Editorial: Return of Native American remains emphasizes humanity in study of history

The delicate balance between remembering history and honoring it is playing out in the Lake County Forest Preserve District.

Soon, as our Russell Lissau reported last week, the district will return human remains of Native Americans to a Michigan-based tribe with roots in our region. The district has kept the remains, along with an assortment of funerary items that also are being returned, in storage for about 26 years while looking for an appropriate agency to receive and care for them. Donated to Lake County in the late 1950s or early '60s, the items once were on display at the county's Discovery Museum in Wauconda, and no doubt the exhibition played a role in helping residents of the suburbs reflect on and understand the traditions and culture that white settlers eventually replaced.

But to descendants of that culture, such displays also represented something not nearly so honorable. They were a vulgar exhibition that turned sacred relics, customs and human remains into the subjects of leisure and entertainment.

"These ancestors were placed into Mother Earth with the intention that they would meet their final resting place, said Marcus Winchester, director of language and culture for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, which agreed to accept and care for the remains. "Would one appreciate it if their grandparents were being dug up for the sake of another's leisure?"

Of course not, so the federal government passed into law in 1990 an act that protects Native American burial sites and requires agencies to return cultural items to appropriate descendants. The Lake County Forest Preserve put its artifacts and remains into storage when the law was passed and has spent 15 years working to find a proper home.

With the aid of a consultant, the agency reached agreement with the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, who have lived in the Great Lakes region for centuries, to take the remains of 34 people. The remains of another 11 individuals whose heritage is not clear will be transferred to the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians, also based in Michigan. Once returned, the remains will be reburied with the respect and honors appropriate for their culture and for all humans.

Archaeology is a marvelous science. Its fruits have advanced beyond measure our understanding of the development of human life and the countless cultures that have emerged and thrived over the centuries. But it's also important to remember that the remnants of those cultures, the human remains above all, represent not mere curiosities but very real human lives and societies.

Maintaining a balance between remembrance and reverence can be complicated. But there is no question that the remains being returned from Lake County to their Native American descendants are going to the right place.