Traditional Muzzleloading Association
The Center of Camp => People of the Times => Topic started by: James Kelly on August 13, 2011, 10:13:50 PM
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I recently saw a rather unpleasant item for which I'd like to know some historical background. It is a metal tag about 3-1/2" long. Tried Google, but "answers" are all the same, either auction results of brass tags, or native Americans expressing displeasure at their sale. No details at all about their use, except the obvious, or reason for their existance. This one appears to be nickel silver. It is marked:
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Wyoming Territory
Corpse No. xx
Property of US Government
I may be able to get it analyzed, though I'm not certain this will tell me much about age. If it is genuine, and I can get any detailed history, I might photograph & include it in my little booklet Gunmetal, as an example of nickel silver with associated comment on certain 19th century US policies.
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Good morning James .
I would suggest that you contact the state of Wyoming or one of the state universities . They should be able to tell you about the tag .
I have no doubt that your you get a quit hush to even anger from our communities when ask about this
I cant really go into it without getting very political but ill try .
set back and read the tag . With a little understanding of what American Indian people in this country have faced . Especially during the time Wyoming was a territory 1868, until mid 1890. try and think of what was happening in Wyoming at this time and you should be able to understand .
While I have never seen one of these from Wyoming . I have seen later ones from the Dakotas and from Idaho .
Now I say that , while assuming what you have is what today we would call a body bag tag .
Now again please understand that im trying to tread lightly here .
See we as American Indian peoples are considered by the government as federal wards .
What this means is basically the BIA has near complete control .
Back in the time frame of your tag , that control would have been 100%and often enforced by the military
As such when a person died , their bodies were then government property not the property of their relatives unless the body was turned over to them .
Either way the body was still tagged and recorded. A lot of the time without any regard for our cultures ,the individuals, families or communities .
As such sometimes the bodies would not be returned . a lot such bodies were used for research purposes as well . As such they would end up in museums and such . Even today the Smithsonian and a whole lot of much smaller museums have collections of skeletal remains all tagged .
thus such tags are the only way left to identify the remains .
other times when the remains have been returned . such tags are viewed as being part of the persons remains . thus VERY distasteful if attempted to be sold .
kind of like selling a persons death certificate. Which is bad enough in itself .
But imagine if your not even a relative. Im sure you can see my point
Sometimes also after a battle if the military was searching for a given person . They also would collect bodies . Such tags were used to record and catalog and if deemed necessary the body would be sent back east ..
Later in the early 20th century there were government funded studies that took place .
This includes the digging up of known burial grounds. Again bodies were tagged and sent off for study .
This still happens today when burials are inadvertently found . The process has changed in that our peoples have more control .
So if your tag actually has a number then its associated with a body that was collected . Examined or retained at one time . This then raise the question ; why do you have the tag ?
Did someone save it as a souvenir ?
So while you , yourself may not have had a hand in all this. The implications are still there . The feelings still run very deep
If it doesn’t have a number ,then at the very least it’s a tag which intended purpose was never fulfilled .
But its still an item which reminds us of what was happening in that time frame and how we as American Indians were and are still very much looked on by the government .
As such im sure you can understand why your being met with what you are when asking about such an item .
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Very well written, Capt
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Thanks Capt, well written indeed.
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That is very interesting information there.
All of the reading I have done, nothing like that was ever mentioned.
Captchee, where did you find that information I would like to read a little more about it.
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the information isnt hard to find , if you know what to look for .
start by studying American Indian history as it relates to government policies and laws
a lot of the information is available through the library of congress , US army department of ethnic studies as well as the Smithsonian which even today records a collection of over 18,000 bodies . This collection was based on the 18-19th century scientific theory of study known as phrenology. To day we still have two types of law in this country . Eroupian law which dictates to the masses and Native American law which specifically applies to American Indian people and people of American Indian descent .
If you take a look at that law and its early application , your will find the subject of these tags and a whole lot more . From that study you then can find specific accounts that were documented and recorded in the library of congress .
You will also find that are thousands of lawsuits that are still today are not settled concerning a lot of the acts . Many of these filed 100 or more years ago
Another good area of interesting study is Bioarchaeology - as it applies to the Americas’ .
Even and over view of that subject will show the though that some peoples like the Inuit were considered missing links and thus living examples were collected. Information about those acts can be found by reading the writings of Franz Boas and Samuel Morton.
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Captchee, can you tell me a specific web site to which I might go to find out the identity, and eventually surviving relatives, of number XX?
If there are any relatives they might wish to at least have the tag returned.
Otherwise I will keep it. It is a companion piece to my four-ball .45-70 case, and an old quote from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. CCVI - July, 1867 - Vol. XXXV. I like to make this information available to those who are unaware of our own genocide efforts.
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thats a hard one because your asking about records and who kept them .
Because Wyoming was a territory not a state , your probably going to have to go through the US government . Thus the library of congress.
You may be able to trace the number through the Museum of the American Indian.
You might find information from the state of Wyoming itself . But most like it the federal government who would have that . The other issue you may run into is that there may in fact be no name associated with the tag . Possibly only a people .
If it’s a reservation tag then you probably will have a name associated with it .
Date of death , Secom stance of death and place of death
But out side the Rez system , if the person was not a notable person , then frankly , the government didn’t care . It then will again most likely only have a suspected People , place of collection and circumstance of death.
Now if you do get lucky and the number does have a name associated with it . Then you into a whole nother issue . The reason is that the name may end up being a report name .
The reason this becomes an issue is that a lot of times , because the government officials could not , nor did not want to take the time to figure out how to spell a persons true name in English , they would list a new name .
So lets say your name was Tiotanegi . The government officials would often just say .; from hence forth your John Smith ..
Never mind no one ever called you John Smith . Nor did you ever use that name but to receive rations .
So now you have to start looking through reservation listings OR through later Lists like the Dawes reports , which were drawn up during a time where there was alittle more concern with getting things right .
Even then a lot of times people end up having to go through religious documents from the different churchs , so as to find out who was really who .. The reason for that is that unlike the government , some ,,,,â€some†of these groups actually took very good records of their congregations and listed both the report name and their peoples TRUE name .
So lets say you get that far . Now you will have to figure out who , if any immediate family may still survive. The case may simply be that there isn’t anyone because during this time whole families were annihilated .
So IMO if you truly feel that you want to return this item . The best thing to do is try and find out what people the person belonged to .
From there you then contact that peoples Reservation and ask how to proceed with its return . They will then have the resources to insure that the item is either returned to the rightful relatives OR dispose of the item as their specific belief entail
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Captchee, so well written. I have just recently read everything I could find in regards to the Nez Perce War in helping my nephew, who is a direct descendant of Chief Joseph. This "tag" discussion just reinforces the shame I have for the actions of whites, and our white government in regard to the Native Americans. Finds like this leave me feeling sick.
Woody