Science has confirmed what many in the Indigenous community already knew: Ernie LaPointe, a writer and Vietnam veteran, is the great-grandson—and closest living descendant—of legendary Lakota Sioux Chief Sitting Bull. 

“To my knowledge, there’s never been any real challenge to Ernie LaPointe and his siblings’ direct descent from Sitting Bull,” Kim TallBear, who is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate and associate professor in the faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, told NBC News.

“We have detailed genealogies that we keep through oral history, and now also tribal genealogical documentation,” TallBear says about the new findings from the journal Science Advances. 

“To our knowledge, this is the first published example of a familial relationship between contemporary and a historical individual that has been confirmed using such limited amounts of ancient DNA across such distant relatives,” according to the study’s authors. 

Sitting Bull, leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota, was best known for leading his people in resistance against the U.S. government’s efforts to colonize tribal land. His most famous battle was against General George Armstrong Custer’s troops, who were defeated in 1867 in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 

LaPointe’s mother’s oral history was verified by the Smithsonian researchers and Sitting Bull’s hair and wool leggings were returned to the family. But in order to have the Lakota chief’s remains moved from their current burial site in Mobridge, South Dakota, to a location that honors his great-grandfather’s legacy, he would need to unequivocally prove his ancestry. 

But, as TallBear points out, it’s not an easy thing for Indigenous people to accept traditional exploration of their ancestry. 

“Any time we participate with a scientist in reaffirming genetic definitions of what it means to be Indigenous, we are de facto helping to uphold their definitions over our own,” TallBear says. “But we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place because settler institutions control the disposition of Sitting Bull’s remains.”

Eske Willerslev, one of the lead authors of the study from the University of Copenhagen, says he felt bound to help LaPointe in his efforts to bury his relative’s bones. 

“I reached out because I’m an ancient DNA researcher,” he said. “I told LaPointe, ‘If you want to do this, I think I can help you.'”

The New York Times reports that the discovery was done by testing an inch-long piece of Sitting Bull’s hair via a new method of sequencing, using so-called ancient DNA from small and older samples. 

“The method can handle what previous methods couldn’t handle,” Willerslev told the Times. “It can work on very, very tiny amounts of DNA, and it can go back further generations.”

LaPointe says he’s hoping that the DNA discovery will help build his case for exhuming and reburying his great-grandfather, also known as Tatanka-Iyotanka. 

“We’re going to put him somewhere else,” he told the Times on Thursday. “Where he will be respected.”

Sitting Bull was killed during a bungled arrest and it is believed his body was moved to the southern portion of the Standing Rock Reservation. The Times reports that the site has been severely neglected;  LaPointe says that, when he visited recently, the area was littered with condoms and smelled of urine.