KPLU Local News
(2005-05-24)
PORT ANGELES, WA
(OPB) -
(Oregon Considered) - Historians know the initial European exploration of the Pacific Northwest unleashed epidemics of measles and smallpox. The pestilence devastated the native population. But that's about all we've known - until now. This week we have a special two-part series, presented in cooperation with the Seattle Times. Today, correspondent Tom Banse tells us how an ill-fated construction project in Port Angeles, Washington may open a window to a fearful time.
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Archaeologist Gregg Harmon painstakingly sifts a tray of gravelly dirt with a credit card and tweezers.
Gregg Harmon: "So far in this particular bag, I've found a couple hundred fish bones. "
Harmon is part of a 14-person team of archaeologists picking through material taken from the intended site of a huge drydock. Digging on the Port Angeles waterfront stopped in December after workers uncovered more than 330 intact skeletons and thousands of bone fragments of Northwest Coast Indians.
The aborted project has proven a costly mistake for taxpayers. But it's a gold mine of history and culture.
Gregg Harmon: "This is one of the most amazing sites I've ever worked on. It'd be hard to compare it to any of the other sites that I've worked on because of the size of the village."
But why so many remains piled together? Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles sees telling clues in the way those people were buried.
Frances Charles: "They were placed on top of each other. They were placed embracing, as if husband and wife. We witnessed a child and a mother embraced with each other."
Charles also noticed what wasn't with the bodies, such as cedar wrappings, burial boxes or grave offerings.
Frances Charles: "We over 103 in one area and we had over 50 in another area where there was no preparation and time. It was something they had to do in a real hurry to protect themselves and their community."
To David Rice, this ground speaks of an epidemic. He's a senior archaeoligist with the Army Corps of Engineers in Seattle.
David Rice: "It's a unique find if that's how it proves out. Because historically we know these things occurred, but we don't have any tangible evidence of most of that."
Our region's first people had no resistance to introduced diseases. So imagine the terror as something unexplained starts killing young and old alike. Among the burials, investigators found unprecedented numbers of etched stones. They found bones thickly dusted with red ochre -- used for spiritual protection.
They unearthed sea otters, possibly ritually slaughtered. David Rice wonders if scapegoating explains the ugly fate of what he thinks are medicine men. They were found face-down in a show of disrespect... or decapitated.
David Rice: "The relatives of the family of the deceased may take revenge on the shaman for not being successful in driving out the spirit. Who knows the specific reason. But the human frustration that is wrought probably does account for some of the individuals that are found there that are sans parts."
Rice hopes to apply the emerging science of "molecular archaeology" to confirm the wholesale death by epidemic theory. Remnants of DNA could solve the mystery. Was it smallpox, measles, or something else?
The Lower Elwha Tribe would need to grant permission to take samples from their ancestors' remains. So far, the tribe wants no analysis of the bones.
For more on the archaeological find, look for the companion series running this week in the Seattle Times. Tomorrow, we'll have a reporter's notebook story from the Times' Lynda Mapes. © Copyright 2012, OPB
