Submitted Photo Participating in the repatriation of the war shirt of Chief Drags Wolf are, from left, Northwest Arts Center Director Greg Vettel, MHA Interpretive Center collections manager Zane Baker, Mike Drags Wolf, Orville Fox, Nycoy Fox and Minot State University professor Amanda Watts. In the background, on the left side, are members of the Fettig family, and in the middle are members of the Crows Flies High family. The Fettig and Crows Flies High families are among descendants of Drags Wolf.

Minot State University and the Northwest Arts Center (NAC) worked in collaboration with the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara (MHA) Interpretive Center, west of New Town, to repatriate a war shirt of Chief Drags Wolf to his descendants in late November.

An important piece of Hidatsa heritage, the war shirt has been in Minot State’s possession as part of the Ralph Hubbard Special Collection. Hubbard, a former professor at MSU, donated it as part of his extensive collection to the University in 1986.

“MSU and the Northwest Arts Center are proud of the long history we have collaborated with our tribal partners,” said Minot State President Steven Shirley in information from MSU. “Ensuring the war shirt of Chief Drags Wolf is returned home and properly displayed at the MHA Interpretive Center helps continue this collaborative spirit. Many students from the MHA Nation have attended MSU over the years, and we look forward to continuing to partner with our MHA friends and neighbors.”

According to MSU, the university began to examine its Native American Collection of about 450 items of clothing, decorative crafts, and other artifacts during the Northwest Arts Center renovation in the lower level of MSU’s Gordon B. Olson Library in 2018. During renovation of the new arts center space and collection restoration, members of the MSU community closely examined the entire Native American Collection.

In 2019, the Northwest Arts Center hosted representatives from the MHA Nation and the MHA Interpretive Center at MSU. Tribal historians and MHS Interpretive Center personnel toured the Northwest Arts Center and the Indigenous Collections stewarded by MSU-NAC.

Foremost among the collection, Chief Drags Wolf’s war shirt was identified as an item to be returned to his family and the MHA Interpretive Center. Greg Vettel, NAC director, worked closely with Amanda Watts, MSU humanities professor, and Annette Mennem, MSU Native American Cultural Center director, to develop a timeline and plan for the long-term loan and delivery of the shirt, including working with Delphine Baker, MHA Interpretive Center director, and Zane Baker, MHA Interpretive Center collections manager. The project also included MSU art major, NAC intern, and member of the MHA Nation, Bernadine Stevens, whose great-grandfather had acted as a translator for Chief Drags Wolf.

“Minot State University’s and Dakota College at Bottineau’s Land Acknowledgement was written to be a living document, one that would demonstrate our commitment to the first peoples of the Northern Plains,” Mennem said in information from MSU. “The university provides a place and a person to assist student success of our Indigenous student population, which represents approximately 5 percent of the student body. It provides programs highlighting the contribution of tribal nations. We continue with this commitment to these nations by bringing Chief Drags Wolf’s hide shirt home to the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation.”

In November, Mennem, Watts, Vettel, Stevens and other MSU personnel traveled to the MHA Interpretive Center in New Town and met with more than two dozen of Drags Wolf’s descendants for an emotional ceremony to return the war shirt, which included prayers, riders from the X’oshga Clan and a drum to perform his song welcoming the war shirt home.

The MHA Interpretive Center plans on documenting and interpreting the symbols covering the shirt for future generations before displaying it at the center this summer.