Indigenous mound in St Louis is transferred to the Osage Nation

"We've got one small hold on one piece of our property now, and it's an expression of our tribal sovereignty to be able to regain control over these areas and be able to share within our own community the significance of them and what it meant to us during those time periods that we are very much removed from now," Andrea Hunter, the director of the Osage Nation's historic preservation office, tells The Art Newspaper.

Sugarloaf Mound is a thousand-year-old sacred Indigenous site-one of hundreds that once dotted the land near and around the Mississippi River as early as 900 CE. Near modern St Louis, the ancient city of Cahokia served as a major cultural and economic centre of the Mississippian civilisation with an estimated population of 20,000 at its peak.

The land transfer and resolution are milestone initiatives, part of broader 'Land Back' movements aimed at returning sacred lands to Indigenous stewardship, acknowledging the tribal sovereignty of the Osage Nation.

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