From the Sault Star:
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The remains of six Batchewana First Nation ancestors returned home Thursday after a 135-year absence.
Chief Dean Sayers said the return of the remains from the United States marked a “moving forward,” for Batchewana.
“We want our kids to have good memories,” said Sayers. “This is one of those good memories that they’re going to be able to tell their children and their grandchildren and their grandchildren.”
A crowd lined the St. Mary’s River as a box containing the remains of three men and three women was paddled from Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., to Bellevue Park in a 20-foot birch bark canoe. The remains were then loaded in a vehicle for transport to a traditional burial ground at Batchewana’s Goulais Mission reserve.
Thursday was the first time the Smithsonian Institution has been involved in transferring human remains back to Canada.
The unidentified Anishnabek as well as four associated funerary objects, had been unearthed from unknown cemetery sites at or near Sault Ste. Marie in 1875 by the U.S. Army surgeon at nearby Fort Brady for the purpose of scientific research.
Turtle Talk 