Sometimes Mondays are not the best days to write. I spent today writing on our repatriation manual, but constructing the thoughts and putting them down was not exactly flowing today. Maybe I should save Mondays for going out and mowing grass at the cemeteries, something to get into the flow of work, but I need to crank out some chapters for this manual. It’s exciting to think that something I am working out has the potential to help other tribes and museums. Having that possibility motivates me to write when the writing is not happening.
While I am immersed in dealing with CUI from Michigan, I keep an eye on Ohio and Indiana too. There are no federally recognized tribes there and the Odawa were party to treaties in both those states, granting us aboriginal occupation there. I very well could see us collaborating with some other tribes on having remains returned from these states. I feel truly blessed to have been able to help the ancestors I have so far but so many others need to go back. I always ask forgiveness for any mistakes I may have had while handling these old ones. But I always get a good feeling, a genuine feeling, that the right thing is being done by having them go back into the earth.
Tribal Repatriation Specialist 