All that remains

Unearthed dead returned to rest

By Dionna Harris
FORD RIVER — A project which began almost 30 years ago, was completed Friday afternoon, during a ceremony conducted by Earl Meshigaud Sr., cultural director for the Hannahville Indian Community.

Meshigaud, along with Gail Belling of Weyauwega, Wis., and a member of the Ojibwa Indian Community, conducted a ceremony to rebury human remains which were unearthed following years of erosion.

The remains, which were found last July, where held in trust by Joan Martin, who owns land adjacent to the former cemetery, in a locked garage facility, until they could be reburied Friday.

“These remains were kept in a box, in a locked garage, with only two people having a key. Myself and Tom Tauzer,” said Martin.

The ceremony was held along the banks of the Ford River, in a local cemetery in use from 1850 to 1935, formerly called the High Banks Cemetery.

To prevent further erosion of the embankment, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, worked with Rory Mattson of the Delta Conservation District and the Hannahville Indian Community on the $1.5 million project. It has been estimated the bank along where the crib was constructed had eroded 52 feet over the past 56 years.

As part of the project, crews constructed a crib 8-feet high and 8-feet wide, using black locust wood which was harvested from the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park downstate, with rock supplied for the project by Bichler Gravel and Concrete.

“We elected to use the black locust because it is rot resistant, with the completed crib being 2 feet higher than the flood plain,” said Tom Tauzer, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Tauzer also explained that 30 years ago, the project was too large for one agency to handle. In 2005, the Hannahville Indian Community came on board, and through the Farm Bill Program, cost-sharing, and donation of time and resources, the $1.5 million undertaking was completed.

The reburial ceremony, explained Meshigaud, is conducted “because it is what the ancestors have told us to do. It is our birthright.”

“The singing is done to send the spirits home in a good way, with the berries providing food for their journey, and the fire, is representative of the fires of creation,” said Meshigaud.

He also explained that the smudge ceremony conducted following the reburial of the remains, was for the protection of those gathered at the site.

“The smudge ceremony will allow the spirits to return through the western doorway where they can rest at peace,” he said.