BILLINGS -- Sitting Bull died 117 years ago, but his remains still are not resting in peace, his four surviving great-grandchildren contend.

More than a year ago, they announced that they wanted their famous ancestor's bones moved from a grave on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Mobridge, S.D., to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. The National Park Service supported their decision.

The family still wants his remains re-interred elsewhere, but for the time being the process is on hold, said Ernie LaPointe of Lead, S.D., a great-grandson of Sitting Bull and spokesman for his family.

In a telephone interview this week, LaPointe said one of his older sisters, a spiritual woman who lives in Denver, told him that she had participated in a ceremony and had some information she wanted to discuss.

LaPointe said he has not been in contact with his sister since to find out what she wanted to tell him.

"So that put a screeching halt to things," he said. "She's a spiritual person, and I'm not going to argue with that. She wouldn't say anything if it wasn't real important."

He said he plans to visit a medicine man on the Pine Ridge Reservation himself to learn what he can from ceremonies there.

"He's a real medicine man, not one of those plastic medicine men running around," LaPointe said.

The medicine man had helped him decide what to do with items returned to LaPointe by the Smithsonian last year -- a lock of hair and a pair of leggings taken from Sitting Bull's body after he was killed.

With the exception of a few hairs given to a researcher for DNA testing, the lock was burned. A spirit advised not to put the leggings on display, LaPointe said.

LaPointe said that the state of South Dakota and officials at Standing Rock opposed moving the remains, and he may have to get an attorney to fulfill the family's wishes once ceremonies have made clear what should be done with the remains.

He is also contemplating legal steps to exhume the bones to settle once and for all whether they belong to Sitting Bull.

Through the years, some have insisted that Sitting Bull's remains were dug up at night by his friends and spirited away to be reburied in Canada.

If the remains are not Sitting Bull's, then there is no dispute, he said.

"Then he is resting somewhere in Canada where no one will ever find him and that's the end of it," he said.

The four siblings want Sitting Bull's grave removed from Standing Rock because they believe that the gravesite was neglected and dishonored until recently, when new owners of the site decided to make it into a tourist attraction, LaPointe said.