Marcella LeBeau died in November of 2021. Her story was never finished. This particular story was something she often spoke of, even in public gatherings and at conferences. This is how she told the story herself.
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| Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland |
When John Earl returned to the States, he got in touch with Mario Gonzales, who was the lawyer for the Pine Ridge Reservation at that time. Earl told Mario about it, and Mario contacted the Wounded Knee Survivors Association at Pine Ridge and told them about the Sacred Shirt.
Mario began to make arrangements to go to Glasgow to make an appeal for its return to South Dakota. He requested a delegate from Pine Ridge to go with him, so he asked Marie Not Help Him, from Pine Ridge, in addition to Burdell Blue Arm, from Cheyenne River Reservation. Burdell was the chairman of the Cheyenne River Wounded Knee Survivors Association.
The association secretary wasn’t available at that time, so Burdell had asked me to act as secretary, even though I’m not a direct descendent of Wounded Knee. I told him I would accept. The man some people call Big Foot lived here; his real name was Spotted Elk. In December of 1890, he and his people were traveling down to Pine Ridge to meet Red Cloud. Big Foot was from Cheyenne River.
Mario Gonzales arranged a flight to Scotland. But Burdell wasn’t well, so I was the next delegate. Mario was hopeful that we would be successful in repatriating the ghost shirt.
We went to the Kelvingrove Museum and sat behind a table in a big room. There were media there, too. Mario told in great detail the story of Wounded Knee Massacre; he is himself a descendent of Dewey Beard*. The room held many extra people, who were present because they wanted to hear the Wounded Knee story from someone who had descended from a survivor.
At this meeting, however, we were denied our petition. A man there—his name was Spaulding—spoke against the move. He was adamant about our not taking the Sacred Ghost Shirt, so we didn’t have the success we had hoped for.
We went home disappointed. That was 1995.
Then, in 1998, Ian Sinclair, from the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, did a lot of work. He enlisted people to sign petitions in support of our effort to return the sacred ghost dance shirt. I have two big books of signatures supporting our petition to repatriate the Sacred Ghost Shirt. Whole groups of people were supporting our request. In England also. The story of our request circulated largely by word of mouth, but it also made the news, and many, many people signed petitions to have the museum release it to us. Our friends did a lot of work for us. Then Mr. Sinclair told Mario that it was time for us to come back again to Glasgow. The time was right.
Once again, Burdell Blue Arm was not well and couldn’t go, so I was asked to go again. This time, my son, Richard, was committed to go along. We had discovered there was this link we had to the Survivors. Anton LeBeau, Sr., was married to a woman who went by several names in her lifetime, but one name was “Burnt Thigh,” like the Rosebud Sioux. The name Burnt Thigh appears on the list of those massacred at Wounded Knee—number 64. What’s listed is the name, and “F” for sex and “K” for killed. LeBeaus are descendants. My son, Richard, wanted to go with me. My own personal feeling was that his discovering his connection to the massacre had a great deal to do with his commitment.
We applied to the tribe, and the tribe paid our way to go back again to Scotland. This time Richard and I went. A week before we were to leave, Mario called to say that he couldn’t go. That meant it was left to me. The museum set up certain criteria for the person who would request the Ghost Shirt, qualifications I would have to meet.
I was here, at home, when I took the list to the kitchen table to look through the questions they were asking. It seemed to me that we qualified.
Mario suggested that we make a replica of the Sacred Ghost Shirt. I thought a replica would be a good idea, so I began to plan how I could make one. Bonnie, my granddaughter, and I went to the tribal jail, where they store tribal artifacts. They opened a crate, and we were able to observe and take measurements from a ghost shirt. From that I knew Ghost Shirts were made with a cotton fabric, fairly heavy—a white fabric. I looked for that kind of fabric, something white or close, to sort of be of the same quality.
I found fabric that seemed close, but I wasn’t satisfied. My daughter-in-law, Chris, from New York, is a Seneca. Every year the government gives the Seneca tribal members some fabric, “treaty cloth” it’s called, in payment as stipulated by a treaty. Chris gave me that cloth, and out of that fabric I made the Ghost Dance shirt to resemble the one in the museum.
Bronco LeBeau, who was in charge of the artifacts in the basement of the old jail, had this powder, something like sand, something powdery; so I rubbed that in the yoke and used that to try to color that yoke in.
Richard gave me some feathers, and among the feathers was an eagle feather. I attached the feathers and darkened that yoke in with that powder.
*A
Minneconjou, Dewey Beard, as a boy, was at Little Big Horn and, as a man, at
the Massacre at Wounded Knee, where he was shot three times. He’d been with
Spotted Elk (Big Foot) when his band left the Cheyenne River Reservation. Most
of Dewey Beard’s family was killed at Wounded Knee—his father, his mother, his
wife, and his infant child. He died in 1955, the last survivor of both Little
Big Horn and Wounded Knee.
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| Dewey Beard |
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