My Father's Bones (Jim Thorpe)

The Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PCHC) and Penn Museum will host a staged reading of "My Father’s Bones", a short play by nationally renowned Native American writers and activists Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Moscogee) and Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee). The play recounts the ongoing struggle of three sons to recover the remains of their father—the unmatched Olympian Jim Thorpe—from the Borough of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, for reburial with his relatives on Sac and Fox Nation land in Oklahoma. This free program is sponsored by PCHC and the Penn Museum and presented in conjunction with the Museum’s Native American Voices exhibition.

Jim Thorpe was an enrolled citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation and winner of several Olympic gold medals. After he passed away in 1953, the Sac and Fox Nation prepared to honor him with a traditional burial, but his third wife, Patsy, interrupted the proceedings. “Researching the play, we learned that Patsy proceeded to sell Jim Thorpe's body for a few thousand dollars to a town in Pennsylvania that hoped to use his body to attract tourism and enhance its local economy. This town, originally comprised of East and West Chunk, re-named itself after the human body it purchased as the "Borough of Jim Thorpe", Pennsylvania.”  

After years of unsuccessful attempts to reclaim their Father's body, Thorpe's sons (Jack, Bill and Richard) filed suit, along with the Sac and Fox Nation, using the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The District Court initially concluded that NAGPRA would apply to the Borough, but on October 23, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia determined that NAGPRA does not apply to the requested repatriation of Jim Thorpe’s remains. As a result, the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe's sons, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell have all petitioned the Court, requesting reconsideration of the case en banc. 

The play was first performed at the Autry Center of the American West in Los Angeles. This revision is staged by Philadelphia-based director Matt Pfeiffer, recently nominated for the 2014 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of Play for his work at InterAct Theater Company in Philadelphia. 

A panel discussion after the play, moderated by PCHC Director Richard Leventhal, will fccus on repatriation and the relevance of NAGPRA as a legal basis to return Jim Thorpe’s remains to his ancestral home. Panelists will include: tribal representatives from the Sac and Fox Nation; Attorney John Echohawk (Pawnee), Director of the Native American Rights Fund; and Suzan Shown Harjo, President of the Morningstar Institute. Representatives of the Borough of Jim Thorpe have also been invited to attend. 

Event hosted by the Penn Cultural Heritage Center and Penn Museum, with support from Native American and Indigenous Studies at Penn, the Department of Anthropology, and the Greenfield Intercultural Center (Natives at Penn).

For more information, contact the Penn Cultural Heritage Center. Also see the article in Indian Country Today.