Published: September 19, 2008 09:26 pm         

Native remains returned to state after 45 years

The Back Porch

Some families in this country are waiting for the return of their loved ones from distant battlefields of World War II, Korea or Vietnam. They may never know the whereabouts of those people. Sixty years is a long time to wait.

Imagine being the bones if no heirs are alive. American Indian remains unearthed during digs in Putnam County in 1963 are finally back in the Mountain State. Their ultimate resting place is yet to be determined, but Putnam County officials see this action as the first step in that final determination, according to a story in The Charleston Gazette.

The battle for the bones has been ongoing for nearly two decades as West Virginians sought to reclaim the remains of 600 American Indians that have been in storage in 150 boxes at The Ohio State University. The remains came from Buffalo, near where the Toyota plant is located, on land now owned by American Electric Power.

The puzzle is finding someone to claim them and rebury them properly. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act allows federally recognized tribes to take custody of American Indian remains and artifacts stored in museums and universities. The problem with Buffalo’s remains is no tribe has claimed the boxes.

Site diggers unearthed a village believed to be 400 to 500 years old, the Gazette reported.

However, scientists deemed these remains “culturally unidentifiable,” which means they could not be linked to modern-day tribes, ergo the difficulty in finding a tribe to claim the remains.

Considering the financial and climatological mayhem in the world right now, is this really worth the trouble?

Yes.

As a God-fearing Christian, I believe the body is an earthly shell cast aside once the spirit enters eternity. However, that doesn’t mean I want what’s left of my ancestors sitting in a box on a shelf in Columbus, Ohio. Forcing a Mountaineer to endure as a Buckeye? Now THAT is unholy.

Further, there is enough Celtic tradition in my bloodline to believe that earthly shell should be properly put to rest. Put it in a grave, scatter it to the winds, just do something fitting to dispose of it.

We’ve all seen the movies about sacred Indian burial grounds and curses.

I don’t know whether that’s true, and I don’t know enough about Native religions to say what any tribe believes about the connection between the spirit and the earthly shell once a human has passed.

The real issue here is respect, something that’s been in mighty short supply for American Indians for a long time.

These bones, whether any tribe wants to claim them, came from the valleys and mountains now known as West Virginia.

And, by golly, we take care of our own.

That’s why I’m proud of Putnam County for fighting the feds, the scientists and everybody in between to bring those bones home and do what’s necessary to respectfully inter them.

Meanwhile, the bones wait at the Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex Research Facility in Moundsville to see whether those experts can tie them to a modern tribe.

Putnam County administrator Brian Donat told the Gazette: “Our goal is to have them reburied.

“They’ve been studied enough and have been floating around for 40-some years.”

It’s time to put the bones to rest.

— Young is a Register-Herald columnist. E-mail: ynerissa@verizon.net.

© 2008 by Nerissa Young