When that story broke and they asked me what my age was and I told them... no one ever realizes the depth or the width or the length of the knowledge [becomes important] when you're living it until somebody asks you to tell the story of what happened and it was through that process...my children want to know the details in the beginning, the first ten years of that creation for me because I wasn't permitted to speak about it.
That came not from me but the other world, the spirit world and my grandmother had made her spirit journey five years before this happened and the contact that I had was through my grandma. I came at a time when I had just remarried and thought I was going to be a kept woman and just raise my papooses and not do nothing. It became the busiest, most active part of my existence on Mother Earth at the time. There's no preparation for it because it takes place even before you're born. Things fall out into a pattern of what you're called to do and so it's not like preparing to go to college and saying I'm going to take this course and that course because this what I want to be in the end. It's not the way it works.
When I got married in '69 my grandmother had already made her spirit journey. I have to go back and I have to look at what happened in my life prior to that. When I was little I used to see my window on fire. I would scream. My Mother would come and she would say, “You just had a bad dream” and I would say, “Mama, the window's still burning am awake.” And as I understand it had we been living in the past where our medicine people were...they were.. my great grandmother was a... [inaudible] of medicine. She knew all the plants, their names, what their purposes were, how to use them and had we been in that situation I would have been turned over to my great grandmother to raise but the missionaries came in and my grandmother an mom all made the decision that they had to protect me from that and so they tried to channel that knowledge that was coming to me from the other side even as a child. Then I ended up in mission school with the missionaries anyhow...so now I look back and I see, understand that walk, why it was that way for me...
Like I said in '69 when I got married, I married a civil engineer, John Pearson. He was a construction engineer for the Iowa Department of Transportation. He was in charge of building the interstates. Well before the law, before any of this ever happened he knew I was Indian and that didn't bother him. I had refused to marry him for about three years because I told him, I said, “You don't know what you're asking. You don't know the prejudice of the races. You don't know how cruel this is.” And he said, “I can't believe it.” And he wanted a family so when he got offered the job out there he said that it would be too hard on our relationship, the distance, and so I said, “All right, I'll marry you.” So we got married on my birthday in July the 12th, 1969. And so he moved me out to Southwest Iowa.
He had a job in '71 down on Highway 34 and 29. They were working on that. He come home one day and he said, 'you know there used to be an old town called Pacific, Iowa down there on 34 at Glenwood, Iowa [unclear] and he said, 'at the turn of the century everybody had left town and abandoned their cemeteries so that at the turn of the century even the tombstones were pushed over and the farmer planted his field there and so when they were working on the widening of that road it ended up hitting that cemetery. So he'd told me about that and so then the state archaeologist was called in for them to notify the people. They had to notify all of the descendants to get permission to move them to another cemetery.
I was making fry bread. I remember that night just like...every detail. I was standing at the stove. He said, “Honey, you're going to be really upset when I tell you what happened at work today.” And I said, “What?” He said, “We got the state archaeologist over. They took out 26 white people and give them new caskets and took them over to the local cemetery for reburial and they found one Indian girl and her baby. They took her bones in a box to Iowa City to study.”
I said, “That's discrimination.” I said, “That Indian girl has every right to be buried with her child.” I said, “You better finish your supper with the kids.” He said, “What're you going to do?” I said, “I'm going outside to pray.”
I said, “Something's got to make sense out of this. Our men are getting beat up. There was report with pictures in Minnesota and Michigan showing our men being clubbed you know. We had a stabbing here in Sioux City, Iowa.” I said, “There has to be some way to resolve this in a peaceful, orderly way.” So he said he would take care of the dishes and put the kids to bed. I went outside. My gramma had told me. I used to go help her all the time. She was the one that taught me how to dry corn and squash, take care of the apples and the fruits and the nuts, our vegetables, our tubulars and stuff. Taught me how to dry meat, how to make pemmican. She told me, she said, “Someday, girl, you're going to have to stand up for what you believe in but you better make sure you know what you believe.”
I remember one day I told her. I said, “Gramma, I hope nothing ever happens to you because I don't know what would happen to me.” She said, “When I make my spirit journey don't you cry because I'll be in a far better place than you are.” She told me, she said, “Remember the cottonwood tree is sacred to the Sioux and you remember when you have your... you make your box out of cottonwood,” and I promised her. And when she made her spirit journey I was in Europe and I couldn't attend her funeral. She did tell me, she said, “When you're lonesome for me listen for my voice in the wind and I'll come to you because you've always had a relationship with the wind ever since you were a baby.” Well you grow up. Have children of your own. Time passes you know.
These things stay in your mind for whatever reason they're there. That night when I started to pray I heard the wind coming to me from the southwest. It come right up to the end of my property line and it stopped. And this house we had bought had these two-hundred-year-old cottonwood trees surrounding it and I knew that's where I wanted to raise my children. And I built my garden around the base of the trees and I'd go out to pray. I'd always pray there.
So when I went out to pray and I heard that wind...the trees started to rustle a little bit. They sounded just like crystal pieces hitting together. It was like they were chattering just real fast. All of a sudden I heard my gramma. She said, 'I told you, girl, you'd have to stand up for what you believe in. You must protect where your ancestors lie.” I said, “Gramma, I'm scared. I'm here with all these red necks. I've got babies. They'll hurt my children.” She said, “No. Your grandfather's up here.” She says, “They'll help you. They'll protect you.”
And she told me a lot of things was going to happen. And I was telling her, “Gramma, I don't know no medicine men.” She says, “Don't ever look for one.” She said, “The people that need to be with you will come to you.” She says, “Don't go in search of anybody. They'll be there.” She said, “You won't be able to talk about these things,” but she said, “there will come a time when you can.” And she told me a lot of other things that was going to happen to me. I said, “Gramma, I'm not strong enough for this. I'm scared.” And she said, “Don't be. Don't be.” She said, “Just do everything one step at a time.”
So I did. I went back in the house. My husband had cleaned up the kitchen and the kids were bathed and in bed. I come in and he said, “Well, honey, what are you going to do?” I said, “It's best you don't know what I'm going to do.” He worked for the state and I didn't know what to tell him. I went to bed and the next day I sent my kiddies to school and my husband off to work. I went to my trunk and I got my ribbon dress out and I put on my moccasins and put my hair ties in and I got my shawl and my moccasins on my feet and I made that 90 mile trip to Des Moines.
When I got to Des Moines I went right up to the Capitol. And I walked up those steps and I was aware of people looking at me and I remembered. Just remembered what my grandmother told me. I didn't know what I was going to do. What I was going to do. And I got to the door of the governor's office. And the receptionist looked at me just startled to see Indian women dressed in regalia standing in front of her. She said, “Can I help you?” I said, “I come to see the great white father. Tell him Running Moccasins is here.”
She got up and went in the back and she come out with this guy, a governor's aide and he said, “Can I help you?” I said, “Are you the great white father?” He said, “No. But he is a very busy man.”
I said, “I'm a very busy woman.” I said, “If I was an ambassador from a foreign country you'd have that red carpet rolled all the way down grand all the way out [pause] to the airport. You'd have a delegation there to greet me.”
I said, “Well I am an ambassador. An ambassador from my people.” And I said, “If this man is over everybody in the state of Iowa then he's over me and if he's over me I have a right to see him.” And so, he turned around and he went in the back.
I looked up and the governor, he was peeking at me around the corner (laughter). And I thought, “God that’s something I would do. He must be okay.” So then the aide, he come up and he said, “The governor he'll see you.” So I went back there. The governor was standing in front of his desk. He reached out his hand and I just kind of ignored it you know. He said, “Running Moccasins, how can I help you?” I said, “You can give me back my people’s bones and you can quit digging them up.” He looked at his aide and he said, “Do we have her people’s bones?” The aide says, “I don't know but I'll find out.” I said, “There's something else I'd like to know here. Whose higher up? You or the state archaeologist?” “I am,” he says. “Why do you ask?” I said, “Well, I can see you and talk to you. Why doesn't he return my phone calls?” And he said, “I don't know but we'll find out those things.” And he called on the phone. He wanted that state archaeologist in his office NOW.
I'm sitting there and I'm waiting now and the governor says, “How long has this been going on, Running Moccasins?” I said, “Well, let me see. How long have you been here? Five hundred years. That's how long it's been going on!” He said, “My god. That's not right! Everybody should have the right to rest in peace!” I said, “My sentiments.”
And so then I was quiet. He said, “What are you thinking?” I said, “Are you sure you're the boss?” And he said, “Yes, I'm the boss. Why do you ask?” I said, “Well, I know if my chief would have called me and I didn't come I know what would happen to me. I just wondered.” And boy he got that phone again and he said, “You ever hear of an airplane?” And then he said, “Running Moccasins, I'm going to have the answers to give you. This will be resolved. I promise you that. I need your phone number where we can get in touch with you. I want to keep in touch with you to know.” I said, “Well, I'll give you my home number but tomorrow I won't be there. I'm going to the hospital. I'm scheduled surgery.”
I get over to the hospital and my doctor comes in. He says, “You must be some kind of celebrity. We got the press running all over wanting pictures of you and wanting to interview you.” I look out my door and saw all these reporters so I said real loud, “I want to see my lawyer.” My doctor says, “You're going to surgery. Why do you want a lawyer?” I said, “You could kill me in there. I could die and you'd bury me. I want to will my bones to the state of Iowa. That way they won't cause mental trauma for my children and my grandchildren when they come to dig me up.” See the headlines, "Running Moccasins wills her bones to the state." All the while the state archaeologist is saying, “If that women thinks she makes a fuss I'm going to hand her over a couple of boxes of bones she is sadly mistaken.” The next newspaper says, “State archaeologists asks Running Moccasins where she wants to be reburied.” They had a picture of me in the hospital bed. I looked like I was joining my ancestors!
But human interest in Iowa.. people here just rose up in anger about what was happening to us and they wrote tons of letters to the governor telling him to get that devil out of the bones, they had no business in anybody's graves.
And then legislators came. They asked me how I seen this working you know because the DOT is the biggest mover of dirt, how this would affect road building. I said it should enhance the studies of archaeology and anthropology. To study people you can't be afraid of them and these guys are all scared to death of us and they have every right to be. If I was tampering with their graves I'd be scared of them, too.
So then the scientific community got in there. “We want her to come and tell us why they hold their graves sacred.”
Well, I went to that first big meeting. They had this big long table. There were all these archaeologist and anthropologists. There was like 200 of them in that room. And I called Don [Don Wanatee] from the Misquoceke [Meskwaki] settlement. I said “Don, I want you to go with me. They want us to tell them why we hold our graves sacred.” Don said, “Okay.” So the next day we met at Iowa State. Don says, “Maria, I was in ceremony last night and the spirits told me I was going to lose my voice in the reburial.” I said, “Don't say that, Don, I really need you.” And he said, “I just thought you should know that.” And we went into that meeting and we were the only two witnesses. My grandmother used to say, “Never let anybody make you less than who you are by making you angry. You lose the fight if you let somebody make you angry.” I used to always try to remember these things she taught me.
That day I went in there and we sat down [she] [state archaeologist – unclear] was sitting at one end of the table with her legs slung over the side of the chair. She never even got up or anything. Real macho. She said, “Well, you wanted hear why these Indians think their graves are sacred. There they are and I don't care which one of them goes first.” I looked at Don and I said, “This Yankton woman yields to the Meskwaki gentleman.
He was really talking about Meskwaki culture. He said there was a time when we all went to the woods. There was a time when we sang the songs. We knew what the songs meant. There was a time when we all said the prayers. That woman jumped up and she said, “Oh, I'm sick and tired of you Indians trying to ram your culture down my throat. I don't give a damn whether you dig up my gramma and take her wedding ring or not,” and there was just an audible gasp in that room. You could hear a pin drop and I knew I was Sioux.
I knew I was Sioux in that moment cause I could have just come right across that table and got her. I could have ripped her heart out with my bare hands and I could have ate it right there. I knew in that moment I could do it. And I heard my gamma behind me. She said, “Remember, never let them know. Your grandfathers are here. They are right beside you.”
I looked at Don and Don was so angry. He started to talk. He got up and his jaw just swung back and forth. Nothing came out. I knew how I was feeling and I was praying for some control of myself. I looked over at Don. He stood up, put his book in front of him and said, “I guess, Maria, you're going to have to tell them for us,” and he walked out of the room. The I thought well, the grandfathers here they can see us. I looked at her and I said, “Well, you invited us here because you wanted to hear why we hold our graves sacred.” I said, “Then you insult us.” I said, “I came to give you a message and I'm going to do just that. You said you don't give a damn whether you dig up your gramma and take her wedding ring. I'm going to tell you something. Indians don't disturb the dead nor do we steal from them. I do give a damn whether you dig up my gramma and take her wedding ring and I'm going to fight you ‘til there is no breath left in me. My gramma is going to rest in peace.”
And I got up and I walked out of the room. This guy was chasing me down the hall yelling “Running Moccasins, Running Moccasins.” I just kept going. I got out into the parking lot. My husband was there you know. He caught up to me. He got up to the car. He says, “Running Moccasins, I just wanted to apologize.” I turned around, I looked at him and I said, “No man on God's green earth should have to apologize for his other half,” and I got in the car and my husband looked at me. He said, “Honey, I've never been so proud of you as I am in this moment.”
From there it just went all over the country. The triple A, the American Association of Archaeologists. They were all having their meetings and who was their speaker? Who was their invited speaker? (laughter) I went all over the United Sates speaking. I was speaking to all these scientific types. They all wanted to know scientifically. What do you mean? We have to have cadavers you know. What about scientific study? And I said, “I've never had any objection to you having somebody who said you can cut me up after I'm gone. You can have my body after I'm gone. They've given you permission. But my gramma didn't give you permission. And neither did my great gramma or my great great gramma all those generations back. Nobody gave you permission to dig them up. And those are the ones we're talking about.”
I went to Washington, D.C. I went to the Smithsonian Institution. Told them what I thought of them in nothing flat. I was washing dishes and the phone rang and it was my girlfriend. “They're having a big important meeting out here,” she says. I said “Really?” She says, “The Smithsonian are wining and dining the Washington Redskins.” I said, “Huh?” I thought she was talking about the ball team. I said, “What are they doing?” “They're making decisions about your ancestors.” I said, “Really?” She said, “You should be here.” I said, “What time’s the meeting?” “The meeting's going to be at five o'clock at the Smithsonian.” I said, “Really?” It was just eleven o'clock in the morning. So I called the governor up and I told him, “There's a meeting in Washington, D.C. that going to reflect on our decisions here to protect the burials.” He said, “Well you go. We'll pay for your expenses.” I called the state archaeologist and told him, “I'm going to Washington. I want a round trip ticket today.”
I was on that airplane. I went right to the Smithsonian. I had all these long tables, all with white table clothes, big tall crystal, wine glasses. I come in there and the secretary, he seen me. He said, “Who in the hell invited her?” They asked me if I wanted to come and eat with them. I said, “No thank you. I don't break bread with the enemies or drink firewater.” I sat right by the door until they were through eating. You could cut that tension with a knife.
So then they all adjourned outside into this other meeting room. I went and I sat in the first chair right by the wall in the back. The first one they introduced was Bea Medicine from Calgary. Bea got up there. “Who speaks for the [inaudible]? No one speaks for the [inaudible]. There's nobody related.” I just had to listen to her cause she's Dakota. Then they said, “Any questions?” My hand shot up. They said, “There'll be no speeches here today.” I just looked at them. Finally everybody knew that I was looking so they had to acknowledge me.
I said, “I'm Running Moccasins. Bea Medicine, I want to tell you something. How can you stand up there and deny your heritage and your own people’s right to stay buried. You're selling out your own people.” I said, “Bea, who in the hell is going to take care of you when you're old and they don't want you anymore? And you can't do nothing more for them?” I said, “You're going to drag your brown ass back to the rez, aren't you.” I said, “You're going to expect our people to take care of you.” And I said it right out in open meeting.
And I looked over at Susan Harjo and I said, “And Susan Harjo. We took you from the grassroots level and sent you to Washington to represent us at NCI.” And I said, “Look at you. You're going to build a pyramid to yourself.” I said, “Let me tell you something. We sent you out here to talk, to protect our rights, to protect our interests.” And I said, “You're a sellout.” She started to cry, “I just can't deal with this.” I said, “Our ancestors couldn't deal with it either.” I said, “That's why they're sitting on dusty roads crying for food and water with nobody to feed them.” I said, “while you guys desecrate their graves and steal from [inaudible].” I said, “Well I came here to tell you one thing. You may think I live in the corn fields of Iowa and don't hear nothing. But there's more knowledge out there than you'll ever know in your lifetime. Let me tell you something. You have Yankton Sioux, my ancestors and I'm coming to get them. The Yanktons are giving you notice. We're taking ours out of here one day or another, and I will be back.” I left. I was told all hell broke loose out there that day but I was on my plane back to Iowa.
It was not fun and games when this was going on. Every moment, every second I know that twenty years was ever a test of endurance against them. They egged my house. They shot at me.
There's a lot of things that happened as my children were growing. They've made me a gramma and a great gramma you know. It was a good fight. It was a right fight. Our ancestors had the right to a peaceful existence. No one has the right to steal from the dead. Nobody. And we all go back where We came from Mother Earth. We go back to Mother Earth.
People are always saying to me, “The Indians know the environment and how to relate to the environment. What does that mean exactly?” I said, “Well, the circle of life and all that means is [inaudible]. When your grandmothers die, when your mothers and fathers die, they go back to the earth and they become food for the worms and insects and the worms and the insects become food for the wings and the wings become food for the four legged and the four legged become food for the two legged. The plants become food. They generate the breath of your ancestors. They become the oxygen we breathe that keeps us alive and purifies the air. And the fish of the two legged. So when you say I'm going to go dump the garbage on my gramma, that's exactly what you do when you go out and dump it on the ground, when you put that poison out there that kills one insect. For every blade of grass you don't know whose environment you are destroying because everything there has been created for a purpose. And that's the story of life. We go on. We teach our children to respect gramma. You don't dump grammas lap full of garbage in the house and you sure as hell shouldn't do it out there.”
So, when legislators came into play and I went and talk to the governor about the burials and the museum and he didn't believe me at first and I had to make him go across the street to the historical museum. So they took those off display and Jack Musgrove was the museum curator at the time and he says to me, “You'll get those bones over my dead body.” You know it was strange. He died and we got the bones back but it was one year to the date of his death that we were burying them and we never even realized it. And while we were out there with the burials somebody said, “Do you know what today is? Jack Musgrove's anniversary of his death one year ago.”
I told them, I says, “You know you just can't go and continually desecrate graves.” I didn't know what would happen you know. When I talked to the legislators they said, “How do you see this, Maria?” And I said, “Well, you know you need to take all of the remains you have on the shelves in this state and you need to bury them in the cemetery.” I said, “You need to set aside land that the state owns for the cemeteries. And you need one on the east and one on the west. All those you take out on the east will stay buried in the east cemetery and all those on the west will be buried on the west side.” “Well, who is going to go find these?” “I will.”
So the governor said, “Let her have the state plane.” So they flew me all over the state until I found the two places I wanted the cemeteries. So then I had to go back. I said, “I made a mistake.” The legislators said, “You made a mistake?” I said, 'Yes, I forgot we do things in the four directions. I need a cemetery on the north and one on the south.” So they sent me out again. So we got four cemeteries in the state.
So we do things right. And I'm the chair of the Indian Advisory Council since I'm the one that got the Council started. I've been there ever since. The state law was passed in 1974 and it was in place in 1976 when we arrested them at Redfield [unclear].
They had a bridge replacement project. Willa Mae [pause] got into a fight with Jack Musgrove. She had 83 skeletons stacked up in an outhouse. I seen pictures of it. She had all of the capstones that was over the graves using them for a retaining wall around her house and across the road on that point of land was the burial place, a huge place. The DOT wouldn't back off from that burial spot so we came to Redfield and took over the burial site, went to the county attorney and swore out arrest warrants for the TOP echelons of the DOT and the governor told them, “You're going to have to hire Running Moccasins to keep you out of trouble.” So I've been their consultant for the last twenty years.
The DOT has a policy now of preserving in place. Wherever possible they will change the roadway. I told them right at the beginning that's what they should do. They have a problem down in Lawrence, Kansas, the wetlands down there. They have a secret site. Their sweat lodges are there in that area and they really should move that road further south. I am not the best supporter of NAGPRA you know. See that was a trade-off. Bunky Echo-Hawk and them. That's the bargain they made with the Smithsonian to get that Indian Museum. The political side of that was. NAGPRA not set up to do any favor for the tribe. I mean the tribe has to fight tooth and nail to get their people back. Now they want the Indians to prove, who do they think owns them? Who do they think is related to them?
I never did like Fred Mcmennaman [Frank McManamon] in that position. That's like putting the fox inside the chicken coop putting him in charge of the Park Service and they are well aware. They know what I feel. I've never missed an opportunity to say what I think about it. It don't make no difference to me whether they agree with me or not. Right is right. People think the dead are without power but the dead are not without power and you'll see it, the surgencies. We've had some archaeologists that have really had some mysterious deaths. They've made their spirit journeys under some very strange situations. And the things is even children are not exempt because it goes through the generations.
One guy that worked here, his sympathies lied with the Indians and he'd go up to the mounds and he let them do a story. I told him, I said, “Don't be alluding to that stuff publicly.” He told them, every time I'm feeling down or I get depressed I go to the [inaudible] mounds and I sit in the arms of the bear. Well then he just one day up and died. No reason. And I said, You can't do that with the bear. He'll take you home. And that's just exactly what happened.
Q: What do you think these archaeologists are really after?
If you'd seen the amount of money that exchanges hands, what they write about and the artifacts that come out of the graves and the museums in Europe are just filled with American Indian remains. We have a larger population of Indians in European museums than we do in this country. Some of them are negotiating with the tribes one on one for the return, for burials back here and for the grave goods, the things that are sacred items. Obviously, you know they weren't given willingly to these places. They were stolen.
I brought back one of our ancestors from the New York Museum. It was over Halloween and them guys prepared that box with that hand, they said a Crow cut off the hand of a Yankton. I was bringing it back for a scaffold burial. You had to hand carry it through the airport and it had to go through one of those screening things. It was Halloween and when that guy seen that hand in there he probably thought we were trying to pull a fast one on him but he just waved me through.
And then some of our burials right here in the state. Some of the things that happened. My gramma used to say when you need an answer to something look to nature for it. Down in Des Moine River, the Corps of Engineers asked me if I would come down there and help them. I said, “What's the matter?” They had unearthed this...this tree had fell over into the river and the roots of it had unearthed this burial so I said okay I would come down there. And I was watching them. They took him out. This guy didn't have no head. He didn't have no hands. He didn't have no feet. But he had five arrowheads in his chest cavity.
I was sitting there and I happened to look up across the river and there right across the river in the willow trees there was a fire going and sitting around it were Indians with blankets. I looked up and this eagle came and flew over my head. I told them guys, “You're going to find four more burials.” They said, “What? Don't say that!” And before we ever got out of there one of them was walking along the beach area there was a skull and so when they went to get that out then these other bones...they looked at me really funny because I knew that. And when they were working on that this one eagle I knew was in the area and I looked up at him and here come three of them and I thought, “Oh my God, what are we getting into?” I told them, I said, “Before this is over you are going to take out eleven people here.” So then they took out four and they said, “This is it.”
I went up to Prairie Island and I went to the sweats that night and said a prayer. When I got home there was all kinds of emergency phone calls that they needed me back down there. So I went back down and when they had taken those four out and they thought they was sloping the bank they hit another one and before it was over there was eleven of them. These trees that had fallen over the roots had uprooted them. The water was washing them out. The bones were going into the river. So we got them all buried and I decided to go back to purification again. I told them you had better put those arrowheads back in the ground before sundown. Well they didn't. I said, “It's going to cause chaos in the community.” That night they had that shooting over in Iowa City. That student shot the recipient of one of the awards. I told them, “You don't pay attention. You don't listen. I can't repeat myself.” I told them that many times.
In the spirit world you tell them once. Don't repeat it. They have to listen the first time. So that's the reason why I'm like I am. The reason that the spirits only tell you once is that not all people hear the same thing and when you say something that's meant for ears of knowledge they are the people that listen. Those that are not paying attention to it, it's not meant for them.
When I was first taught how to prepare my altar when I was out with the burials I built my altars. After I got everything the way it was supposed to be and I lit the sage and it just went up in a spiral just right straight up and underneath the bench near the wall where I'd built my altar come this big black spider. He come right up on my altar and he crawled over and sat down on that burning sage. What that meant I don't know. But I was really praying hard.
Those are things that take place on the other side. Many things that I've seen and that have happened, and others have seen with me...one time the medicine man that I worked with, he lifted his pipe to pray and the tree went in counter clockwise motion and all the rest of the trees were still. It was just a real still day. This one tree just started whirling. Everybody seen it. And nothing else was moving. Comes from the spirit. So many things that we don't understand that you see. And when the spirit comes to you, talks to you, they're usually in the form they were in when they walked on Mother Earth.
I came over to Lincoln to give testimony for the Pawnees when that Hanson guy was fighting with the Pawnee. It's ironic but they had another one like him over there in Illinois. His daughter was a teacher here in Iowa, Cedar Rapids. She was teaching the kids in school how to dig up graves. She called the state archaeologist’s office and asked if he would come up and help her explain the digging of the grave. And here she got artifacts from her dad and she buried them over there on the school grounds and then she was going to take her students out there and train them how to dig them up. And I'm the chair of the Indian Advisory Council and our law states, any human remains found in Iowa, it didn't say they had to be in the water, in the ground, in the shelf, in a jar, in a box. It says found in Iowa are to be confiscated by the state archaeologist and in conjunction with the Indian Advisory Council he has to rebury them in one of the cemeteries.
I said, “Now as chair of the Indian Advisory Council I'm advising you to take those bones into custody.” Oh we got into a big fight and then he took us to court. We didn't have to give them back! We didn't have to return them. He still hates us to this day.
Tell me the ancestors don't have power!
The hardest thing right now is that everybody says, “Maria, you need to train somebody to do what you do.”
How can you train somebody to do what I do?
Courtesy of Ames History Museum