburied, and if so, where and how – will therefore interest many more people than just Ernie Lapointe and his sister.’
So the fact that Ernie Lapointe possesses the legal rights to Sitting Bull’s now mapped DNA, and can manage the scientific use of this information, may well create some debate.
But the scientists at the University of Copenhagen have no intention of getting involved in that, Eske Willerslev stresses:
‘We will approach this in a scientific manner, on the basis of an approval from the University’s Scientific Ethics Committee. Any legal quibbles that may arise in the US over the rights to the leader’s DNA must be dealt with on their side of the Atlantic.’
The reason why it took the scientists at the University of Copenhagen 14 years to extract usable DNA from the five to six centimetres of Sitting Bull’s hair that they had to work with was mainly due to its degraded state: The hair had been stored for more than a century at room temperature at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, under which conditions DNA cannot survive intact. In addition, the lock of hair had been subjected to chemical preservation at the time, which only complicated the situation.
‘So the DNA we eventually managed to get out of the hair was really fragmented. It was by no means a whole genome, but just a relatively few tiny fragments. That meant that we had to take a different approach to try to create a genetic basis for the comparison between Sitting Bull and Ernie Lapointe,’ says Associate Professor Ida Moltke of the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen. She is first author of the scientific article, and has been involved in this analytical work for more than 10 years.
When trying to determine, on the basis of DNA analysis, whether there is a relationship between a long-dead person and his or her descendants, the traditional approach is to look for a uniparental line, i.e. a line of the Y chromosome from ancestor to son: a male line. Or – if the long-dead person was female – to look for a line of mitochondrial DNA that the presumed mother has passed on to both sons and daughters.
But in the case of Sitting Bull, neither of these solutions – which are not in any case particularly reliable – could be used, as Ernie is related to the Native American leader on his mother’s side.
So Ernie could neither have inherited his Y chromosome or his mitochondrial DNA from Sitting Bull.
The solution was therefore to search for autosomal DNA in the genetic fragments that were successively extracted from the lock of hair, says Ida Moltke:
‘Autosomal DNA is our non-gender-specific DNA, half of which we inherit from our father, and half of which we inherit from our mother. If we could locate sufficient amounts of autosomal DNA in Sitting Bull’s hair sample, we could use it as a basis for comparison in the analyses of the contemporary DNA sample from Ernie Lapointe.’
The idea was sound, but it took several attempts to come up with a custom-designed method that could actually do the job and deliver a sufficiently reliable result.
The method also requires reference samples – in this case from a number of Lakota Native Americans who are not closely related to Ernie Lapointe.