Descendant opposes plans for memorial, wants reburial at Little Bighorn
By The Associated Press
STANDING ROCK INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. - You have to travel back in time to get from the nearest town to the chipped and wind-whipped little stone face that peers out over the Missouri River and the endless plains beyond.
The drive from Mobridge, S.D., across the river takes you from the Central Time Zone into the Mountain, and if you turn off the main road and clatter four miles down a winding path, you find it - a modest monument on a lush green bluff.
This simplicity is striking because of what lies beneath: The remains of Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief said to have foretold the defeat of Lt. Col. George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.
But it is more striking because of the state of extreme disrepair that befell the resting place of one of the best-known American Indians in history for half a century, until just two years ago.
It was shot and spat at, and worse. On the surrounding grounds bonfires burned and shattered beer bottles glittered. Someone tied a rope around the feather rising from the head of the bust, rigged it to a truck and broke it off.
The site is on what is called fee land, within the boundaries of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe but privately owned, and two years ago two men - one white, the other a tribesman - paid $55,000 for it and began cleaning it up.
They have plans for a $12 million monument complex they hope will honor Sitting Bull's memory with the dignity missing for so long, and let new generations learn about him.
But these plans, like Sitting Bull himself, are not so simple. And they have torn open a wound over who will control the great Sioux chief's legacy.
Read more here: http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/06/18/news/state/25-sitingbull.txt
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