http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-geronimo-remains/2009/05/11/211
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Speak Your Piece: Geronimo Remains

Arts and Culture | Media
05/11/2009

Reflections on the practice of collecting American Indian remains. How did
we become trophies?

Mary Annette Pember

Like many American Indians, I’ve been carefully watching the current PBS
American Experience series, We Shall Remain. The series tells the history
of how native peoples resisted expulsion from their lands in the United
States. Unlike many movies and television shows about American Indians,
however, this series includes Indian film makers, scholars and advisors
including director Chris Eyre, (Cheyenne Arapaho), Director of Radio and
Television Programming for Native American Public Telecommunications
Shirley Sneve (Sicangu Lakota), Arizona State University history professor
Donald Fixico (Shawnee, Sauk&Fox, Creek, Seminole) and way too many other
great Indian people to mention here.

The series has been very thought provoking for me and brought up many old
and new questions about American Indian history and our relationship with
non-Indians in this country.

Last week’s episode about the Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo was
especially thought provoking and reminded me of a question that continues
to confound me; “Why the heck are non-Indians so interested in digging us
up?" The Geronimo show brought to mind stories about the Yale University
student society Skull and Bones. Rumors have circulated for years that the
175-year-old secret society has the skull of Geronimo on display in their
“Tomb,” the name of their building on High Street in New Haven, CT.

Marc Wortman, former editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine recently found a
letter in Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library written in 1903 by the
“Bonesman” Winter Mead. In the letter, Mead details how he and fellow
Bonesman Prescott Bush, former U. S. Senator and father and grandfather of
the Bush presidential dynasty, stole the skull from its grave in Ft. Sill,
Oklahoma and brought it back to the Tomb. The letter details the theft of
the “skull of the worthy Geronimo the terrible” and declares that “the
skull is now safe inside the Tomb together with his well-worn femurs, bit
and saddle.” (George W. and George H. W. Bush are both reported to be
members of Skull and Bones. Membership continues for life.)

Geronimo did indeed die when a prisoner of war at Ft. Sill and is probably
buried there. He and 500 Chiricahua Apache were incarcerated at the Fort
for 27 years. Apache leaders have reported that in 1986 Bonesman quietly
tried to return the skull, but the remains they offered appeared to be the
skull of a child according to former San Carlos Apache chairman Ned
Anderson. He refused to accept the remains or sign a document verifying
that the society was not in possession of Geronimo’s skull. Attorneys for
Skull and Bones deny the whole thing.

Currently, a branch of Geronimo’s family filed a lawsuit this year, the
100th anniversary of the warrior’s death, demanding repatriation of his
remains back to the headwaters of the Gila River in New Mexico. The Skull
and Bones Society is named in the lawsuit brought by Harlan Geronimo,
Geronimo’s great grandson. Another group of Geronimo’s descendants has
also filed suit-opposing repatriation; they would like the Apache warrior’s
remains to stay where they are.

Is Geronimo’s skull in the Tomb? It’s nearly impossible to know for sure,
but I think we can assume that the skull of an American Indian person,
maybe a child, is kept in the Tomb and is referred to as “Geronimo.”

The thought of Indian remains, those of someone’s relative, languishing in
the glass case of a highbrow men’s club as a lighthearted trophy, hurts
every time I think about it.

Watching the We Shall Remain’s episode about Geronimo helped me better
understand the fascination America has held for the Apache warrior. His
exploits were detailed (and probably embellished) in the press of the day,
fueling the fire of his legend that continues today. Indeed, it seemed his
ferocity and brutality were almost celebrated. However, it doesn’t explain
the ongoing interest in this country to unearth and possess his or other
American Indian remains.

Where I live, just north of the Mason Dixon line, there is great interest
in unearthing and displaying Indian bones. We often see stories in the
local paper about folks finding remains on private property and proudly
displaying these items in their homes. The Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act, which provides protection for Indian
funerary and cultural items, applies only to federal land.

The mindset that allows seemingly normal, God-fearing, respectful white
folks to dig up the graves of Indian people and display their remains
continues to confuse and amaze me.

In a strange disconnect, I note that folks in this region seem to revere
burial sites containing descendants of their relatives. Vandalism of a
cemetery is big news hereabouts.

The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a story not long ago about damage done to the
Williamsburg Township Cemetery, a small town in southwestern Ohio.
Cemetery sexton Earl Whiteman said,

“I can't even begin to guess at the cost of all the damage.” “It kind of
makes me sick. I don't know what they've gained by doing this. This is
sacred ground.”

“They (non-Indians) simply don’t see us as quite human and therefore our
dead are unworthy of respect,” maintains Vicky Whitewolf, Cherokee,
executive director of the Cincinnati group, Indigenous Cultural Advocacy in
Resources and Education. The group advocates for the repatriation of Native
American remains.

The notorious Cranial study of 1868, commissioned by the Smithsonian
Institute, to prove that Native Americans were physically inferior to white
Europeans gives historical credence to this charge and certainly helped
form public attitude toward indigenous peoples remains. The museum paid
soldiers and civilians for the delivery of skulls of Native American men,
women and children. Of the many thousands of indigenous remains shipped to
the museum, upwards of 14, 000 remain today at the National Museum of
Natural History awaiting repatriation to their respective tribes.
(Ironically the science of the day found that Indians were, in fact,
physically equal to white Europeans.)

Garrick Bailey, professor of anthropology at the University of Tulsa agrees
that until very recently, the remains of indigenous peoples have been
viewed by mainstream America as scientific specimens rather than the graves
of someone’s relatives.

“It’s all about power and privilege,” according to Henrietta Mann,
Cheyenne, professor emeritus of Native American Studies at Montana State
University. She explains that the same sense of entitlement that led to
the depopulation of indigenous peoples from North America in the name of
Manifest Destiny (a philosophy of white, European hegemony) allows
non-Indians to keep Indian remains as trophies.

I can’t wait to see this week’s We Shall Remain episode; its about the 1973
American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. That
should really get me thinking.