Indian tribes seek Kennewick Man remains | Seattle P-I

[Ediacara]

Indian tribes seek Kennewick Man remains

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Northwest Indian tribes are weighing legal options as the clock runs down on their last chance to reclaim the remains of the Kennewick Man for burial.

At this point the choice is to accept an appeals court decision allowing scientists to study the 9,000-year-old remains found on the Washington banks of the Columbia River in 1996 or to try for a reversal in the U.S. Supreme Court.

In February a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the remains don't come under protection of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, which might have been used to return the remains to the tribes.

Last week the appeals court refused a request for an 11-judge panel to rehear the case. The tribes have about a month to decide whether to take the case to the Supreme Court.

More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[aquart]

1. They aren't entitled to them.

These tribes are late immigrants to the area and this is NOT their ancestor.

I thought this was settled.

Amerindians are entitled to many things from us, but perpetuation of an ego-assuaging myth ain't one of them.

[Ediacara]

3. Kennewick Man isn't ANYONE's ancestor

He's probably a member of the first wave of American immigrants (now extinct in the Americas), who are most similar to modern Ainu from Hokkaido and Sakhalin, and not to modern Native Americans or East Asians.

The whole problem with Kennewick Man and the question of what to do with him stems from a law which assumes:

1) All Native Americans are racially homogenous, when in fact they aren't. At least three distinct groups of Native Americans exist today, the vast Amerindian group, the Central Canadian Na-Dene group, and the Arctic Aluet group.

2) All pre-Columbian peoples in the Americas would be considered racially Native Americans today, which again, isn't true. Prior to the Amerindian migration there is a lot of data suggesting that there were people here already, and that they were racially distinct from most modern East Asians, and Native Americans. As I said before, this initial migration appears to have been made by people most similar to modern Ainu, and they are completely extinct in the Americas.

[jdj]

4. any chance of going Solomon on them?

Cut the stupid thing in half..

No disrepect, but the more press this gets, the more enquiring minds want to know. I say study it and if it turns out to be Native then return it and let them bury it. A show on this that I saw had a Native man asserting rights to this skull based soley on the fact that his people believe, in a religious sense, that they were the first people here. I respect that belief, but I think that is the same as trying to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools because some religious folks don't believe in it. It is not right to ask people to stay ignorant about something this important.

I think they should legally claim ownership of anything determined to be theirs, like all the Native American artifacts in U.S. museums. It is nauseating to watch Antiques Roadshow and see these white people being told this Native American basket or that Native American beaded collar is worth $100,000.

[Ediacara]

5. The thing is, he has been studied

And it looks very strongly from the initial results that Kennewick Man does NOT belong to any modern Native American group, and is DEFINATELY not the ancestor of any modern Salishian peoples.

The law being used to "repatriate" the remains although theoretically good, is silly when applied to remains and artifacts that are this old. It would be like the Italian government creating a law that said all languages ever spoken in Italy from the dawn of time to the present moment, are Romance Languages. This is absurd because DATA, like the existance of Etruscan, clearly shows that the law doesn't work.

[jdj]

6. I know.

I'm normally very pro-native but in this case I think science should prevail.

I just watched a Nova that was about the Tokarians (Tocharians?) and it found corpses of women who were assumed to be priestesses buried in hats that are eerily similar to the ones that witches are portrayed as wearing today, like in the wizard of Oz. So something that seems like it came from a fairy tale could be proven to be historically accurate.

This is the only way human kind will ever advance and learn the truth about ourselves, by studying the truth of archaelogical remains from the past, rather than the written version, because of those two rules of dominance that determine the tale told: 1) the winners write history (and religion) while the losers write poetry, and 2) the golden rule, which is that whoever has the gold makes the rules (laws).

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. The prevailing opinion is that he is Caucasian...read the links...

<http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf109/sf109p02.htm>

<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan97/bones_1-3.html>

<http://www.kennewick-man.com/kman/news/story/2921038p-2956124c.html>

[Ediacara]

11. The links say Caucasian looking

Other stuff I have read said most similar to modern Ainu, who are also somewhat Caucasian looking....



And not very similar to modern Native Americans:

[ozone_man]

8. How do you know they went extinct?

I thought the North and South Americas were to some degree populated 11 or 12 thousand years ago, give or take, by carbon dating sites with projectile points, etc.. On what do you base their extinction? Not to suggest that there weren't other waves of immigration. Just curious.

[Ediacara]

10. They are extinct now

I did not mean to imply that they were extinct at the time of the Amerind migration.

[ozone_man]

12. Why are they not considered Amerinds?

Sure they may not be traceable to a particular tribe now, but do we know that they didn't continue to thrive, mix with other waves? It's been quite a while since I took Native American Anthropology and theories change. When are you saying that the Amerind migration took place?

[Ediacara]

13. They could have mixed, true

But as a distinct group, they no longer exist.

They are distinct from Amerinds however, just as Ainu are distinct from Japanese.

[Zeke]

2. Laughs...

Homer: if I get your tribal land back from the beavers, do you promise to build a casino on it?

Indian Chief: yes, and all your meals will be complimentary.

Homer: my brother (embracing the chief).

[earthside]

7. The Damage

I am a big supporter of Native Americans, the right to preserve their heritage, their history. I do not begrudge them their interpretation of what happened as the European Americans conquered and move west.

But the tribes that have decided to fight on this Kennewick man issue just have no comprehension on the philosophical hypocrisy and damage they have done to themselves. They come across as purposefully not wanting to know what the truth might be ... for fear of what the truth might be!

There is simply no way to justify denying anthropologists and other scientists the opportunity to study these remarkable bones.

Indeed, these tribes are perpetuating a most insidious kind of racisim ... and that is that somehow even hundreds of generations past and thousands of years ago, we were somehow "different" from one another and should be treated differently -- even today.

I reject this notion that we are not all brothers under the skin. Whomever Kennewick man was, he is as much my ancestor as anyone elses.