Weidner Family Repatriates Historic Pipe Bag to Sicangu Heritage Center

By: Keli Brings Three White Horses, Director/Museum Curator, Sicangu Heritage Center.

MISSION - Ms. Rachel Iverson, representing the Michael L. Weidner family, traveled to the Sinte Gleska University Sicangu Heritage Center to donate a pipe bag back to its homelands.

Mr. Weidner lived around the Reliance area in the 1950’s with his parents and family. His father, Ray Weidner, grew up near the Bonesteel area and later became a teacher in the Reliance School District. In the 1960’s Micheal was gifted the pipe bag by a family friend.

Director/Museum Curator Keli Brings Three White Horses noticed upon receiving the bag that it appeared to be older than the 1950’s-1960s.

She reached out to local expert and artist Mike Marshall to help her observe the bag for description. The bag appears to be made of brain-tanned deer hide and sewn with cotton thread, cotton twill, and sinew.

The glass seed beads appear to be from pre-1920s. The quillwork has very bright orange and pink dye, which appeared more modern in the photos. After a bit of research, Mike discovered the RIT dye company began in 1918 and had several dyes, including pink, by the 1920s.

For more information regarding viewing the repatriated pipe bag and/or the SGU Sicangu Heritage Center, please contact Keli Brings Three White Horses at (605) 856-8211.

Rachel Iverson

Photo by: Keli Brings Three White Horses, Director/Museum Curator, Sicangu Heritage Center.

Rachel Iverson, the donor of the pipe bag, is the wife of the late Michael L. Weidner, who had been gifted the pipe bag by a family friend in the 1960s.

Returned Pipe Bag

Photo by: Keli Brings Three White Horses, Director/Museum Curator, Sicangu Heritage Center.

A pipe bag was recently returned to its homelands here on the Rosebud Reservation by a donor representing the family to whom it had originally been given. The pipe bag was donated to the Sinte Gleska University Sicangu Heritage Center, which is located on the Antelope Lake Campus - the site of the old Mission boarding school.