Some Bones of Contention

By Frederic Golden

The first Californians are challenging archaeologists

In a meadow near Eureka, Calif., on the state's rocky northern coast, 50 Yurok Indians gathered for an unusual ritual. After three younger members of the tribe hollowed out a bit of earth, a Yurok leader reverentially placed seven bags in the hole. Ella Norris, 83, the tribe's oldest member, moved forward. Raising her eyes toward the sky, she said a prayer in English and in the language of her forebears: "We are sorrowful for the sacrilegious actions of the past. May these remains lie peacefully at rest forever."

The ceremony took place at Patrick's Point State Park, and for the Yuroks, a small tribe of California Indians, it was an especially important rite. After years of anguished protest, they had finally recovered the bones of their ancestors, plundered by scientists and amateur collectors, and reburied them in sacred soil. But for many California scientists, especially archaeologists and anthropologists, the ceremony had a different meaning: it was the latest episode in a continuing battle over the right of researchers to study America's distant past.

The reburial was the second staged by California's Indians, and may soon be followed by others because of a controversial state decision in September. Bowing to strong pressure from an Indian heritage group led by William Pink, 31, the state parks and recreation department agreed to allow the tribes to reclaim bones and artifacts from its collection in Sacramento. Curator Francis Riddell was in despair: "We're giving back what I spent 25 years excavating and preserving." The Yuroks reburied their bones in an unmarked plot to guard against future looters. The field at Patrick's Point, though it now belongs to the state, is part of an ancient burial ground that was long a favorite target for hunters of Indian relics. Says Yurok Tribal Chairman Joy Sundberg, 49: "White people came through this area in the 1920s and '30s and took everything Indian they could get their hands on. Every college, every souvenir hunter wanted Indian artifacts. Back then there was no way to stop them. Now we can at least try to protect our ancestors."

For archaeologists, who are often accused of grave robbing, the Indian war cries should come as no surprise. Only a few months ago, militant Orthodox Jews in Israel clashed with police during protests against excavations in an area of Old Jerusalem considered sacred ground, a medieval Hebrew cemetery. A year before his death, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat urged that Cairo's collection of mummies be closed to the public and eventually reburied. They were not merely objects of scientific or public curiosity but hallowed human remains and thus deserving of respect.

The complaints of American Indians have special poignancy. The culture of these conquered people was long regarded as inferior. When 19th century scientists first began to unearth the huge, artfully built prehistoric mounds found in abundance throughout the Midwest, they refused to believe that America's surviving Indians were the descendants of people who had such engineering skill. Some of this scientific racism still torments the Indian psyche. Walter Lara, 47, a leader in the Yuroks' fight for the return of the bones, says, "We're not property, and neither are our ancestors. Archaeologists don't dig up George Washington's body and put it on a shelf. But they do have the skull of one of our leaders, Captain Jack, sitting in a glass case in the Smithsonian."*

For their part, scientists fear that the action in Sacramento is only the first step in a systematic assault against other private and public Indian collections. Many also perceive an antiscientific bias in the Indians' campaign and a broader threat to all free inquiry. U.C.L.A. Archaeologist Clement Meighan, who is the chairman of a recently formed committee seeking to overturn the state's decision in the courts, even invokes the image of China's Cultural Revolution, during which centers of learning were shut down and scholars exiled to the countryside to do menial labor. Says Meighan: "Since many of these bones are over 2,000 years old, it's hard to imagine how any Indian in California can trace lineal descent [from them]."

Other archaeologists take a more sympathetic view of the Indians' aroused racial pride. Indeed, some are making a special effort to cooperate with Indian leaders. Under an agreement with the Sioux tribal council, for example, archaeologists have pledged to return after two years of study any bones removed from the newly discovered site of a massacre that took place at Crow Creek, S. Dak., 600 years ago. California's directive, though, contains no provision for negotiation or compromise: the Indians will be able to reclaim and rebury any bones and burial goods in the state collection.

Unfortunately, much of this archaeological treasure--371 skeletal remains and more than 100,000 artifacts, including jewelry, tools and musical instruments--has barely been studied, especially not with the latest analytical tools for dating, identifying and interpreting ancient fragments. It is hard not to wonder what secrets remain in this rich legacy left by America's first settlers. Curator Riddell hardly seems to be exaggerating when he warns: "In reburying this collection, we are unwittingly assisting the Indians in destroying their past." --By Frederic Golden. Reported by Alessandra Stanley/Patrick's Point

*Captain Jack led a small group of Modoc Indians in Northern California who held off the U.S. Army for six months in 1873. After he shot a general, he was hanged and his head was shipped East for scientific analysis but never put on display. The Smithsonian has now agreed to return it to the Indians.

With reporting by Alessandra Stanley/Patrick's Point

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