Lake Erosion Reveals Indian Cemeteries Thought Moved in 1970s

Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 17:16:42 -0500

By JEAN PAGEL

Associated Press Writer

KAW CITY, Okla. (AP) -- Murky waters of Kaw Lake, washing in wavy rhythms 
against the shoreline, uncovered some secrets buried in the red clay.

Lake-bank erosion has exhumed human bones, casket fragments and tombstone pieces
 left behind at old cemeteries moved when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built
 the dam in the early 1970s.

Some concrete strips still form the borders of family plots at the Washunga 
Cemetery, the one-time graveyard for 669 Kaw Indians. Objects shaped like vaults
 are still under ground in some places.

No one knows what remains -- or why. Were there honest mistakes, sloppiness, 
deliberate negligence?

A North Carolina company was hired to relocate 11 cemeteries to make way for the
 lake. Now the Corps and the Kaw Nation are trying to mitigate the erosion and 
care for the abandoned objects that surface.

``People say, `Don't you get the creeps or weirded out?''' said Timothy Kennedy,
 hired by the tribe to investigate the 20-acre Washunga site.

``I feel like if you're out here with an honest heart and you're doing a good 
thing, you don't have to worry about the spirits getting mad at you,'' Kennedy 
said. ``Peace.''

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Kaw Lake is located on the Arkansas River about 100 miles northwest of Tulsa. 
Construction, authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1962, was completed in 
1976.

The lake now boasts some of the Oklahoma's best crappie fishing, campgrounds, 
and boat ramps off 168 miles of shoreline.

But its construction caused the displacement of residents on the flood plain. 
Washunga and 10 other cemeteries had to be moved, too.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hired Big Wheel Inc. of North Carolina to 
relocate the graves to nearby Ponca City .

``I don't want to make this into a sinister story,'' said Robert Jobson, an 
archaeologist for the corps' Tulsa district, ``but either burials were missed 
for whatever reason, or people looked but didn't see anything or ... people were
 incompetent. Somebody didn't do their job.''

Jobson said he doesn't know what became of Big Wheel Inc.

People familiar with the project are suspicious that contract company might have
 removed only the easily accessible parts of the caskets -- leaving behind, for 
instance, what collapsed or broke off in the dirt.

``What they didn't tell you is they only reburied the skull,'' Jobson said. 
``That case is probably as hurtful and as gruesome as not reburying them at 
all.''

Jim Pepper Henry, director of historic preservation for the Kaw Nation, said his
 relatives were among the 669 people buried at Washunga and the 495 buried at 
Oak Grove Cemetery. Washunga and Oak Grove were the biggest of the 11 cemeteries
 involved in relocation.

Pepper Henry said some people back in the 1970s watched to make sure Big Wheel 
moved their particular loved ones.

``Just the fact that people (bones) have washed out, and there is evidence that 
other places have not even been disturbed, I think anyone would have their 
doubts, unless they saw it happen,'' he said.

Pepper Henry said he sent the Oklahoma Department of Health some photos of 
objects that erosion has chiseled out. One photo showed blue rayon socks 
covering foot bones protruding from a cliff at Oak Grove.

Pepper Henry said he was concerned because the city of Stillwater obtains its 
drinking water from the lake. Records list diphtheria and tuberculosis as cause 
of death for some people buried in the cemeteries, he said.

Roger C. Pirrong, a deputy commissioner at the Health Department, said officials
 are testing the water. He does not believe any reason for alarm exists.

``After all this time it wouldn't have any bearing,'' Pirrong said. ``It 
wouldn't have when the graves were moved, either.''

A Stillwater municipal official said the city 's drinking water comes from other
 parts of the lake.

The Kaw Nation stepped in at the Washunga site in August thanks to the 1990 
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which gives American 
Indians increased authority for what happens to human remains and sacred objects
 found on federal lands.

The tribe has cleared away the overgrown brush and willow trees. Kennedy, paid 
through a federal grant, is devising a grid system and plans to search for 
graves with radar.

Bees and earthworms and crickets thrive at the remote site, partly covered by 
lake water. Dry leaves rustled in the wind on a recent autumn afternoon.

Kennedy pointed to a concrete-lined plot he had jabbed with a metal rod.

``There are definite indications there is something or someone there,'' he said.

While the Kaw Nation has taken the lead at Washunga, the corps went into the Oak
 Grove cemetery recently with sandbags and vegetation geared to abate the 
erosion. Jobson said the Oak Grove recovery has cost about $8,000.

Parts of human skeletons out in the open were sent to Tulsa for storage and 
attempts at identification.

``We did not go probing and looking for things we couldn't see, and I know some 
folks in the community were unhappy with that,'' Jobson said.

Carolyn Godberson of Ponca City said her great-grandfather in 1895 donated five 
acres for the Oak Grove cemetery, now called Coon Creek Cove. She said she 
learned of the erosion when a boater spotted an exposed casket about 10 years 
ago.

But the matter received little attention or priority until the Kaw Nation got 
involved, she said.

Area residents fault the corps for acting too little too late. They wonder, Mrs.
 Godberson said, what will prevent further erosion.

Jobson said the grave exposures renewed hard feelings and old wounds for some 
people. But the corps wants to resolve the problem, he said.

``I hope that this helps the community heal on this issue. This is something 
that won't go away for awhile.''

End Adv for Weekend Editions Nov. 30-Dec. 1

AP-WS-11-27-96 1536EST