Bones get proper burial

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It's been five years since Linda Taylor rescued a young Native girl from the Huronia Museum.

Her remains had been hanging on the wall as part of a display of Native bones in this central Ontario community.

Taylor said the exhibit was offensive. The bones of Natives are sacred and belong in the ground, she said.

"And it's not just Natives," said the 37-year-old Iroquois Indian.

"It's a human tissue. It's disgusting that museums have mummies on display and artifacts from graves. These people should be left in peace."

Taylor asked officials at the museum to rebury the bones. Museum curator Jamie Hunter quickly agreed and helped Taylor set up a reburial committee.

But trying to come up with final resting places for Native remains is a tough job.

Taylor said she approached nearby reserves Rama, Christian Island and Moose Deer Point to take the bones of a Huron for reburial but they refused.

"I even called the Hurons in Quebec. I was willing to go down there on the bus with the bones, but they didn't want them."

Bands are trying to stay out of an ongoing dispute between Native activists and traditionalists and some of North America's largest museums and universities, she said.

These institutions are home to thousands of Native bones dug up by archaeologist, found by farmers or unearthed at construction sites.

The museums want to keep the collections, to use them for study.

Giving back bones opens the door to demand a return of all sacred objects, said Taylor, a group home worker in Midland.

Still, the bones should be returned to Native communities for burial, she said.

"How would you like it if Indians dug up your grandmother, took her wedding ring to study it, and charged people a dollar to come in and look at her skeleton?

"People don't realize that these bones are from our ancestors. I've reburied bones that were only 100 years old. The children of that person could easily be alive, and it's not a stretch to believe that those belong to someone's grandmother."

Taylor and the museum have reached an agreement that allows the bones to be studied and then turned over to the committee for burial.

Remains found in the area are sent to the Cape Croker reserve near Wiarton on the Bruce Peninsula, and the Six Nations reserve near the south-western Ontario city of Brantford.

"A lot of the reserve graveyards are getting pretty full. If it came down to it we would buy a grave in a graveyard. So far, we've been lucky."

Taylor's nine-year-old son, Rebel, helps her find resting places for the bones.

"It's important for my son to realize the importance of the past," the said. "He's part of the future for Native people."

Taylor has reburied the bones of the young girl from the Midland museum and skeletons of two other Native people found in the Georgian Bay area since the burial committee was formed four years ago.

As well, she found a home for a skull that was found in Penetanguishene Bay two summers ago. A boy stepped on it while swimming.

Next spring, Taylor will receive the bones of four Ojibwa found about five years ago in Orillia when construction crews were digging up a driveway.

The coroner's office now sends all Native remains found in Simcoe County to Taylor's reburial committee.

"It's a big struggle," she said.

"But there are some people who are coming around and saying we've got to give this stuff back."