Scientists find two bodies at grave of Arapaho boy
A team of archaeologists working to return the remains of three Northern Arapaho boys to their family in Wyoming found two bodies at one of the boys’ grave sites.
The discovery, announced late Friday, confirmed fears that some of the grave markers at the Carlisle Post Barracks cemetery, where nearly 200 Native American children are buried, might not correspond with the people who are actually buried there.
Although the discovery hampers efforts to return one of the boys’ remains to his relatives, it was not entirely unexpected.
An archival report written to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prepare for the excavation and release earlier this summer said, “With the data at hand, it is impossible to definitively state whether the markers are correctly associated with the physical remains of the individuals’ names on these respective markers without physical examination.”
The Corps of Engineers, aided by a forensic anthropologist and others, sought this week to return the remains of three boys — Little Chief, Little Plume and Horse — who attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Cumberland County in the late 1800s. The return of the boys’ remains to
Wyoming, where their tribe is based, was seen as an important step in the healing process for many Native Americans whose traditions boarding schools often sought to eradicate.
At the grave sites of the Little Chief and Horse, teams found remains that were “biologically consistent” with their descriptions, according to a news release issued by officials late Friday. At the grave site for Little Plume, they instead found two bodies — one belonging to a 16- to 19-year-old male and the other belonging to an “adolescent or adult” whose sex could not immediately be determined.
Teams did not perform DNA tests on the remains but instead relied on other biological indicators to determine whether the people buried in their plots matched the boys’ descriptions.
Other tribes who want to undertake similar efforts in the future could ask for biological testing.
The Northern Arapaho were not immediately available for comment. Army officials have scheduled a news conference for Monday with an archaeologist and anthropologist who examined the remains.
The remains found at the grave sites marked for Little Chief and Horse will be transferred to the Northern Arapaho on Monday for burial on the Wind River Reservation, next to their relatives.
The Carlisle Indian School was founded in 1879 and educated more than 10,000 Native American students from nearly 50 tribes across the country before it closed in 1918. The school required students to speak English, to convert to Christianity and to adopt many other traditions from European-American culture.