The following excerpt is from an article posted at the September 9, 2012 TwinCities.com website:
MANDERSON, S.D. — Descendants of a Native American man who died more than a century ago while touring with a western-themed show gathered together Sunday, Sept. 9, to honor his life and celebrate his remains coming home to a South Dakota reservation.
About 75 people gathered at a gymnasium on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to take part in a traditional Lakota funeral for Albert Afraid of Hawk, who died at the age of 20 at a Connecticut hospital in 1900. A ceremony at a nearby cemetery followed Sunday’s service.
“He’s going to make his journey today after over 100 years,” said Lakota medicine man Rick Two Dogs.
Albert Afraid of Hawk was born in 1879, the third of seven children belonging to Emil Afraid of Hawk and his wife, White Mountain. His brother Richard was among the survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. Afraid of Hawk joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in 1898 with childhood friend David Bull Bear from the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Afraid of Hawk died after a bout of food poisoning while traveling with the show and was buried in an unmarked grave in Connecticut.
