Peary brought six Inuit to New York in 1897, and the museum faked a funeral and kept Minik's father's skeleton until 1993

In September 1897 Robert Peary brought six Inughuit from northwest Greenland to New York. The American Museum of Natural History studied them, and visitors paid to see them. Peary had promised they could go home within a year. Peary also sold the museum the Cape York meteorite, which had been the Inughuit's only source of iron for tools, for $40,000^†. Four of the six died of tuberculosis within months. Qisuk died on 17 February 1898. His son Minik, about seven, attended a staged burial in which the coffin did not hold his father. Qisuk's body was prepared as a skeleton and later put on display. William Wallace, the museum's building superintendent, adopted Minik. Around 1906 New York papers reported that the skeleton was on exhibit, and Minik asked for the bones so he could bury them. Director Hermon Bumpus did not return them. Peary refused Minik's request to go home in 1907. Minik reached Greenland in 1909, came back to the US in 1916 and died in the 1918 flu pandemic. Kenn Harper published Minik's story in 1986 and campaigned for the remains. In 1993 the museum returned four skeletons (Qisuk, Nuktaq, Atangana, Aviaq) to Qaanaaq, where a plaque reads "Nunamingnut Uteqihut" (they are home). Minik's grave is in New Hampshire. The meteorite is still on display in New York^†.