Protesters occupy native burial site

by Alexa Kocinski

Dozens of Native Americans and sympathetic protesters have spent much of the past two weeks occupying an overgrown acre in Bloomington where a construction crew has uncovered an apparent Dakota burial ground. The nonviolent protest placed the Mdewakanton Dakota tribe at odds with the Minnesota’s official Native American advocacy group, who want the 200-odd bones moved to a state-recognized burial ground across the street.

Archaeologists discovered the bones August 26 as part of a pre-construction survey. McGough Construction plans to build a $100 million retail and real estate development on the surrounding 45 acres, which border the light-rail transit station due to open in December.

Word quickly leaked to Jim Anderson, cultural chair of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, who said he visited the site that day, and met Jim Jones of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC), the state’s official Native American relations bureau. When Jones said the bones were to be ceremonially relocated to a nearby official burial ground, Anderson and others in his tribe sent out a call for volunteers to occupy the site.

In the past, exhumed Indian skeletons were loaned out to museums, reburied in state-recognized cemeteries, or destroyed altogether. MIAC leaders want to dig up the bones and move them across the street to the Cerbian Building Site, home of a certified Dakota burial mound, so construction can resume. But the Mdewakantons believe that the blood and flesh of the deceased are forever a part of the ground and must be protected to dignify the ancestral legacy.

“Don’t repatriate [the bones]. Save God’s little acre,” implores Mdewakanton Cultural Chairman Jim Anderson. Anderson, Mdewakanton Tribal Chairman, Michael Scott, and many other supporters are offended by MIAC’s push to dig up the bones, which they fervently believe is a sacred part of their spiritual heritage. Instead, they want to leave the land alone.

Mdewakanton Dakotas are a subset of the Dakota or Lakota nation, sometimes called the Sioux. They consider disrupting their ancestors’ burial site a wrongful violation of their heritage.

“What do we tell our children when they ask us why our ancestors are not left in peace?” Anderson laments, as he tearfully gazes in the direction of the mound. Like many other Indians, he feels that if the Mdewakanton children continually see their homeland and hallowed grounds desecrated, they will lose their tribal identity.

“This is cultural genocide,” he said.

Since the August 26 discovery, Mdewakantons and other sympathetic activists have sustained an ongoing vigil across the road from the controversial location. Every night, they hold a mexica, or prayer circle, to pay homage to the spirit world and strengthen their collective unity. In a press conference held the day after the remains were found, Garrett Wilson, Dakota spiritual elder, explained the necessity of a show of social solidarity: “We’re gathered together not looking for publicity but paying our respects to the body recovered up there on the mound.”

The aim of the nonviolent demonstration is to educate and spread awareness about the importance of preserving Indian history, which is an integral part of American history. The Mdewakantons would also like to secure zoning limitations to forbid McGough Construction from building on this relatively small patch of terrain.

The Mdewakantons’ fight is complicated by the fact that they are not a federally-recognized tribe, so they have limited influence with the MIAC and little power to initiate protective county, state, or federal legislation. Their land base is nonexistent, although historical documents, paintings, and old newspaper articles have verified the authenticity of many grave mounds along the banks of the Minnesota River, called the Van Ness Mounds, as Mendota Mdewakanton Indian territory.

If the Mdewakanton can prove that the recently uncovered mound in Bloomington belongs to them, the site would come under the protection of the Private Cemeteries Act, in accordance with Minnesota State Statute 307.08 and Bloomington civic law. But this, too, is complicated by the fact that the mound is situated on private property and that there is no record of the mound in the deed to the property.

Bruce White, an independent historian who has worked to substantiate Mendota Indian history, said that proving the historical significance of the grave to ensure it meets the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places is a daunting challenge. Indeed, very few written testimonials of Indian history exist, because they relate their past through oral tradition. But he notes that the decisions affecting Minnesota indigenous populations should go beyond the technicalities and politics of a tribunal. “How many bones do you have to find to convince people that a place is sacred?” he asks.