The decision to allow DNA testing was LaPointe’s to make. Under U.S. law, as noted in the 2021 study’s coverage, LaPointe holds the legal rights to Sitting Bull’s genetic data and has the authority to decide who analyzes it. This authority — which flows from his status as the closest living lineal descendant under the governing repatriation framework — is an important part of the story. The DNA study happened because LaPointe chose to allow it, not because scientists claimed independent access to a famous person’s genetic material.
He did not allow the study primarily for the sake of science. He allowed it because the DNA evidence could potentially serve a purpose he cared about: establishing, in terms that South Dakota state law might recognize, the confirmed identity of the remains that he believes are buried at Mobridge. The practical goal was not academic publication but the possibility of obtaining a permit to exhume those remains and conduct the DNA analysis that could confirm whether they are actually Sitting Bull’s.
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## The Two Burial Sites: Fort Yates and Mobridge
Sitting Bull’s remains have, by most accounts, been in two places — and the question of which remains are actually where, and what should be done about it, has been unresolved for decades.
He was originally buried at Fort Yates, North Dakota, in December 1890. The burial was on the Standing Rock Agency grounds, in a military cemetery near the fort. By the early 1950s, the site had deteriorated. The Army had closed the fort, other graves had been moved, and Sitting Bull’s grave had been neglected.