After Sitting Bull’s death, Horace Deeble, an Army physician at the Fort Yates military post in North Dakota, took a lock of the Native American legend’s hair and his wool leggings, despite not having any authority or permission. In 1896, the National Museum of Natural History in D.C. obtained Sitting Bull’s hair and leggings. The museum returned the items to LaPointe and his three sisters in 2007, according to the study. Though most of the lock of hair was “burned in a spiritual ceremony,” a small piece of it was saved for future study, researchers said.

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