The ethical case for the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow returning a Lakota Ghost Dance shirt to the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in the United States was overwhelming.

No legal restrictions stood in the way of repatriation, but it still took seven years of considered and structured negotiations before the shirt was eventually returned to the community for whom it still held a special meaning. 

This special meaning was due partly to the shirt's sacred nature and partly to its association with the Lakota community’s Ghost Dance religion.  To the Lakota, wearing a Ghost Dance shirt made them impervious to bullets. This particular shirt was also thought to have been worn at the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, when 250 Lakota Sioux men, women and children were massacred by the United States 7th Cavalry, before being buried in a mass grave. 

A reporter who witnessed the aftermath of this slaughter, George Crager, sold and donated a collection of Indian artefacts that he’d recovered from this massacre, including the Ghost shirt, to the Director of Glasgow Museums in 1892. The shirt had been on display at Kelvingrove from at least 1960 until 1999. 

An American visitor to a temporary exhibition on the fate of American Indians, held in Glasgow in 1992, recognised the historic significance of the shirt and the first written request for its return was made that same year. However, it was not until three years later that a delegation from the Wounded Knee Survivors Association (WKSA) of the Lakota Sioux Indians travelled to Glasgow to negotiate the recovery of five items, all associated with the massacre. 

“This Massacre was not a battle during a war”, they claimed, “but a Massacre of innocent people, mainly civilians, women and children, so that the material is not war booty”.

Removed from dead bodies, they argued that looted items were stolen property, protected under US law. Their negotiation failed, but they were given the right to appeal to the City Council. 

Facing three outstanding appeals for restitution, Glasgow City Council now felt a more strategic approach to resolving claims for restitution was necessary. 

In 1998 the Council’s Arts and Culture Committee set up a cross-party Working Group, tasked to consider the ethical issues of restitution. They consulted widely with other arts and museum institutions and, encouraged by the support they received from the general public following media coverage, they organised a public hearing. Here, the WKSA, museum officials and independent experts were all invited to express their opinion. At some point during this hearing, the WKSA decided they stood a greater chance of success by appealing for the return of the Ghost Dance shirt alone and dropping their appeal for the other four items.   

The same legal arguments the WKSA had made in 1995 for restitution were presented once again, with an emphasis on their rights granted by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) for the unconditional return of religious objects. These required the shirt to be treated in the same way as human remains. Having been removed from the body of a dead warrior, the shirt must be treated as stolen property, not as war booty. 

As a result of wider engagement and full transparency, the views of the public (which were overwhelmingly in favour of return) ended up playing an influential role in the restitution process. 

The Committee also recognised a continuity existed between the Lakota Sioux Indian community now making the claim and the original Lakota community that had worn the shirt. While the link of this particular shirt to the Wounded Knee Massacre could not be proven, it was agreed its authenticity and historic importance to the current Lakota community was not in doubt. The City Council rejected a proposal from one museum professional that it would ‘open the floodgates’.

Ultimately, the future preservation and display of the shirt became the critical factor in the Council’s decision to transfer ownership. 

An agreement was reached in November 1998 to return the Ghost Dance shirt and to provide public access at the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center - until the Lakota Sioux Indians could display the shirt in their own museum. It was also agreed the role of Glasgow in the shirt’s history would be acknowledged in all future displays. An agreement to loan back the shirt to Glasgow and the presentation of a replica shirt to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum both helped contribute to the continuing relationship that now exists between the two communities. 

The shirt itself was handed over on 1 August 1999 at the site of the massacre.  

In 2000 Glasgow City Council submitted a memorandum to a House of Commons Select Committee providing useful details of the process they followed. They have since established a Repatriation of Artefacts Working Group to consider all future requests.

* Jane Legget, Restitution and Repatriation, Guidelines for good practice (Museums and Galleries Commission, 1999), Case Study 7, p. 22

Photo: Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Courtesy of Kamyq from Pixabay