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Hawk's death, returning with a picture but little information.
• The team in Connecticut also recovered hair fibers, copper beads from an earring, a copper ring and six handles from Albert's coffin. Bellantoni said he was surprised at how ornate the coffin handles were.
• Now those remains are in South Dakota, where a wake and funeral will be held to allow Afraid of Hawk to enter the spirit world.
• He was born in 1879, the third of seven children belonging to Emil Afraid of Hawk and his wife, White Mountain. His brother Richard was among the survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. Afraid of Hawk joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in 1898 with a childhood friend from the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and he apparently sent money back to family members living on the Pine Ridge reservation while performing with the show.
• Buffalo Bill, whose name was William F. Cody, regularly employed about 50 Native Americans -- mostly Lakota -- during the 30-year run of the show in the late 1880s and early 1900s, said Lynn Houze, assistant curator at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo.
• The shows were made up of 15 to 24 acts, including sharpshooters, races and performances depicting cowboys against Indians. The show helped catapult the American cowboy to icon status, and Cody believed he was helping to preserve the Native American culture, even if they were, at times, presented in a stereotypical manner. Cody encouraged Native American performers to retain their language, rituals and beliefs but often portrayed them as savages attacking white settlers.
• "At that time with the reservation system, the government was forcing a lot of the kids to be sent to Carlisle or other Indian Schools. This way, a lot of them were able to continue to be Indian and preserve their culture," Houze said. "He became their friend and was an advocate of theirs."
• But life in the show was difficult. Performers arrived in a new city almost daily, setting up camp before putting on one show in the afternoon and another in the evening. After that, they'd pack up and head to the next town.
• Other performers-- both Native Americans and non-Natives -- who died during the show's run were often buried in the city where they died, Houze said. In the late 1990s, the remains of Chief Long Wolf, also Lakota, were returned after a British woman read about his death and tracked down family members in South Dakota. Long Wolf, 52, died in 1892 of pneumonia while performing in London. He was buried in the same casket as a 17-month-old Lakota girl, Star, who died after falling from a horse while performing in a show.
• Marlis Afraid of Hawk said she is relieved that for Albert, the long road home is

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