November 2024 Program
Not Your Typical Cemetery -
What We Know About Native American Burials in Lancaster and York Counties
Presented by Darvin L Martin
This presentation will focus on how Native American burial grounds are very different than what we think of as a typical cemetery and are often overlooked and not adequately protected. We’ll explore some of the cultural and historical issues in the contemporary context of protecting and preserving sites, and include a bit on an assessment about a number of sites all around us. The topic will also include important clues that may indicate a Native American burial site and what can be done to keep such sites as sacred spaces.
About Darvin L. Martin: For the last twenty years Darvin L Martin has explored the connections between local Native Americans and the early Pennsylvania colonists. His focus on family roots, geography and history, particularly the local history not found in common textbooks, has compelled him to blend his interests to seek to understand what this land was like before European colonists arrived, and to evaluate the various interactions between these new immigrants and the people already living here. Darvin has published numerous books and articles focused on family history, local cemeteries, and these colonial interactions including the booklet Clash of Cultures (2008) and the articles “The Susquehannocks’ First Contact with an Expanding Europe” (October 2015) and “Connadago, New Albion, and the Great Minqua Path” ((January 2016) in the Journal Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage.
Summary of the presentation by Erica Runkles:
Martin opened his talk by showing rows of gravestones of the cemetery of the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School. The students buried there had been taken from native tribes by the US government in a brutal effort to assimilate them into American culture. When these children died, they were not buried in keeping their Native heritage. In recent years, some Native American tribes have requested the return and repatriation of children’s remains to be properly reinterred in keeping with the tradition of their culture.
In the Susquehanna River Valley, Lancaster County has a noteworthy number of known Native American villages and burial sites. Locations of the villages were often placed near creeks and wooded areas. These sites represent both different tribes and instances when one tribe moved to a new location. Some represented tribes were the Nanticokes, located near the Cocalico Creek, and the Conestoga, Iroquois, and Susquehannock people in the Washington Boro areas. These were named by archeological sites as Schultz, Washington Boro, and Stricker.
Burial sites and practices varied by each tribe’s traditions. The remains might be positioned in a fetal position, representing the way one is born; others possibly laid on their backs, facing upward. There could be bowls and other articles buried with deceased. Customs determined the location where the body was buried - within the longhouse, within a mound, or outside the village’s stockades.
The protection and preservation of burial sites is important. Once soil has been dug up, disturbing the variously colored layers of soil, it cannot be replaced as it originally was. The bodies which were buried many centuries earlier, can unwittingly be destroyed through development. The skeletal remains in burial sites could become degraded simply through the corrosive use of fertilizers. Public notice of the exact locations of sacred burial sites can invite the looting of grounds which have long harbored indigenous remains and artifacts.
For further reading: Susquehanna’s Indians, by Barry C. Kent, 1989, The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
About Darvin L. Martin: For the last twenty years Darvin L Martin has explored the connections between local Native Americans and the early Pennsylvania colonists. His focus on family roots, geography and history, particularly the local history not found in common textbooks, has compelled him to blend his interests to seek to understand what this land was like before European colonists arrived, and to evaluate the various interactions between these new immigrants and the people already living here. Darvin has published numerous books and articles focused on family history, local cemeteries, and these colonial interactions including the booklet Clash of Cultures (2008) and the articles “The Susquehannocks’ First Contact with an Expanding Europe” (October 2015) and “Connadago, New Albion, and the Great Minqua Path” ((January 2016) in the Journal Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage.
Summary of the presentation by Erica Runkles:
Martin opened his talk by showing rows of gravestones of the cemetery of the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School. The students buried there had been taken from native tribes by the US government in a brutal effort to assimilate them into American culture. When these children died, they were not buried in keeping their Native heritage. In recent years, some Native American tribes have requested the return and repatriation of children’s remains to be properly reinterred in keeping with the tradition of their culture.
In the Susquehanna River Valley, Lancaster County has a noteworthy number of known Native American villages and burial sites. Locations of the villages were often placed near creeks and wooded areas. These sites represent both different tribes and instances when one tribe moved to a new location. Some represented tribes were the Nanticokes, located near the Cocalico Creek, and the Conestoga, Iroquois, and Susquehannock people in the Washington Boro areas. These were named by archeological sites as Schultz, Washington Boro, and Stricker.
Burial sites and practices varied by each tribe’s traditions. The remains might be positioned in a fetal position, representing the way one is born; others possibly laid on their backs, facing upward. There could be bowls and other articles buried with deceased. Customs determined the location where the body was buried - within the longhouse, within a mound, or outside the village’s stockades.
The protection and preservation of burial sites is important. Once soil has been dug up, disturbing the variously colored layers of soil, it cannot be replaced as it originally was. The bodies which were buried many centuries earlier, can unwittingly be destroyed through development. The skeletal remains in burial sites could become degraded simply through the corrosive use of fertilizers. Public notice of the exact locations of sacred burial sites can invite the looting of grounds which have long harbored indigenous remains and artifacts.
For further reading: Susquehanna’s Indians, by Barry C. Kent, 1989, The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.