A new study which analyzed the DNA in a hair sample from iconic Native American leader Sitting Bull has confirmed the identity of his great-grandson.
A photo of Legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull taken in 1885. (Image credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) Science has confirmed a man in South Dakota is the great-grandson of the iconic Native American leader Sitting Bull. DNA from the famous chieftain’s hair matched that of Ernie LaPointe, who has long claimed this famous relation. Sitting Bill, also known as Tatanka-Iyotanka, led the Lakota tribe of Sioux people in what is now South Dakota. He is most notable for being the military leader who famously defeated U.S. Lt. Col. George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Sitting Bull then fled the country and eventually returned to join Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. But in 1890, government-led Indian police killed Sitting Bull while they were trying to arrest him, according to PBS. The new finding reveals Sitting Bull’s closest living relative is LaPointe, also a Lakota Sioux man. It is also the first time that ancient DNA has been used to confirm a familial relationship between living and historical individuals, according to the statement. Related: The 25 most mysterious archaeological finds on Earth “We managed to locate sufficient amounts of autosomal DNA in Sitting Bull’s hair sample, and compare it to the DNA sample from Ernie LaPointe and other Lakota Sioux,” lead researcher Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Cambridge in England, said in a statement. “And [we] were delighted to find that it matched.” (Autosomal DNA refers to genetic material found on the 22 pairs of non-sex chromosomes.) Unproven ancestry Until now, LaPointe had relied on birth and death certificates to create a family tree that linked him to Sitting Bull. Because those certificates can be forged, the claim has been consistently challenged. “Over the years, many people have tried to question the relationship that I and my sisters have to Sitting Bull,” LaPointe said in the statement. However, when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., returned Sitting Bull’s scalp lock to LaPointe in 2007, it provided a unique opportunity to settle the debate once and for all.
