Northern Arapaho Tribe aims to repatriate remains of students

Thursday, December 17, 2015  

The Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming is hosting a meeting next month to discuss the repatriation of students who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

Yufna Soldier Wolf, the director of the tribe's historic preservation office, told Wyoming Public Media that more than 200 Arapaho students died at the boarding school in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But documenting them has been difficult -- so far, 41 have been successfully identified in hopes of recovering them under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

"The boarding school era was a terrible time for the Northern Arapaho," Soldier Wolf told The Riverton Ranger. "The idea of 'kill the Indian, save the man,' was the government's way of assimilating the Arapaho and taking their cultural identity."

The meeting will be held January 8, 2015, at the tribe's historic preservation office in Arapahoe.

Get the Story:
"They're Not At Peace": Northern Arapaho Seek To Claim Remains Of Boarding School Students (Wyoming Public Media 12/15)
Tribe plans to retrieve remains of children who lived at school long ago (The Riverton Ranger 12/13)