Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA – A ceremonial eagle-feather headdress said to have been worn by the Apache leader Geronimo is one step closer to being returned to an Indian tribe.
U.S. District Judge Berle Schiller on Monday ordered it transferred from the FBI to the Interior Department.
According to folklore, Geronimo wore the body-length headdress at the last powwow of surviving Indian chiefs 94 years ago. The headdress was confiscated by the FBI two years ago after a Georgia man tried to sell it on the Internet.
Interior Department officials want to return it to an Indian tribe. But both the Apaches in New Mexico and the Comanches in Oklahoma have staked a claim to it.
If no tribe can prove its claim, the headdress will probably go to an Oklahoma museum near where Geronimo is buried, U.S. Attorney Robert Goldman said.
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