People of the Mist (2 page)

 
          
Adam
Jones sat uncomfortably in the lawyer’s office, wondering why a Washington,
D.C.” law firm—especially one as renowned as Koult, Wesson & Browncouldn’t
afford to keep this month’s editions of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World
Report on the sleek mahogany waiting-room tables. Around him, exotic potted
plants, oak paneling, and expensive carpet let him know that he wasn’t just in
any law office,-but a powerful one.

 
          
From
the fortresslike desk guarding the glass doors came the continual cadence of
muted beeping, and the soft whisper of the receptionist’s musical voice:
“Koult, Wesson and Brown. How may I help you?” A pause. “Just one moment and
I’ll connect you.”

 
          
Now,
what kind of job would that be? Adam wondered. Just sitting there all day long,
answering the phone over and over and over. But then, she sat in an elegant,
climate-controlled office, dealt with people who smiled pleasantly whether they
meant it or not, and need not worry about finding the place stripped bare some
morning when she came to work.

 
          
In
contrast, Adam’s cramped office was a six-by-eight cubicle that included two
four-drawer file cabinets and shelves that sagged under the weight of books,
reports, and irregular stacks of paper, that lined each of his four walls. His
desk—when he could find it under the forms, requisitions, and other clutter of
administration—was a battered oak veteran of numerous surplus sales. Light came
from a single overhead fluorescent. When the old black Bakelite rotary phone on
his desk rang, it jangled with the enthusiasm of a
Times Square
New Year’s Eve.

 
          
And,
as he’d found out last Monday, his office could be stripped right down to the
toed nails in the floorboards. The week before, he’d been off to the annual
meetings of the Society for American Archaeology in
Atlanta
, leaving the museum running on reduced
hours with volunteer staff. Not much happened in April, not like summer when
the tourists came through.

 
          
But
the shock of walking up to his little museum, opening the door, and seeing the
empty display cases, the litter on the floor … “Mr. Jones?”

 
          
Adam
glanced up to see a well-dressed man crossing the carpet. Tall,
athletic-looking, he wore an immaculate dark gray suit with white cuffs
showing. The royal blue tie seemed to flash on his white button-down shirt.
Behind him, the glass door to Koult, Wesson & Brown’s inner sanctum was
gliding silently closed.

 
          
“Yes.”
Jones stood, offering his hand.

 
          
“I’m
Jesse McCoy.” The lawyer’s shake was firm. His eyes, expression,
looks—everything about him was just plain smooth. A no-nonsense professional.
“I’ve reserved a conference room for us. If you’ll just follow me.” As they
passed through the door to the firm’s inner sanctum, McCoy asked, “Something to
drink? Coffee, perhaps?”

 
          
“Coffee
would be fine. Thank you.”

 
          
“Cream
and sugar?”

 
          
“Black,
please.” Adam was glancing in at opulent offices brimming with computers, walls
of impressive looking books, mahogany tables and stuffed chairs worthy of the
White House. Those were the outside offices, the ones with windows. On the
inside row, younger people tapped at word processors, stood over whining and
hissing photocopy machines, and huddled over files of paper.

 
          
The
conference room was small, wood-paneled, containing a round wood-veneer table
stocked with a yellow legal pad, three pens, and a half-full coffee cup
emblazoned with “To the World’s Greatest Dad!” Three comfortable-looking chairs
were spaced equidistant from each other, their chrome frames gleaming in
contrast to the gray upholstery. As Adam seated himself, McCoy paused at the
door and spoke to a young man wearing a white shirt and tie: “One coffee, Tom. Black,
please.” The door clicked shut.

 
          
“Coffee
will be here in a moment.” McCoy seated himself to Adam’s right behind the
yellow pad, and sipped from the “Greatest Dad” cup. “I have to admit, I don’t
think we’ve ever had an archaeologist come in for a consultation before.” McCoy
lifted an eyebrow. “I always wanted to be an archaeologist. Took a class as an
undergraduate.”

 
          
“A
lot of people do.” Adam shifted, realizing the chair looked a great deal more
comfortable than it felt. At that moment, young Tom entered, setting a
porcelain cup on the table to Adam’s right. He gave them a plastic and
professional smile, then left with studied efficiency.

 
          
McCoy
scanned his yellow pad. “According to our phone conversation, a Native American
tribe called the Piankatanks … am I saying that right?” “Yeah, Piankatanks.
Piankatank was a town that Powhatan destroyed in 1608. The men and boys were
killed and the women and girls taken off for slaves.”

 
          
McCoy
lifted an eyebrow. “I’m not following this. This town was destroyed in 1608 by
Powhatan? I’ve heard of him.”

 
          
“Father
of Pocahantas.”

 
          
“Right,
John Smith and all. I liked the Disney movie.”

 
          
Adam
winced. “That’s part of the whole problem. People get their history from
Disney… and it’s all so rosy, charming, and sanitary that history has become
nothing more than a Technicolor dream. That’s what leads to things like my
museum!”

 
          
McCoy
shifted uneasily. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

 
          
Adam
sipped his coffee. Good stuff, some sort of French roast. “Three or four months
ago I started getting letters. Desktop-publishing sorts of things. Nice little
Plains Indian logo with buffalo and geometric designs. The text stated
something to the effect that under the law the Piankatank Nation required the
return of their cultural heritage. Would we please send them a complete
inventory of our collections.”

 
          
“You
still have the letters?”

 
          
“Yes,
I have to keep all correspondence.” Adam frowned into his coffee. “I thought it
was a joke. The Piankatank? I’m an archaeologist specializing in the area and I
still had to look them up’. Then I really thought it was a joke.
Archaeologists-do this sort of thing to each other all the time, especially
with the NAGPRA scare these days.”

 
          
“NAGPRA?
That’s …” McCoy was scribbling notes on his yellow pad.

 
          
“Native
American
Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act. That’s
what this is all about. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, tried to fix a
problem–and created a disaster. In essence, the law states that human remains
and cultural goods obtained in archaeological excavations must be returned to
the Native American people.”

 
          
“And
that’s a problem?”

 
          
“Which
people? Who? Look, I just lost a museum full of Native American artifacts to a
group who claim they are descended from a village destroyed by Powhatan’s
warriors in 1608. They went to Judge Al Kruse, waved NAGPRA in his face, and
got a court order releasing their ‘cultural heritage.’ ” Adam took a deep
breath to relax. “They took all the Algonquian collections, and the Iroquoian
and Monacan material as well.”

 
          
“Monacan?”

 
          
“They’re
a Siouan group that lived east of the fall line.”

 
          
“I
thought the Sioux were in the
Dakotas
.”

 
          
“They
are. These people spoke a related language.” Adam toyed with his coffee cup.
“So you see, the Pian katank, whoever they are, have taken everything. That’s
the problem with NAGPRA. Anyone with a Native American identity can grab
anything they want. Congress mandated that we give the cultural remains back to
the Native people, and left it at that. It’s a good idea written into a lousy
law.”

 
          
“So,
you don’t think the Piankatank are really Indian?” Adam spread his arms. “Can
you define Indian? We no longer categorize people by blood. I know people,
registered on tribal rolls, as white as you or me. I’ve seen them live their
Native American beliefs. If they go on vision quests, use the sweat lodge once
a week, dance the traditional dances, are they Indian?”

 
          
“I’d
say so.” McCoy rolled his pen thoughtfully. “The government recognizes the
tribes, don’t they?”

 
          
“It’s
not that easy. The
U.S.
government doesn’t officially recognize the
Piquot, Pamunky, or
Piscataway
. Among many others. But they’re Indian,
aren’t they?”

 
          
“Did
you have bones in your collections? Actual human remains?” “Some. Mostly bits
of human bone from an ossuary in
Maryland
. But those remains wouldn’t have been the
ancestors to the Piankatank. Remember, I mentioned the Iroquoian material? We
had two skulls, supposedly Susquehannocks killed in northern
Pennsylvania
during a raid by the Conoy Confederacy in
the sixteen-thirties. The Conoy sold them to the Powhatans, who then sold them
to a white plantation owner in the early seventeen hundreds We’ve had them for
years.” Adam glared at his coffee cup, his jaw set.

 
          
“That
really seems to bother you.”

 
          
“Yeah.
Think about it. the Piankatank really are Piankatank Indians, they’re
Algonquin, right? Now, assuming they still practice their aboriginal
religion-which I doubt—they’re going to sing those two Iroquoian souls to
Okeus.”

 
          
“Okeus?”
McCoy gave him a baffled look.

 
          
“He’s
the Algonquin god of chaos. But the point is, these two Susquehannocks are
being sent to an afterlife full of their enemies. They should go to the
Iroquoian
Village
of the Dead. Even if you don’t believe in
Native American religion, it’s immoral and unjust. A violation of the spirit of
the NAGPRA law. As much an affront to those Susquehannocks as conducting a
German Lutheran ceremony over a Jewish holocaust victim’s grave—and we’re
sanctioning this! It’s a moral abomination!”

 
          
“I
see.” McCoy’s pen scribbled quick notes on the legal pad.

 
          
“Do
you? This idea of Native peoples respecting the dead only goes so far. Sure,
the Algonquins revered their dead, kept the bodies of their chiefs in the
temples for years so they could commune with the ghosts, but they trashed the
corpses of their enemies, cut off scalps and took trophy heads. When they
punished their criminals for things like murder, or incest, they broke the
culprit’s legs and threw him screaming -into a bonfire. In the case of the Susquehannocks
and Powhatans, these people hated each other. If you could ask those two
Susquehannocks, the last thing they would have wanted would have been to be
‘repatriated’ to Algonquins.”

 
          
“Then
you completely oppose NAGPRA?”

 
          
“No,
not at all. If we have human burials in our collections that can be documented
as belonging to an ethnic affiliation, a member of the tribe, then they should
be returned to their proper descendants. That is moral and just, and
archaeology can be part of the solution, but without that proven affiliation,
I’d say it is more unjust to hand over Native American skeletal material to be
reburied by the descendants of that person’s hated enemies than it is to leave
it on a museum shelf.”

 
          
“Perhaps.”
McCoy leaned back and sighed. “I didn’t realize it was such a mess.”

 
          
“There’s
more.” Adam tossed off the last of his coffee. “As an archaeologist, according
to the law, I have to contact the nearest Native American group prior to
excavating a burial from an archaeological site. But, if I’m working at a
historic plantation, excavating slave quarters, I don’t need to contact any
AfricanAmericans. If I’m working at a military post in the West, I don’t have
to get approval from the nearest small town.”