Sure, Aunt Thelma may want her remains cremated and the ashes scattered over Dollywood, but such a request is short-sighted, says Kevin “Jogging Eagle” McComb, self-proclaimed hereditary chief of the factually suspect Flim Flam tribe, once thought to have had its main settlement on what is now Nashville's Music Row. “You can't extract profitable and high-profile concessions from ashes,” McComb observes, “but if you bar code and register your beloved ones' buried bones, then centuries hence their descendants can gain the attention, stature and life-style funds they may have failed to achieve through individual talent and initiative.”
McComb noted in passing that he has launched just such a bone-branding company, From Here to Eternity, and is currently seeking investors. “Our company isn't just for current and future descendants of ancestors whose history has been ripped from them,”he says, “it can also give advantage to politicians who want public school history books more in accord with their fantasies of what happened. Just look at the Alamo controversy [New York Times 11/25/21]. It's pure gold. The indigenous shadow tribes, the Latinos and the Texas Legislature are all making out like bandits.” McComb concluded his remarks abruptly, explaining that he was running late for an ancient smoke-blowing ceremony.
Intermission
It's been my observation that dead people stay dead. Some of you choose to believe that once folks are dead by medical standards they still exist in another realm and are “looking down” on us, and others maintain the dead eventually will be resurrected into “eternal life.” But until you can bring a dead person back in some form or other to demonstrate to me that I'm wrong, the evidence that death is final is all on my side.
So as someone who follows evidence, it really pisses me off when opportunists—usually “indigenous” ones—come swarming out of the woodwork to lay claim to the bones of their supposed ancestors and, in so doing, screw up plans for those of us who are still living and who recognize old bones (both human and animal) for the organic detritus they've become. My mom and dad, both of whom I cherished, are buried side by side in West Virginia. If someone told me their graves were being excavated or paved over for a parking lot, I wouldn't raise a finger in protest—because sacking their graves wouldn't make them any deader or my memories of them less loving. Because we could not donate her body to science as she and I originally planned, my family buried my wife just over three months ago. The thought that her grave might be uprooted after all of us who loved her die bothers me not at all.
I'm am filled with sympathy and support for those who find solace in visiting and tending to the graves of those they knew well and loved. My mom did that every day for a year after my dad died—walking more than a mile to and from his grave each time. While proximity to the dead isn't something I find comforting, it seemed to sustain her emotionally. How could anyone with a heart belittle or object to that. But it's an entirely different matter when you're “protecting” (that is to say, capitalizing on) the bones of those you never knew and who may or may not have been your centuries-distant ancestors.
My objections are twofold: (1) It is rank superstition to assign spiritual essence to bones; and (2) it lures cynical opportunists while convincing gullible but otherwise well-meaning people to waste their time on activities that yield no benefits to the living. Who is fed, clothed, sheltered, educated or healed by bone worship?
Cynicism on the Columbia
The height of bone branding opportunism came in 1996 with the discovery of human remains on the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. The remains were quickly dubbed “Kennewick Man,” and initial tests estimated the bones to be around 9000 years old and possibly of a different and older genetic strain than that of present-day Native Americans.. Well that certainly upset some tribal apple carts. Fearing their primacy and the publicity it earned them was being threatened, local tribes insisted that scientists immediately turn over the bones to them for re-burial. In other words, fuck your science if it imperils our self-aggrandizing way of life. The Battle of the Bones raged through the press and the courts for a decade before both sides declared victories. The scientists got to complete their tests, and the tests finally showed a genetic similarity between Kennewick Man and the living locals.
Current Headlines
“Burial Ground Under the Alamo Ignites a Texas Feud”
“Now, a new battle over the Alamo is brewing, as Native Americans and descendants of some of San Antonio’s founding families seek protections for the human remains while Texas officials press ahead with a contentious $400 million renovation plan for the site. The feud comes at a time when political leaders in Texas are trying to bolster long-standing depictions of the state’s history, restrict how teachers discuss the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution and target hundreds of books for potential removal from schools .” (New York Times, Nov. 26, 2021)
“Native American Activists Push to Delay Oracle Development”
“Native American activists are pushing Oracle to delay development along the East Bank [of the Cumberland River in Nashville] because they believe ancient artifacts lie underneath the surface.” (WSMV-TV, Nov. 1, 2021)
“Native American tribes ask University of Alabama to return nearly 6,000 human remains, artifacts”
“Seven tribes are asking the University of Alabama to return 5,892 human remains and the artifacts buried with them at Moundville, an archaeological park in Alabama and a major center of Native American culture from 1020 to 1650.”
“The Moundville claim was filed by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the Chickasaw Nation, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. All seven tribes said they share a common ancestry with the inhabitants of Moundville that has been passed down through language, oral history and shared traditions in architecture and craftsmanship. These tribes say they are descended from Mississippian culture known for its mound building.” (Associated Press, Oct. 17, 2021) [Editorial comment: Everybody plays, everybody wins.]
There will be those who contend that one must respect bone-exploiting as a part of tribal religions. No we don't. We have to tolerate it, but we're free and intellectually obligated to denounce it for the rampant opportunism it is. Bones, my ass! As the earth's population grows and global warming leads to a loss of land mass, there's going to be more essential activities occurring on the soil above long-buried bones. That's as it should be: The Earth belongs to the living.
Just ask yourself: Which is more socially useful—a “sacred” burial site that just lies there or a vibrant, around-the-clock Walmart?