A young woman from the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes has been repatriated 126 years after she died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School in Pennsylvania.
According to a statement from the Tribe, Della Tuscarora Atkins was a 17-year-old Shoshone woman who arrived at Carlisle on December 12, 1900. She died just 13 days later on Christmas Day from complications of advanced brain cancer. Her body was buried at the school, and due to misspellings in her name, her family wasn’t notified of her death,
After a search and verification of living relatives, Atkins’ descendants traveled across the country to bring her remains back home to the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada.
A transfer ceremony was conducted in which the Executive Director of the Office of Army Secretaries presented the family with gifts on behalf of the Army. A uniformed escort carrying her remains traveled to Duck Valley and was met at the northern gate of the reservation with song and prayer.
Stacey Montooth, Executive Director of the Nevada Department of Native American Affairs, spoke at the ceremony at the Atkins family’s request.
“No person, especially a child, should go through this,” Montooth said. “And yet they did, she did. We owe it to the federal government and to ourselves to correct that grave wrong, and we are doing that today.”
Atkins’ descendants released the following statement:
“We recognize that this is the first time that we have a relative’s remains coming home from an Indian Boarding School. For 126 years, Della was buried thousands of miles away from her family, her people, and her homeland. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to correct that error and bring Della back to where the Creator originally intended her to be: home.
While this whole situation has been difficult to process, through our prayers and community, we are seeing this as a time of celebration and joy. Celebration and joy in the sense that a relative is coming home. In fact, as she was arriving, dust devils began to form out west, and we consider them our ancestors dancing. We thank everyone who helped ensure we fully understood every detail and answered every question we asked.
We are grateful for the community support and for the guidance of our spiritual leaders. We never expected to be a part of such a movement, but through it all, we realize that we are all tied to reconciliation and the healing of this great trauma. Bringing Della home is just the start for us here.”
The Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School operated between 1879 and 1918. More than 7,800 children and adults ages 6-25 attended from across the continent. 190 Native people died at the school, and reconciliation efforts have been ongoing to return the remains of children back to their tribal nations.
The Army is currently underway in its ninth round of repatriation, which will conclude in October. Atkins is one of twelve children who died at Carlisle and are being repatriated to their tribes.
The post Shoshone Girl Repatriated to Tribe After 126 Years appeared first on Native News Online.
