Archaeology, Reburial, and the Tactics of a Discipline's Self-Delusion

Indians have a humorous story for just about every difficult situation in life. About ten years ago, when the reburial issue seemed insoluble, when Indians felt almost completely powerless in the face of the archaeological establishment and there was intense anger and frustration among both Indians and archaeologists, a story surfaced at one of the meetings held between the groups. the story, several holy people from different tribes got together to discuss the “bone lickers”-those bizarre creatures, the archaeologists and physical anthropologists who study Indian bones. One of the undercurrents of the meeting was an often expressed fear that when the holy people themselves died, archaeologists would be especially interested in studying their bones. After some discussion about burial practices that might keep the bones from falling into the hands of the “arks, ” most of the participants were at a loss as to what to do. Cremation was not the answer; for some it was a kind of spiritual suicide. No one believed hiding the bones would work either, because the ”arks, ” after all, were pretty crafty about finding bones. In the end, with some resignation, the holy people concluded that, if nothing else, they at least could “get in the last word. ” They all agreed that instead of being buried in the usual way, they would be buried face down, and they would have signs put on their rear ends reading, ”Archaeologist! Kiss my ass!”