Oct 2, 2015

Thought you might be interested in this short footnote from the book. The graveyards mentioned here were actually mass graves containing the remains of thousands of Haida who died during a short but devastating epidemic of small pox. Here's the footnote:

      "In one of the world’s most egregious acts of cultural vandalism (“elginism”), many of those graveyards were dug up by anthropologists who carried skeletal remains off to museums and DNA labs for genetic screening. A small group of Haida have travelled the world politely asking scientists and museum directors to return their ancestors, and in most cases have succeeded in bringing them home. The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which had stored the Haida bones in sterile basement vaults for almost a century, not only paid to have the intact remains of close to 150 people shipped back to Haida Gwaii, they picked up the airfare of the Haida Repatriation Committee members who had flown to Chicago to ask for them. At home they were ceremoniously laid to rest again, in the forest where they were born and where they belonged."