Comments on the way to the University of Nebraska Bison Conference - April 6, 2000

Following is a transcription of a conversation in a University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) van driving Omaha teacher education students from Macy to Lincoln to the Nebraska Bison Conference.

Fred McManahan [Frank McManamon], he campaigned hard to get that job being head of Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act (NAGPRA). It's like having the fox guarding the chicken coop you know. Cause he's an Arch [archeologist]. I'm always fight the bureaucrats.

I've been the advisor now to four governors in Iowa. I refused to let them pay me and I refused to let them give me in an office in the state house. They tried but I told them no; I support sovereignty. I support sovereignty of the tribes. Why would I take money from you? I'd get used to your money and the first time I did something you didn't like you'd take it away from me. Where would I be? I said I won't jeopardize my credibility.

A lot of people don't understand what sovereignty is. The tribes have the right to govern themselves. They did not relinquish that right when they moved over and gave the white man a place to live. In 1969 I was a real happy woman with babies. I had just gotten married. I’ve been a widow now for ten years.........

[Dennis Hastings joins us]

HASTINGS: The last time we saw each other we laughed for hours.

PEARSON: I was just going to tell the story of how repatriation got started. They don’t know what we went through.

That night my husband come home and he said, “We found an old historic cemetery in a town down there by Glenwood, Iowa that is call Pacific, Iowa. Nobody knew that cemetery was there. So we had to have the state archeologist come out.” So I asked him, “How are you going to move a cemetery?" He said, “We have to notify all of the people that's related to them. Like families and all that.” About two weeks later he come home and he said, “You know you are going to be really upset when I tell you what happened today at work.” I said, “What happened?” He said, “Well you know the state archaeologist came and they took twenty-six white people out of that cemetery put them in caskets and took them over to the local cemetery and reburied them. They found one Indian girl and her baby and they took her bones in a box to Iowa City to study.”

I said, “That's discrimination.” I said, “The dead have rights, too.” I said, “If all of those people got reburied they should have reburied they should have reburied the Indian girl, too.” So he said, “I told you, you would be upset!”

My gramma had passed away five years before. My gramma always used to tell me, “Someday you’re going to have to stand up for what you believe in.” I went out to pray and she said, “When I make my spirit journey I’ll be in a far better place than you are. If you ever need me listen for my voice in the wind.” We bought this house because it had these two hundred year old cottonwoods around my garden. So, I went out to pray...

[Pause]

I went in there and the governor said, “Have a seat, Running Moccasins.” I said, “No thank you. I can stand for what I have to say to you.” He said, “Well how can I help you?” I said, “You can give me back my people’s bones and quit digging them up!” And he looked at his aide and he said, “Do we have her people’s bones?” The aide said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I’ll find out.”

The governor said, “How long has this been going on?” I said, “Well let’s see. How long have you been here? Five hundred years! That’s how long it’s been going on! You have our people in boxes on shelves, hanging in museums all over this state!” He said, “Why would we do such a thing?” I said, “I don’t know. You’re barbarians. Graverobbers stealing from the dead.” That’s how it started.

I said to him, “Who is the highest? You or the state archaeologist?” He said, “I’m the highest. I’m the boss.” I said, “Well how come you talk to me and he won’t?” He said, “I don’t know but I will find out.” He called that state archaeologist and he said, “I want you in my office now!”

Courtesy of the Ames History Museum