Tree Burial of the Oglala Sioux near Ft. Laramie, Wyo. courtesy National Archives
Robert Brings Plenty, a Sioux Indian from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge reservation, was one of Canton Asylum’s first patients. He lasted less than one year, dying of (probably) an epileptic episode on May 20, 1903.
Dakota Scaffold Burial courtesy National Archives
The Sioux typically dressed a dead person in his best clothes, including beaded moccasins so he could walk to the spirit world, and then sewed him into a deerskin or buffalo shroud. The body was placed in a tree so birds and small animals could feed on it until it dropped to the ground to feed bigger animals. Thus, the circle of life went on.
Canton Asylum’s Superintendent, O.S. Gifford, wrote to Pine Ridge reservation and asked what to do with Brings Plenty’s body. He didn’t get a reply. Robert Brings Plenty was buried on the asylum grounds with an Episcopal ceremony.
How interesting! It’s very probable that he did bring children there; in this era, asylum staff usually lived where they worked and spent much more time with patients than hospital staff would today. Gifford and his family never lived at the asylum, but it seems that he sometimes took one or two on outings, such as the church service I mentioned in my book. I found this information in the Sioux Valley News, just by going through the issues and trying to pick up any details about his life outside the asylum. This is also where I found the few descriptions of parties he and his wife hosted, and of the interior of the house. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything else about the home. I hope you’re enjoying such a historic residence.
Do you have any information on O.s. Gifford family home in Canton. We live in his home and was told he at times brought the children home that were in the assane assym