Donovan Sprague –

Well today’s ceremony is a farewell to the people here honoring the remains of these American Indian individuals who have way too long been above ground since probably the 1930s and so it is really important in the our Lakota and American Indian ceremonies to put that to rest and that spirit goes on. In this case a 12-14 year old Native American girl and a 45 year old adult and the other age is an adult, but not determined. So there are three people here for sure and possibly more. There is another box of remains that were called un-assignable.

This is just a wonderful thing for the US Forest Service to be able to assist and work with us with something like this. It’s very special and it shows the openness and willingness of the USFS to work with our people and also I would like to mention the SD Archeological Research Center too, b/c they looked at all of these. When I received these remains, I thought is was one individual and through their help, three individuals were identified.

I hope to come back here and pray for our people here sometime.