Two Alaska Native students who died at Carlisle Indian School are brought home

Two Alaska Native students who died more than a century ago at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania have been brought home to Shishmaref and Unalakleet.

Tummassak of Shishmaref and Edward Angalook of Unalakleet were returned to their communities in October, Bering Straits Native Corporation said in an account published Tuesday.

A celebration of life for Angalook was held Oct. 1 at the Covenant Church in Unalakleet. On Oct. 4, Tummassak's family and community gathered at the Shishmaref Lutheran Church to honor her.

Tummassak was about 12 when she was taken from Alaska aboard the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear with six other Alaska Native youth, BSNC wrote. She arrived at Carlisle on Nov. 14, 1897, and died of tuberculosis on April 8, 1900, at 15.

Angalook was raised by the reindeer herder Sinrock Mary, according to BSNC. He was one of four students who traveled from Golovnin Bay and arrived at Carlisle on Nov. 23, 1903. He died of tuberculosis on Sept. 24, 1905, at 20.

The U.S. Army's Office of Army Cemeteries asked the Alaska Native Heritage Center's research team to help identify the students' families and home communities. Nyché Skavaq Sivulliuqti Andrew, a BSNC descendant, is on that team.

Tummassak's chin tattoo helped the team recognize a connection to Andrew's family, BSNC wrote. Andrew's great-great-grandmother, Mary Agugaq Avessuk of Shishmaref, wore a similar tattoo.

The two were among 12 students, four of them from Alaska, that the Army said in a May notice it would disinter from the Carlisle Barracks cemetery at their closest living descendants' written request. The Army said it would return the remains at government expense to cemeteries chosen by families and tribes. The federal record didn't say which communities the Alaska children were going home to.

The other two Alaska students were Lucy Spaulding and Mabel Stock. Dickinson College's Carlisle Indian School archive, which spells the second name Stack, marks Spaulding as returned to her home community but doesn't say where. It lists Stack's burial plot as "Unknown," and public records don't make clear whether she was returned.

The Army began returning students from the Carlisle cemetery in 2017 at the request of families and tribes, and says it believes several graves there marked "Unknown" hold Native American or Alaska Native children.