fJULY 1, 2001
Smoke Signals 11
Mystery of Kennewick Man's Missing Femurs May be Solved
YAKAMA, WA. (AP) The mys
tery of Kennewick Man's missing
thighbones may have been solved.
Detectives cleaning out the Benton
County Sheriffs office evidence vault
spotted a shoebox-sized container
with bones inside.
The pieces probably are from
Kennewick Man, based on a prelimi
nary examination, said Robbie
Burroughs, an FBI agent in Seattle.
An expert will study them more thor
oughly and make a final determina
tion. Then they will be turned over
to the FBI, which has been investi
gating the disappearance of the
bones since 1998.
The 9,300-year-old remains repre
sent one of the oldest and most com
plete skeletons found in North
America. The collection of 350 bones
and bone fragments was found in the
Papers Buried in
EUGENE, OR. (AP) After dig
ging through hundreds of thousands
of pages of forgotten documents
tucked away in Smithsonian Institu
tion archives, George Wasson has a
view of how American Indians were
treated by settlers that isn't found in
history books.
"There was a soldier's comments
about marching people from Port
Orford to Yachats," Wasson remem
bered. "An old woman was walking
barefoot. He gave her cloth to bind
her feet, but it didn't help. He wrote
that he could tell when she was ahead
of him, he could see her bloody foot
prints, climbing over the rock, climb
ing over the (area of) Sea Lion Caves."
The Coquille Tribe and the Univer
sity of Oregon co-sponsored the
project, and copies of all the docu
ments are being housed in the
university's Knight Library Division
of Special Collections.
Wasson, a member of the Coquille
Tribe and a recent doctoral recipient,
first got wind of a possible treasure
shallows of the Columbia River in July
1996 at Columbia Park in Kennewick.
Benton County Coroner Floyd
Johnson was one of the first people
to examine the bones, before they
were turned over to the federal gov
ernment for safekeeping.
Sheriff Larry Taylor said the box
was labeled "Columbia Park" and
was in the coroner's cabinet.
trove of documents in the mid-1970s
when he traveled to the Smithsonian
to do research.
Wasson said he never forgot "the
vast amount of information held back
there" on Indians.
An Assistant Dean of Students at
Oregon, Wasson retired and returned
to graduate school. In 1995, he se
cured funding from the university to
establish the Southwest Oregon Re
search Project. He used the funds to
take Tribal researchers and a group
of students to the Smithsonian.
The group searched paper and mi
crofiche documents, marking every
thing that referred to Indian Tribes
who once populated the Southwest
Oregon Coast. Although told they
"The coroner basically didn't know
what he had in his own little vault,"
Taylor said recently.
Johnson declined comment when
contacted by The Associated Press.
In March 1998, the government
acknowledged that substantial
pieces of Kennewick Man's femur
bones had disappeared, bones that
are valuable in assessing stature,
"wouldn't find much," they unearthed
50,000 pages of documents.
On their return, the group gave cop
ies of the documents to the library.
They also presented copies to seven
Oregon Coastal Tribes, distributing
the papers at a potlatch (give-away
ceremony), the first held in the area
in 150 years.
A return trip in 1999 yielded 60,000
more pages of documents, this time
with a geographical reach that ex
tended into Southern Washington,
Central Oregon, Western Idaho and
Nevada.
The group held a second potlatch a
few weeks ago, presenting copies of
relevant documents to representatives
of 44 Northwest Tribes.
size, age and ancestry.
The loss disturbed scientists, who
are suing in U.S. District Court for
access to the bones for study, and five
American Indian Tribes seeking the
bones for reburial.
U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks in
Portland, Ore., is expected to issue a
ruling in the case later this year.
Sheriffs detectives don't usually go
poking around in the coroner's locker,
but the evidence vault is being
cleaned out before its razed under a
new construction plan, Taylor said.
When the FBI receives the remains,
it will hold onto them until a decision
is made as to where they should go,
Burroughs said. The agency will look
into the circumstances under which
the bones were found.
The bones are now stored in the
Burke Museum in Seattle.
Jon Erlandson, professor of anthro
pology, called Wasson the "godfather"
of the research project.
"These documents have been hid
den and inaccessible to Indian people
and other scholars for decades, some
times 100 years," he said. "Now In
dian people can read them, use them
and rewrite their own histories in
their own communities."
Erlandson said the documents paint
a different story than that found in
history books, giving details of such
events as the coastal Indians' forced
removal from their homelands and
the Supreme Court's refusal to accept
the testimony of Native Elders in de
termining land ownership.
"It's a very emotional process of dis
covery," he said. "For some, it's too
painful to continue. For others, the
opportunity to right the wrongs of tra
ditional history is very compelling."
So far, aspects of the research have
been the focus of six doctoral candi
dates and six master's papers.
East Coast Archives Offer Tribes Links to Their Past
The documents paint a different story than that found in
history books, giving details of such events as the coastal
Indians' forced removal from their homelands and the
Supreme Courts refusal to accept the testimony of
Native Elders in determining land ownership.
Tuscarora Indians Seek Federal Recognition Bill Would Revive Native Languages
LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) Four
groups of Tuscarora Indians in North
Carolina are seeking federal recognition
as a Tribe.
The groups have formed a committee
called the Skarureh (Tuscarora) Nations
Rights Restoration Committee.
Unification of the bands would allow
the Tribe's voice to be heard by govern
ment officials, said Marilyn Mejorado
Livingston, the bear clan mother of the
Southern Band of the Tuscarora Bertie
County.
Groups involved are the Bertie band
in Winton as well as the Eastern Caro
lina Skarureh Nation Territory in Pem
broke, the Tuscarora Nation of North
Carolina in Maxton, and the Tuscarora
Nation of the Kautanoh in Shannon.
Nearly 2,500 pages of documentation
have been gathered by the group show
ing its ancestry from the Tuscaroras
who once lived in Bertie County.
The Tuscaroras inhabited land from
the Virginia border to South Carolina.
They were forced onto a reservation in
Bertie County in Northeastern North
Carolina after the Tuscarora War in
1713. They migrated to New York and
in 1722 became the Sixth Nation to join
the Iroquois Confederacy.
Tribal members who stayed in North
Carolina were scattered.
"The Tuscaroras have been and are
in North Carolina," said Mejorado
Livingston. "We are not extinct. We
want to clarify our status as Tuscaroras
of North Carolina and not New York."
Federal officials only recognize the
Tuscaroras of New York as a sovereign
nation.
Federal recognition would establish
the Tuscarora Tribe in North Carolina
as a sovereign nation.
The four bands are asking Tuscaroras
from across the state that haven't joined
a group to get their names on the rolls.
"We are inviting them to come home,"
Mejorado-Livingston said.
SALEM, OR. (AP) American Indians would be allowed to teach their
ancestral languages in public schools without full teacher certificates under
a bill that recently passed the Senate.
The proposal, introduced on behalf of the Confederated Tribes of Warm
Springs, is intended to help revive interest in the languages, which are dy
ing quickly. Some Native American Indian languages in Oregon are spoken
by fewer than a dozen, mostly Elder people who are unlikely to attend col
lege or get a traditional teaching certificate.
The first licenses to teach under the program could be granted by 2002.
The version passed was a compromise between the Tribes and the state
teachers union, and says the Indian instructors must be mentored by a certi
fied teacher with three or more years of classroom experience.
The certified teachers would observe the Native language teachers, assist
with lesson plans and offer, "other assistance intended to enhance the pro
fessional performance and development of the American Indian languages
teacher," the bill says.
American Indians had initially resisted this provision, saying the monitor
ing would insult Elderly Native speakers.
"We found it somewhat offensive because even I don't correct an Elder,
because in our culture that's not done," said Myra Shawaway, a Warm
Springs Cultural Heritage Director.
The Native languages Wasco, Paiute, and Sahaptin are spoken by just a
few people and are in danger of disappearing. Only 10 people speak fluent
Wasco, and most of them are at least 70.