One step forward, not far enough
Peyton DiSiena
Marina Johnson-Zafiris
Mohawk, Wolf Clan
There is a softness to the Earth’s ground, a gentle touch reminding one of their mother’s tender hold. A woman knows this feeling, and lives for it. Exhilarating. Her hands lift up the malleable dirt to sow, caring for the plants and medicines that will flourish with growth. Later, she uproots the same surface to let her ancestors—her relations—pass on, granting them the peace to hear the animals, the thunders, and even their language guide their journey.
It was always hoped, always expected, that the welcoming of individuals into the Earth was an opportunity for rest. Instead, three of these bodies (along with several objects) were unearthed and stolen from where they had been buried by their relatives, separating them from the land. Their spirits found little solace in traversing yet another journey, one which would take over fifty years to finally bring them back home. It is a battle that many Indigenous communities across the Americas continue to fight: repatriation and the return of ancestral bodies to the land.
On the day in 1964 when one Cornell professor got hold of those remains, he had a choice: honor the ancestors and the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, or study the bones. His answer was the latter, and Oneida ancestors were kept captive by an individual, until his 2014 death placed them into the possession of the university’s department of anthropology. It was not until other universities and institutions took the initiative to repatriate Indigenous bodies to their rightful descendants and communities (such as Colgate University’s repatriation of over 1,500 artifacts to the Oneida Indian Nation in November 2022) that Cornell took notice of their own indiscretions and finally gave rest to three lonely wanderers. Over 50 years after Cornell’s acquisition of the bones, February 21, 2023, marked the moment when the remains of these ancestors were finally returned to the Oneida Nation of New York, once again allowing them to sit in the soil, to hear the sounds, and to become one with the land and people of their community.
The ceremony started with a land acknowledgement, which has become standard for most Cornell events: “Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation)... We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.” Although this land acknowledgement was the result of collaborative engagement between the university and traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership, headed by Professor Jolene Rickard, Ska:rù:rę'/Tuscarora, while the director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP), the tactful omission of the separate addendum developed by program’sAIISP faculty speaks volumes to the university’s quasi-performative stance regarding the atrocious history Indigenous peoples have faced. The omitted portion reads: “Cornell's founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted.”
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These mechanical recitations have made it evident that Cornell University’s administration does not know how to acknowledge the land. Outside of an event opener or a trailing message in email footers, Cornell has done very little to address the stacked history that allowed them to be neglectful of the very bodies they hold captive; very little to repair its relations to the land, and the people it exploited to build its original endowment. Even their placement of the Oneida repatriation ceremony within the confines of a chapel—a reminder of the painful histories caused by the church—reflects a striking ignorance to Indigenous genocide and cultural eradication.
The Indigenous Graduate Student Association at Cornell (IGSA) calls for specific actions that extend beyond repatriation as a one-off event. Their statement demands, “Cornell University Administration must do a lot more than apologize and acknowledge. This university is built on, and with, stolen Indigenous land, and continues to hold other stolen Indigenous human remains, according to Propublica's Repatriation Database.* Repatriation is a political act. Outside of positive PR, what will the university engage in to ensure accountability, redress, and reparations? If dedicated to righting the wrongs, the IGSA demands the university put forth a statement condemning Governor Hochul’s veto of the Protection of Unmarked Graves Act, a plan of action to address Cornell's profiting of dispossessed Indigenous lands via the Morrill Act, and provide more meaningful structural support for Native students, staff, and faculty.”
Although a step forward (but not far enough), as a result of this repatriation, hollowed-out ground will once again be filled by those that were stolen from it, wrapped in the sweet embrace of what never should have been stripped from them in the beginning. During the repatriation, Dean Lyons, who is Oneida of the Turtle Clan, gave the following words to the bodies in the Oneida language: “You will hear our people again, you will be back in Mother Earth. You will hear the waters again. You will hear the animals again. You will hear the birds again. You will hear the thunders again. You’ll hear the wind again.”
His words will hold true. They will hear their people again, hearing the language that has been passed down from generation to generation. Mother Earth will welcome them with open arms, providing comfort for their place of rest. They will hear the crashing waves of water surrounding them, the sounds of fish swimming in the streams and lakes and rivers. The plants and herbs will greet them in warm familiarity; the animals and trees will give protection and strength to their relatives. They will once more hear the sounds of birds, the winds, the thunders, and see the beautiful rays of the sun and moon watching over them with a smile, satisfied to see them returned back home. But the descendants of these ancestors, the living, continue their fight to be heard in the halls of Cornell and the sloping hills of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ. It is only hoped that soon enough, these institutions and their administrations will finally listen, taking many steps towards rebuilding a culture that was so callously torn down and disregarded. In order for the university to fully understand what their actions have cost the ancestors, they too must acknowledge past wrongdoings and show the need for compassion and humbleness, as without the bones of these and other ancestors, Cornell University would not have the soil in which it exists on today.
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