Onah

"Think for yourself, and act for others." -- Onondaga Chief Paul Waterman


Back in 1996, Chief Waterman and I worked to protect a burial ground from being mined by a construction company. In the late 1950s and early '60s, the NYS archaeologist and others had excavated the site, including "removing" a number of human burials. It was legal at the time to rob graves, so long as they were Native American's.

Paul had worked to protect and repatriate Indian burials as long as I can remember him. Much of the time, he did this alone, or with the assistance of Lee Lyons, Onondaga Faithkeeps Oren Lyon's younger brother. I had known Lee well before I got to know Paul. For at the longhouse, Paul was a quiet man, who only spoke now and then, and always in his native tongue.

By the late 1980s, I worked with Paul on the proposed Native American Graves Protect and Repatriation Act. An article that appeared in the March 1989 edition of National Geographic on the grave robbing on the Stack farm in Kentucky would help get it passed into law. "Relic hunters" had dug up literally hundreds of graves to find burial goods to sell to collectors.

When Paul and Tadodaho Leon Shenandoah went to Kentucky to reinter the remains, the governor asked why Iroquois would be in Kentucky on this case? They showed him the September 1987 National Geographic, and he put the two in charge. Paul told me of a pile of mandibles that was waist-high.

When it came to the 1996 case, I had the writings of two NYS archaeologists on the site. It dated back to 1190 ad (+/- 100), and it remains the most important documented of its type. These two participated in removing a number of burials, and their writings indicated where the rest of the burial ground was known to be. This was the area the construction company wanted to mine for gravel. Chief Waterman and I put a stop to that plan.

This summer, I went back to that town and spoke in the same building that Paul and I had in 1996. Besides this site, I had told of an Adena burial mound -- one of only two known in this region -- that was destroyed by a farmer in 1829. It had been located a hundred yards from this later burial ground. I had information on what was removed from a then current newspaper in Binghamton, NY. Along with caches of projectile points made of non-local materials, there were grave goods including a silver ring, a flute, and a large piece of mica cut in the shape of a human heart.

I spoke about the value of these sites as part of the human history of this area, along with delivering Paul's message on the value of clean water. Perhaps I made an impression when I spoke, because I got an interesting phone call yesterday evening. An elderly woman had gone through an old collection of local artifacts left with her, including a sction of things from the site Paul and I worked on. Among the boxes that had been unopened for decades, there was a skull from this site. She said that she knew I would be the person who would make sure it was taken care of and reburied properly. So today I will be contacting Onondaga.