Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies

Glasgow's Ghost Dance Shirt

Dr. Sam Maddra, a Glasgow graduate and author of Hostiles: The Lakota Ghost Dance and Buffalo Bill’s Wilde West (2006) gave testimony before Glasgow City Council’s hearing on repatriation of this Glasgow Museum’s Lakota Ghost Dance shirt, which was reportedly removed from the body of a warrior after the massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890.

The shirt was donated to the museum by George Crager, the Lakota Interpreter for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and a hundred years later was the subject of a repatriation request by the Wounded Knee Survivors Association. Dr. Maddra was asked to present evidence to Glasgow City Council’s Repatriation Working Group on the history of the Ghost Dance shirt, and after the Council’s decision in November 1998 to repatriate the garment to South Dakota Dr. Maddra was commissioned by Glasgow Museums to write a booklet on the history of their Wounded Knee artefacts.

At the end of July 1999 she travelled as part of a delegation including councillors and museum staff from Glasgow to South Dakota, returning the Ghost Dance shirt to the Lakota Indians. The shirts’ association with the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee means that the garment is considered sacred by the Lakota, and this became very evident at the ceremonies that the delegation attended. These highly charged and emotional ceremonies took place over a period of four days. They began at Eagle Butte on the Cheyenne River Reservation, where the majority of descendants of both massacre victims, and survivors, live today.

This was the first time the majority had spoken publicly about what had happened to their relatives. It was at the massacre site at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation that the official hand over of the shirt took place under the watchful eye of a spotted eagle, known to the Lakota as Waa-wa-yanka, the Caretaker, and thought to protect ancient spirits. Its presence was seen as a sign of atonement and a welcoming message from God.