Homecoming, Bunky Echo-Hawk

Against a landscape of clear blue skies and rolling red hills, a decapitated Pawnee man gazes, mouth agape, through a fraying flag of the 11th Kansas Regiment. The commemorative peace medal on the man’s military blue uniform identifies him as one of six Pawnee Scouts honorably discharged from the United States Army. On January 29, 1869, these Pawnee soldiers were killed on their journey home near Salina, Kansas, by U.S. Army soldiers. The beheading documented in Homecoming references the decapitation of the corpses so that their crania could be studied in Washington, D.C. More than a century later, the scouts’ remains were repatriated to the Pawnee Nation where they were respectfully buried among their kin.

Bunky Echo-Hawk is a contemporary Pawnee artist who uses his paintings to confront current American culture with its past. In the Museum, this painting calls attention to the ways in which art and artifact collecting is a process that constructs a narrative of the past, which may or may not adhere to ethical practices or tell the complete story. Echo-Hawk’s painting references a story that exemplifies the atrocities committed against Native Americans. This work also calls attention to the efforts of Native Americans today fighting for reparations and repatriation, giving viewers the opportunity to reflect on the complexities of history and the ways that actions in the past must be accounted for in the present.

In 1869, eight Pawnee Scouts were honorably discharged from the United States Army, but were murdered on their way home by white settlers near Salina, Kansas. After being buried by their companions, six of their heads were stolen by a medical doctor from Fort Harker to be sent to Washington, D.C., to the Army Medical Museum. His account of their collection is below:

I had already obtained for the Museum the skull of one of the Pawnees, killed in the fight you speak of and would have had all had it not been that immediately after the engagement, the Indians lurked around their dead, and watched them so closely, that the guide I sent out was unable to secure but one. […] Yesterday I sent a scout who knows the spot and I think I can get at least two more of the Crania, that number being reported to me as left unburied by the Pawnees, and it may be that if the remaining five (eight not seven were killed) are buried or have been hid near where the fight took place – about twenty miles from here. I can, after a time, obtain all. I shall certainly use every effort.
B. E. Fryer, letter to George Otis, 10 August 1868, Army Medical Museum Anatomical Section, Accession Folder 149-58, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Suitland, MD. 77

After an extensive legal battle, including the establishment of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Art (NAGPRA) in 1990, the skulls were repatriated from the Smithsonian where they were held, and reburied according to tribal rights in 1995. Tap the web icon to watch a video of the speech given on the occasion of the reburial.

Against a landscape of clear blue skies and rolling red hills, a decapitated Pawnee man gazes, mouth agape, through a torn and fraying flag of the 11th Kansas Regiment. The commemorative peace medal proudly worn against the man’s military blue uniform identifies him as one of six Pawnee Scouts honorably discharged from the United States Army. On January 29, 1869, these Pawnee soldiers were killed near Salina, Kansas, on their journey homeward. The beheading documented in Homecoming references the decapitation of the corpses so that their crania could be studied in Washington, D.C. More than a century later, the scouts’ remains were repatriated to the Pawnee Nation, where they were respectfully buried among their kin.

Against a landscape of clear blue skies and rolling red hills, a decapitated Pawnee man gazes, mouth agape, through a torn and fraying flag of the 11th Kansas Regiment. The commemorative peace medal proudly worn against the man’s military blue uniform identifies him as one of six Pawnee Scouts honorably discharged from the United States Army. On January 29, 1869, these Pawnee soldiers were killed near Salina, Kansas, on their journey homeward. The beheading documented in Homecoming references the decapitation of the corpses so that their crania could be studied in Washington, D.C. More than a century later, the scouts’ remains were repatriated to the Pawnee Nation, where they were respectfully buried among their kin.