The remains of an Eastern Shoshone boy have been returned to the Wind River Reservation, after more than a hundred years at the Carlisle Indian School cemetery in Pennsylvania.
William Neikok was born in 1873 and arrived at the school in 1881 when he was eight years old. Neikok was the son of Chief Washakie’s main interpreter. This era was known as the assimilation era when many Native children were taken from their homes.
During that time, there were hundreds of governmentally-funded and often church-run schools throughout the country, which sought to distance Indigenous youth from their culture. There, children couldn’t use their own language or names, and couldn’t practice their religion or culture.
At the schools, students experienced physical, cultural, spiritual and sexual abuse, which has resulted in ongoing intergenerational trauma that still impacts Native communities today.
“That assimilation process was basically to change the red man into a white man, to ‘educate and civilize’ Native children,” said Eastern Shoshone Business Council chairman John St. Clair.
St. Clair helped bring Neikok’s remains back to the reservation in late September, along with a delegation that included the tribe’s historic preservation officer, public relations director and a traditional leader.
“The first day that we were there in the afternoon, they opened up the grave and then removed the body. It took about four or five hours to do that…we had a ceremony there, before the digging started and after the digging stopped,” he said.
The chairman added that the school records show his name as “Norkok,” but said that from his understanding, the accurate spelling is Neikok.
Neikok died at the school at 19 from tuberculosis. St. Clair said almost 200 kids were buried at Carlisle and more than 30 have now been returned to their tribes.
"The government decided to allow those remains to be reunited with their tribe and moved back [to those communities]. It was the choice of the tribe if they wanted to do that, some of the tribes chose not to,” he said.
This is the seventh year that remains from Carlisle have been returned, with ten other children going home to tribes across the country this year. Neikok is the first child to return home to the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. The Northern Arapaho Tribe was part of the first repatriation efforts at Carlisle in 2017 and also brought a relative home from the school last year.
The U.S. Army accompanied the remains on a flight from Pennsylvania to Denver, where they were driven up to a funeral home in Lander. St. Clair said when Neikok was brought back, he was wrapped in a buffalo robe.
“It was an honor to be involved in [the repatriation process],” he said. “But at the same time, it was depressing to see what the children had to go through.”
Neikok’s remains will be traditionally buried in the Sacajawea Cemetery on the reservation later this month.
Editor's Note: A service and wake will be held for Neikok at 7 p.m. at the Fort Washakie School gym on Oct. 17. The following day, there will be a funeral and feast at 10 a.m. at Rocky Mountain Hall.
