And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [note: some addresses are blind copied] Native Americans fight to save burial grounds Proposed state law protects graves from development http://detnews.com/1999/metro/9910/11/10110096.htm Alan Lessig / The Detroit News Susan Pierzynowski, an eighth-grader at Medicine Bear American Indian Academy at Historic Fort Wayne, pauses at an ancient burial mound near the Detroit school. By Shawn D. Lewis / The Detroit News BROWNSTOWN TOWNSHIP -- Steve Gronda's tears flowed and his heart swelled. It was a mourning delayed by 350 years. His Native American ancestors, the Wyandots, who were among the first to live in what is now Grosse Ile, Brownstown Township, Wyandotte, Boblo Island and other parts of Canada, were returned to the Wyandot nation for burial -- again. The remains of the Brownstown Township resident's ancestors were dug up and given to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for study 50 years ago. Now, they have been repatriated to their original burial site near Midland, Ontario. "It was an extremely emotional time for us," Gronda said. "That kind of pain does not go away." As millions of Americans celebrate Columbus Day today, a day many Native Americans consider a time of mourning, representatives from several tribes in Michigan and Canada are fighting for what most Americans take for granted: that ancestors' graves will not be desecrated or looted. They are drafting a proposed law, ! ! the Michigan Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, that would protect Native American burial grounds on private property and state land, as a federal act does on public property. Tribal leaders plan a lobbying campaign in Lansing. But with hundreds of burial grounds across the state, any new law would slow construction of new homes as time is taken to check property for grave sites. Any costs from the delays, developers say, would then be passed to the new homeowner. Michigan would not be the first to pass these laws; 16 states already have enacted similar legislation. "If the state laws are complementary and do not diminish or violate the rights outlined in the federal law, then I support them and have no complaint," said U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D- Hawaii, who introduced the original legislation that was signed in 1990. 'Show respect' "No one would dream of going to Gettysburg and digging up the remains of the soldiers who fought in the Civil War to study them," said anthropologist Kay McGowan of Grosse Ile, whose background is Choctaw, Cherokee and Irish. She's part of the group of 12 members of various tribes drafting the proposed law, as is her twin sister, Faye Givens, executive director of Americ! ! an I ndian Services. "So, why dig up the remains of Native Americans?" asked McGowan, who teaches Native American studies at Marygrove College. "Show our ancestors the same respect that any other American is afforded." The issue is of tremendous importance to native people. In 1995 in Ontario, Anthony O'Brien George, a 38-year-old Chippewa Indian, was killed and two others were seriously injured in a gun battle with provincial police over the Ipperwash Provincial Park on Lake Huron, 155 miles southwest of Toronto. Chippewas believe it is a sacred burial ground. Five years earlier, a group of Mohawks battled over burial grounds with army troops in Oka, Quebec, 18 miles west of Montreal. The Mohawks had constructed barriers blocking a bridge to protest a planned golf course expansion on burial grounds. The standoff lasted more than two months. Near the end, a corporal was killed and more than 400 soldiers surrounded 20 remaining Mohawk warriors. In this country, U.S. Rep. Doc Hasting! ! s, R -Wash., is trying to amend Inouye's law to halt archeological digs "when the benefits are outweighed by preservation or cultural concerns." Joe Reilly, 21, a senior at the University of Michigan and member of the Cherokee nation, wants a new state law. "We wonder why native people were once on display in museums, and our sacred items still are, but no other groups are disrespected in this way," Reilly said. "It just shows how American society views native people. That does not equate with much respect in my eyes." Costly construction delays But there is another side to the debate. Builders, developers and new homeowners also are affected. A few weeks ago, work on a housing subdivision in Monroe was halted when excavators found human bones, apparently from a French cemetery. "There is an expense for stopping work on a home or building, and it is the homeowner who ultimately will pay for it," said Nancy Rosen of the Building Industry Association of Southeastern Michigan. "Builde! ! rs a re concerned, and they do take care. "For instance, builders on the Brush Park project (in Detroit) conducted an archeological dig to see if there was anything there before they began development." But rather than halting work, Rosen said builders should be able to work around whatever remains are found. McGowan, the Grosse Ile anthropologist, disagrees. "How do they know how far a burial mound may stretch?" she asked. "If they find a few bones, there most likely will be others in that same area." That also does not sit well with Frank Alberts, 73, of River Rouge, who held his 4-month-old granddaughter Alaysia Brewer in his arms at the Wednesday evening gathering in the Detroit health center. He is a member of the Saginaw Chippewa Black River Band. "No one knows if the bones are Native American until they are studied," Alberts said. "But once that is determined, they should be returned to the tribe." Widespread sites Virginia Vallie-Johnson, 31 of Detroit, agrees. "You would n! ! ot g o to someone's private burial and dig them up unless the courts order it," she said. "It is simply disrespectful, by all means." Michigan has hundreds of unmarked sites where Native Americans are buried, according to old maps, including the Archeological Atlas of Michigan, published by the University of Michigan Press in 1931. Most are on private property -- and most people don't know they are there. More than 1,068 mounds and 265 burial sites were counted across the state in 1931. "Almost anywhere you step could be on top of Native American sites," McGowan said. "Our ancestors are everywhere." Some of those ancestors found their way into museums across the country -- including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Fort Wayne Military Museum in Detroit. Thurman Bear, an Ojibway from Dearborn, was furious when he visited the Detroit museum and saw a Native American skeleton on display more than 20 years ago. The museum no longer exists. "I could not believe i! ! t wh en I saw the label on the skeleton indicating that it was Native American," he said. "I talked to the curator and wound up being directed to a lot of different people before I finally had an audience with the University of Michigan Board of Regents." Joined by about 70 other Native Americans, Bear made his plea to return the remains and they were handed over in a box. Museum changes The Smithsonian Institution made a decision in 1989 to return the skeletal remains of Native Americans when requested by descendants. Most museums no longer display skeletal remains, although McGowan has visited museums across the country that still display sacred funerary objects. Closer to the metropolitan area, graves were discovered on Belle Isle and in Howell, Orion Township, River Rouge, Fort Wayne in Detroit, Gibraltar, Ecorse and Trenton, among other places. Many of Steve Gronda's ancestors -- including Thomas Warrow, grandson of Solomon Warrow, a chief of the Wyandots -- are buried with markers at Sacred Heart Cemetery on Grosse Ile. The 1990 U.S. law prohibits institutions that accept federal money from destroying, mutilating, defacing, removing or excavating Native American grave sites or burial grounds on public land without following protocol, such as notifying the nearest tribe. "But we want to strengthen the federal law to include private land," McGowan said. "We want our ancestors remains to be respected wherever they are found." Alan Lessig / The Detroit News Kay McGowan sprinkles ceremonial tobacco at an unmarked Indian burial site in Flat Rock. As McGowan visited an unmarked Wyandot grave site in Flat Rock last week, she sprinkled blessed tobacco on the ground as an offering. "You cannot own human beings in life, and you certainly should not be able to own them in death," she said. What the act would do A proposed Michigan Graves and Repatriation Act, being drafted by representatives of 12 tribes, includes these provisions: * Only professionally trained archeologists and archeology students could excavate Native American burial sites in Michigan, and then only with a permit and permission from the closest tribe. * Excavation by amateur archeologists, even on private property, would be punishable by penalties set by the act. * It would be illegal to keep remains from a Native American burial site as private property. * Felony charges could be lodged against anyone who, without tribal permission, willfully disturbs a Native American burial site, human remains or funerary goods found in or on any land, or tries to encourage others to disturb Native American burials. * The law would exempt the State Police and county health departments that have to move the contents of human burial sites recorded with the state. COMMENTS ON THIS STORY TO: http://data.detnews.com:8081/feedback/ Should builders be able to build on burial sites? SURVEY AT: http://detnews.com/1999/metro/9910/11/index.htm Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
