American Indian group plans W. Ky. memorial
Burial mound site once was pillaged
Courier Journal- March 5, 2007
-Associated Press
UNIONTOWN, Ky. -- Members of the American Indian Movement are planning a four-day memorial service at a Western Kentucky burial site that artifact hunters desecrated nearly 20 years ago.
The ceremony, planned for May 24-27, is expected to draw many of those who participated in an encampment in Union County in 1988. Activities will include construction of sweat lodges for purification of participants, drumming, dancing and ceremonial prayers, said Marcia C. Mulford of Golden Gate, Ill., who is of Apache descent and participated in the 1988 encampment.
"We wanted it on Memorial Day when everybody else gets to honor their ancestors. It is important that we as an independent people take control of our lives and honor our history," Mulford said.
The ceremonies will be held on land owned by the Army Corps of Engineers near downtown Uniontown and about three miles from the Slack Farm, where the burial mound is located.
Mulford, of the American Indian Movement, said the public will be invited to observe and participate in some events, including making tobacco ties to be used at the burial site. Tobacco is also burned during some of the ceremonies.
Movement co-founder Dennis Banks is expected to lead a sunrise service on May 24 and a walk to the burial mound, which is on private property and where access will be limited to American Indian participants.
The desecration of the burial mound drew attention in 1987 after artifact hunters paid the landowner $10,000 for access to the property to dig for pottery and other artifacts. Digging into more than 1,000 ancient graves, they scattered bones about.
Kentucky State Police finally stopped the digging, and American Indians converged on the community for purification and reburial ceremonies.
Publicity about the digging led the Kentucky General Assembly to upgrade destruction of a burial site from a misdemeanor to a felony.
The incident is also credited with spurring Congress in 1990 to adopt the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, which protects burial sites on federally owned land.
The Slack Farm mound is a 40-acre Mississippian culture site, similar to Evansville's Angel Mounds and other mound-builder sites in the Ohio and Wabash river valleys.
The Smithsonian Institution conducted an excavation there in 1868. Although the land was farmed extensively over the years, the Slack family protected the site. When the property changed hands, the new owners accepted the offer of cash for the right to dig."
I will send a formal newsletter/flier out about this as soon as we finalize all the details!!
Mitakuye Oyasin,
Lynny Cordes
Red Road Awareness
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March 2007 Reports
Last updated on March 12, 2007