In 2021 the Museum der Weltkulturen in Frankfurt, Germany, repatriated a leather shirt belonging to Chief Hollow Horn Bear, which it had legally acquired in the early 20th century.

The museum gave the shirt to his great-grandson Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear in a ceremony on June 12 in Rosebud, South Dakota.

[5] In 1876 Hollow Horn Bear was with a band of Two Kettles Lakota searching for lost horses, when they happened upon a group of soldiers under the command of Alfred Terry.

The case, argued before the US Supreme Court, became an important milestone in federal legal dealings with tribes, and contributed to the passage of the 1885 Major Crimes Act.

One source noted, he was unable "to prevent the government from violating the 1868 treaty",[h] but his "presence at the negotiations clearly pushed the agreements in the direction of Lakota interests", without which "things would have been much worse" for them.

[18] The New York Times report summarized the tension saying: Hollow Horn Bear appears to have an excellent record, extending back nearly twenty years.

Still, threatening to burn the agency buildings and summoning large bodies of Indians to intimidate the agent must be accounted a grievous fault...[18][i]In 1889 he was chosen to represent his tribe in negotiations with George Crook, over land sales aimed at opening up eastern parts of the Dakota Territory to include the Black Hills.

[20]: 32–3 As reported by The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Hollow Horn Bear was part of a delegation to Washington, D.C., in 1891, which met with Secretary of the Interior John Willock Noble.

According to the paper, after taking the floor he: asked that those Indians who had lost property during the late trouble might be reimbursed and went into financial matters in connection with the old and unfulfilled treaties.

The others were Geronimo (Apache), Quanah Parker (Comanche), Buckskin Charley (Ute), Little Phime[k] (Blackfoot) and American Horse (Oglala Lakota).

[11][24] In 1913, Hollow Horn Bear attended the dedication of the National American Indian Memorial, where he spoke on behalf of the tribes represented at the ceremony.

[26] Writing on March 22, 1913, the Sacred Heart Review described the scene at the funeral: Chiefs of the Blackfoot, Crow, and Sioux Indians, resplendent in feathers and colors, followed the body to the altar with heads bowed in grief.

[11]The chief's body left Washington via the train at Union Station; it was given a military escort by order of Secretary of the Interior Franklin Knight Lane.

2 In 1917 his son Henry Hollow Horn Bear, requested permission to attend the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson, to continue his father's role as chief.

2  Although identified as simply an "American Indian," the stamp, designed by Clair Aubrey Huston, was based on a photograph of Hollow Horn Bear taken by De Lancey Gill.

[31][32] A historical marker was erected in Todd County, South Dakota on U.S. Route 18 in 1962 which states in part: Hollow Horn Bear, born in 1850, fought the whiteman where he could find him in Wyoming and Montana, but after Spotted Tail was killed in 1881, he became Police Captain at Rosebud and in the Treaty of 1889, with General Crook, was the Indians chief orator and negotiator.

[33]A number of sources report Hollow Horn Bear as the basis for the image featured on a US five-dollar bill, including The National Magazine[34] and The Numismatist, a publication of the American Numismatic Association.

[35] One newspaper recounted in 1909, that upon visiting the Indian Bureau to secure about $300,000 in federal payments owed his tribe, "Hollow Horn Bear hopes to take home about 50,000 copies of his picture on the $5 certificates.

"[36] Another contemporary source records him commemorated on both the five and 20-dollar-bills, stating "Hollow Horn Bear made a great speech in congress in 1889, and as he is a good looking specimen [sic] of his race, his picture was engraved on both the $5 and $20 dollar bills.

The Museum made a statement: “The Chief’s shirt is a culturally specific, identity-forming object of religious significance to the Teton Lakota Indigenous community.