Ancestors laid to rest in Ontario homeland

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The ceremonial reunification of the Huron Wendat confederacy in Sainte-Marie Park on Aug. 28 was in preparation for the highlight of a three-day homecoming reunion - a Feast of the Dead.

The descendants of the confederacy returned to the land known as Huronia from as far away as Alaska, Virginia, California, Michigan and Quebec. It was the first reunion of the Huron Wendat confederacy since the people were dispersed across the continent in 1649 by conflict, disease and famine.

In 1947, archaeologists from the Royal Ontario Museum dug up the skeletal remains of at least 500 Huron Wendats from a burial place near Midland, Ont. where they had been buried together in 1636.

In 1974, Michel Gros-Louis of the Wendake reserve near Quebec, accompanied by his father, visited the site marked only by a hand-carved wood sign by the side of the road.

He was horrified to learn that his ancestors' bones were on a shelf in a museum some 100 kilometres to the south in Toronto.

He made a promise to his father to get them back and return them to the burial place near the site of the former Wendat confederacy capital of Ossossane.

In 1977, he formally asked the museum to relinquish the bones, the largest collection of human bones it owned.

"It has been my sacred duty," said Gros Louis. "I believe my ancestors have asked me to give them rest, to give them peace," he said.

Although none has ever been displayed, the museum agreed last year - in a spirit of sensitivity to Native culture - to return the remains.

On Aug. 29, Gros- Louis' promise to his father - now deceased - was fulfilled when Mimi Kapches, the museum's head of anthropology, transported the remains back to the burial place in a rented truck.

One by one, the boxes full of the bones were unloaded from the cube van and carried to the burial pit.

Passed down into the pit along a human chain, each box was smudged with the smoke of sweetgrass, then blessed - with three taps to the lid - by the oldest descendent in attendance, 90-year-old Madeleine Gros-Louis of Wendake, before being opened to reveal human bones sorted by type.

Standing at the bottom of the eight-metre deep pit, Michel Gros-Louis first helped place beaver skins and then arifacts, including copper kettles and shell beads, in the pit. He helped open the boxes and gently placed some of the bones in a circular pile. He appeared at times to be fighting back the tears.

"I feel at peace seeing my ancestors returned to their rightful resting place," he said later.

Yellowed with age, the skulls, apparently of small children, were carefully laid to rest next to the larger adult skulls. Rib cages were piled together next to leg bones, and the pile steadily grew larger during the day-long ceremony.

Young and old, some wearing traditional clothes, looked on. For Sallie Andrews of the Wyandotte of Oklahoma, standing by the 20-metre wide circular pit looking at the bones of her ancestors was overwhelming.

"It's an emotional experience of great sadness. It's more than words can say," she said.

Kapches called the ceremony "a very special event."

"It's quite moving," she said

Attending such a ceremony was a privilege that, centuries ago, was also enjoyed by French Jesuit priest Jean de Brebeuf, whose martyrdom coincided with the Huron Wendat dispersal. de Brebeuf witnessed and wrote about the 1636 Feast of the Dead burial at Ossossane.

"Our rebirth will come as we return the remains of our ancestors to mother earth," said Stephen Gronda, a representative of the Wendats of Michigan.

"It felt like we were suspended in time and place. I feel a oneness with all my brothers and sisters here with me now, and those who went before," said Janith English, chief of the Wyandotte Nation of Kansas.

The task complete, the people headed off to celebrate the rebirth of their confederacy, leaving two of their members behind to act as guards over the remains until the sandy pit was filled the next day.

The museum not only returned the bones but als handed over possession of the burial ground to Quebec's Wendake band council.

"It's my hope that this place will become a place of peace and healing for all who come here," said English.