Sac and Fox Nation veterans presenting the colors at the annual powwow.
JIM THORPE IS NOT ALONE T
he Thorpe family, sadly, is not the only one frustrated in its attempt to provide a proper burial for an honored ancestor. The descendants of many great chiefs have had to fight long campaigns, sometimes still without success, to return their
remains to their homeland. The family of the Central Apache warrior Goyathlay (1829–1909),
better known as Geronimo, went to court five years ago to sue for return of his remains to his birthplace in the Gila Mountains of New Mexico. His burial place of record is Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he died in 1909 as a prisoner of war, but the case was complicated by allegations that his grave was raided and his skull stolen by members of the Yale College senior society, Skull and Bones. The Yale group, posted at Fort Sill during World War I, allegedly included Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of the U.S. Presidents. A tradition has long maintained that Geronimo’s skull was on display in the win- dowless, Egyptian-style “tomb” of the society, on the Yale campus in New Haven, Conn. Other families have shared their stories with the website JimThor-
peRestInPeace.com, devoted to the repatriation of the great athlete. The site is maintained by Rob Wheeler, a friend of the Thorpe family and son of Thorpe’s biographer, Robert W. Wheeler. A testimonial by Robert W. Morgan of Whitefish, Mont., says, “I
am the son of Ciye Nino Cochise, grandson of the great Apache Cheis- Cochise, and I support the goals of the Jim Thorpe Rest In Peace web- site! When Nino passed away, he was two months short of his 111th birthday. Because of his many friends, we arranged to have Nino buried in the Tombstone, Ariz., graveyard. From his site you can not only see the mountains where he was born but the huge rocks that formed the ‘Cochise Stronghold’ and that is exactly where Nino was born February 26, 1874, and where Chief Cochise died June 7, 1874. 66 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER/FALL 2014
“Nino’s father, Tahza, died of pneumonia in Washington, D.C., on
November 15, 1876, where he had tried in vain to make peace with the whites. It remains a mystery: the rumor persists that he was strapped to a bed in D.C. and doused with water and the windows of his room were thrown open to the winter’s winds until he died. Why? They had (a) refused his claims to those mountains, and (b) they feared he would go back to war because of that refusal. These claims are made valid because the whites even refused to return his body to his people so he could be buried among them. Instead, he is the lone Apache buried in the Washington National Cemetery…surrounded by his enemies.” Another account from the Northwest comes from Russell Cameron
of Lake Oswego, Ore. “This issue hits very close to home with me as my heritage traces back to the great Chief Comcomly of the Chinook Con- federacy. He died in 1830 from a fever epidemic. His body was interred in a canoe, per Chinook custom, and placed in the family burial ground. “In 1834, Comcomly’s skull was stolen from his grave by a Hudson’s
Bay Company physician and sent to England for display in a museum. Although damaged, the skull was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in 1946. Then, in 1972, it was finally repatriated to Chinook tribal mem- bers for reburial, 142 years later! “So alas, this isn’t the first time a terrible dishonor like this has hap-
pened to an outstanding Native American. But I also wanted to point out that a precedent has been set by others who had ‘eventually,’ better late than never, done the right thing by restoring great leaders to their people’s rightful resting grounds.” David Thompson, of Chippewa Falls, Wis., sums it up: “Our people
brought home the remains of Tecumseh to be buried with our people. Our people brought home the remains of Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) to be buried with our people. Our people will bring home Wa-Tho-Huk (Jim Thorpe) to be buried with our people.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SAC AND FOX NATION
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