1000 replies to this topic

[Moderation]

Yes we agree both systems are in common use.

 

With respect to the size   14 hectares:  one article indicated that LIDAR was used. This allows a large area to be quickly surveyed. It is frequently used in archeology in the UK to identify stone age, roman and medieval etc. sites and to suggest the best areas to to  start exploring on the ground.

[Mike K.]

Where have Canadian groups begun exploring on the ground?

[Moderation]

Some first nations sites have been explored more closely on the ground using ground penetrating radar, including this location.

 

If you mean by exploring to excavate possible grave sites that brings up a whole set of difficult and complex questions.

If you excavate an identified potential grave site what could you know? Is it a grave. Upon examining grave remains you may be able to determine if it is male or female, adult or child. Add DNA testing you may be able find FN ancestry or not, even be able to identify their FN group.

 

You would not know the name. If you have historical records to search (many only very recently released) and a cemetery plan or burial record you may have all that information. In Kamloops a cemetery clearly existed until the grave markers were removed by a priest.

Potential grave sites not included or identified by cemetery records may require excavation to get more information.

 

That is just part of the complexity. Will unmarked graves be given a marker? What kind? May remains of identified children be returned to their home nation if requested? How might you mark or memorialize the graves of unidentified children (adults) etc. etc. etc.

 

This is far more than just answering if it is a grave or not or whose estimated number is more accurate.

[Victoria Watcher]

Why not excavate carefully and at least determine if there are human remains, to start with.

That’s pretty basic, no?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 January 2022 - 02:00 PM.

[Mike K.]

Some first nations sites have been explored more closely on the ground using ground penetrating radar, including this location.

 

If you mean by exploring to excavate possible grave sites that brings up a whole set of difficult and complex questions.

If you excavate an identified potential grave site what could you know? Is it a grave. Upon examining grave remains you may be able to determine if it is male or female, adult or child. Add DNA testing you may be able find FN ancestry or not, even be able to identify their FN group.

 

You would not know the name. If you have historical records to search (many only very recently released) and a cemetery plan or burial record you may have all that information. In Kamloops a cemetery clearly existed until the grave markers were removed by a priest.

Potential grave sites not included or identified by cemetery records may require excavation to get more information.

 

That is just part of the complexity. Will unmarked graves be given a marker? What kind? May remains of identified children be returned to their home nation if requested? How might you mark or memorialize the graves of unidentified children (adults) etc. etc. etc.

 

This is far more than just answering if it is a grave or not or whose estimated number is more accurate.

 

I'm not sure I understand this complexity.

 

Mass graves from WWII's atrocities and from the lead-up to WWII have been dug up with some regularity in Poland, and I'm certain elsewhere in Europe, after signs of their presence were discovered.

 

A recent such discovery employed the same technologies we are using in Canada, but archeologists began digging to definitively identify what they theorized was below the soil.
 

Archaeologists in Poland have discovered a mass grave that the Nazis tried to destroy at the end of World War II, a new study finds.

 

The mass grave, filled with the remains of about 500 individuals, is linked to the horrific "Pomeranian Crime" that took place in Poland's pre-war Pomerania province when the Nazis occupied the country in 1939. The Nazis killed up to 35,000 people in Pomerania at the beginning of the war, and they returned in 1945 to kill even more people, as well as to hide evidence of the prior massacres by exhuming and burning the bodies of victims.

 

Despite this elaborate Nazi cover-up, archaeologists have now found abundant evidence of one of these mass graves after examining archives, interviewing locals and conducting extensive archaeological surveys, the researchers said.

 

...

 

At the trench site, the team performed surveys on the soil underground with ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic field analysis and electrical resistivity, and found many anomalies hidden in the soil underground. Metal-detector surveys also revealed many artifacts, which led the researchers to excavate eight of the trenches. Since then, they have found more than 4,250 artifacts, many from 1939 and 1945, that included bullets, shell casings and charred wood that was likely used to burn the bodies.

 

The team also found cremated bones and jewelry, including a gold wedding ring, suggesting the victims were not robbed when they were killed. The researchers identified the ring's owner as Irena Szydłowska, a courier in the Polish Home Army. "Her family was informed about the finding, and the plan is to return the ring to them," Kobiałka said.

 

- https://www.livescie...und-poland.html

[Moderation]

At some point they will start excavating.

 

First I think they will continue to search for more possible  graves, especially outside designated cemeteries because if you were not Catholic or baptized you may not have have been buried in the cemetery.

 

Efforts will continue to collect and analyze ( much recently released) historical data held by the organization that supervised the schools and information they sent to the Federal Government. Getting qualified people for those tasks as well as those able to analyze the remains and perform any tests will be a challenge, especially in the more remote communities.

 

A possible future:  Upon examination of the remains there is proof of extreme malnutrition, neglect, disease or brutality (multiple broken/healed/broken bones. There are also many other things that could lead to dramatic and inflammatory headlines.

 

There is a lot more to know and to be done beyond confirming  if there is a body or not in a potential grave or the number of possible residential school students buried as I initially indicated.  In my opinion this is a much more complex situation and context than the situation you outlined in Poland.

[Victoria Watcher]

Have any of the nations begun a list of those they believe to be missing?

 

For example are there some older members still alive today that have said "I went to school with my brother/nephew/cousin and they died there and never came home"?

 

It's odd to me that even the first nations communities or families rarely kept their own oral or written records.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 January 2022 - 06:37 PM.

[Moderation]

I do not know what information is or has specifically been collected by any first nation.

 

 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report contains information from 6500 people who told their stories and experiences. This would certainly be one place to start.

 

[LJ]

I don't think they want to excavate.

 

If they do and there are no remains found, or remains from non natives are found the shock value diminishes dramatically and so does the funding.

[Dexter]

Maybe They also could be hesitant to dig up a family ancestors. They have pretty strong beliefs about disturbing the dead…

I don't think they want to excavate.

If they do and there are no remains found, or remains from non natives are found the shock value diminishes dramatically and so does the funding.

[Victoria Watcher]

Maybe They also could be hesitant to dig up a family ancestors. They have pretty strong beliefs about disturbing the dead…

 

 

???

 

They usually just lightly buried or discarded the remains some distance away from settlements.  But usually nothing very organized or intended to be recognized long-term. 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 January 2022 - 07:08 AM.

[Midnightly]

???

 

They usually just lightly buried or discarded the remains some distance away from settlements.  But usually nothing very organized or intended to be recognized long-term. 

 

i would imagine that this can vary significantly tribe by tribe, and when your dealing with multiple tribes with differing views it's hard to come to a consensus on what to do that will work for all.. this is a very mucky situation on how to proceed.. i think most Canadians grew up knowing something about these schools, and knew that there were deaths at the schools and children were buried at the schools (i mean in reality it had to have happened considering how long these schools were open, death rates of children at the time..and the inability to easily transport remains home..)

 

i do also think there is a bit of a fear that if they do start digging the results might not be what they think they are... it wouldn't be the first time that anomalies were found in the ground that were guessed to be one thing but ended up turning out to be something else or even nothing at all.. (and i'm not denying there are bodies buried, i fully believe there are children buried on those school grounds, and the records "went missing" along with parents being strong armed into being unable to speak up about it-or simply no one would listen)

[spanky123]

i would imagine that this can vary significantly tribe by tribe, and when your dealing with multiple tribes with differing views it's hard to come to a consensus on what to do that will work for all.. this is a very mucky situation on how to proceed.. i think most Canadians grew up knowing something about these schools, and knew that there were deaths at the schools and children were buried at the schools (i mean in reality it had to have happened considering how long these schools were open, death rates of children at the time..and the inability to easily transport remains home..)

 

I think it depends where you grew up and the history of FN groups in your region. The history and experiences of the Mikmaq, Cree, Huron, Metis and Haida were very different and you can only cover so much in a Canadian history course. 

[Victoria Watcher]

Haida:


Pit Burial Traditions

The Haida people buried most of the dead in large pits outside of their village. The bodies went in the same pit rather than in individual burial pits. They didn’t practice embalming, so they buried the bodies naturally without caskets.

https://web.frazerco...ral-traditions/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 29 January 2022 - 12:47 PM.

[spanky123]

^ Haida slaves were simply thrown into the sea. 

 

https://www.tota.world/article/431/

[Victoria Watcher]

First Nations need long-term funding for residential school investigations, chief says

https://www.cheknews...ef-says-998567/








Of course they do. Why even dig if you can find long term funding.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 March 2022 - 09:28 AM.

[spanky123]

^ The St. Joseph’s institution was opened by the Roman Catholic Church in 1891 as an industrial school where Indigenous children were required to do labour like timber splitting and farming, Sellars said in January. It remained open until 1981.

 

You mean like EVERY kid had to do in the 1800's and 1900's! There was no Amazon to deliver your food or Coop to bring you heating oil!

[dasmo]

I'm in line with the rejecting the BS we are fed non-stop but.... Bad stuff happened in these "schools". Not all of course but it did. Plenty of people working in them would be good people working in a bad system. Not unlike now. Personally I don't take on any guilt from it but I don't hide from it either. My good friend is first nations and his uncles stories about his time are tear jerking. He is probably still alive because he was around the time when they broke them up. He had escaped after the "teacher" had told him he would kill him in his sleep after he yelled at him to stop whipping his friend and got him in trouble with the master running the school. After he got away and the family found him they refused to send him back and then shortly there after the system started to fall.

[spanky123]

^ Very few people are saying that bad things didn't happen. What I object to is portraying events as exceptions when in fact they were common practice throughout the country at the time. If you were a white kid in school in the 1800's you were probably beaten (caned, whipped, strapped) at one point or another because that is how discipline was delivered. 

[dasmo]

^ Very few people are saying that bad things didn't happen. What I object to is portraying events as exceptions when in fact they were common practice throughout the country at the time. If you were a white kid in school in the 1800's you were probably beaten (caned, whipped, strapped) at one point or another because that is how discipline was delivered. 

I get that. I'm also not saying anyone is saying that. I am in the general camp of not buying the narratives that are fed us (In case you hadn't noticed). I just wanted to add that since it is beyond the usual especially in the context of everything else. My dad was beaten by catholic nuns in his childhood. So yes, that is the baseline. Now imagine that in the context of a system trying to "teach the Indian out of you".