And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/heritage_center/swhist_cult/7_22_99ancient.html Tucson Citizen July 22, 1999 Ancient burial site off-limits DURANGO, Colo. - Right outside Durango is one of the most important sites in Southwestern archaeology, with cliff ledges full of treasures. It yielded the best preserved human remains of ancient American Indians and culture-defining early artifacts from 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. But it's closed to the public. And so are about 500 acres of national forest around the site. The site has been off-limits to the public for most of this decade in deference to the 25 different tribes in four states that claim cultural affiliation to the Falls Creek Rock Shelters. A San Juan National Forest ranger watches over the sandstone alcoves that now surround an empty crypt. Groups of archaeologists and tribal consultants make rare visits. Vandals persist in their trespass and destruction. Beginning in the 1930s, and for decades after, archaeologists and vandals systematically emptied the Falls Creek sandstone vault of 19 skeletons of Ancestral Puebloans and their personal items, such as ancient sandals, clothing, baskets, jewelry and mats. The site produced one of the most famous mummies in existence, a young woman nicknamed "Esther" by the man who discovered her, amateur Durango archaeologist Zeke Flora. He named her for a cartoon character he'd seen in The Denver Post. The mummy ended up at the Mesa Verde National Park museum, where she was on display from 1939 and 1978. She'd been in worse places. Forest Service archaeologist Sharon Hatch said that the ancient woman's fully mummified remains once were on display in a barber shop window in Durango. Another mummy, dubbed "Jasper," was displayed at the Durango Public Library. While Mesa Verde still houses the female mummy, she is no longer shown to a curious public. For the 19 Pueblo Indian tribes and the Jicarilla Apache of New Mexico, the Hopi of Arizona, the Navajo Nation of the Four Corners and the Utes of Colorado and Utah, the treatment of their ancestors and the desecration of ancient burial sites is a horror story of staggering proportions. "It's very important that these individuals go back to their original (burial) locations," Clay Hamilton of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office said in a telephone interview. "In our belief, they are still caretakers of these sites." Part of the Hopis' covenant with Masua, the deity they believe owns this world, is the marking of migration routes - migrations they were to complete to become the owners of the world. "(The mummies) are still on their journey, because their remains haven't deteriorated back to earth. They are not completely in the spirit realm." For their remains to be moved and displayed is highly offensive. "I don't think white people would enjoy seeing George Washington paraded around on our reservation," Hamilton said. Even though sites such as the Falls Creek Rock Shelters have been stripped of their caretakers, the places themselves, and the petroglyphs and pictographs on cliff overhangs, remain important migration markers, Hamilton said. He does not believe the Forest Service should reopen the site it closed in 1992. Even since the closure, several acts of vandalism have occurred at the sites roughly 10 miles outside Durango. Big graffiti - initials, valentines and even a Godzillalike creature - were scratched into the sandstone in May. Hatch said the Forest Service continues to sort through concerns raised by all 25 tribes. It must balance their cultural values and the mandates of federal laws protecting American Indian graves and other cultural resources with national cultural values, such as scientific research and open access of Americans to their public lands. "It takes time to identify the issues and figure out where the compromises lie," Hatch said. "Any decision (about reburial or permanent site closure) . . . would come only after long public process." 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/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
