| This article, “A 20-Year Anniversary Reflection on Maria Pearson’s Repatriation and Peace Legacies” was originally published in issue in the Fall & Winter 2023, Issue 193 of Indian Affairs. By Lawrence W. Gross, Anishinaabe and a citizen of the White Earth Nation. He holds the rank of Professor and serves as the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians Endowed Chair of Native American Studies at the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. He has written extensively on the Anishinaabe people and culture, including Anishinaabe Ways of Knowing and Being. I want to start this article by sharing that this is a deeply personal and significant article for me. I share the story of Maria Pearson with as many of my students as possible each year. Her non-English name is Hai-Mecha Eunka, which means Running Moccasins, and she comes from the Yankton Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. I tell my students Maria’s story in hopes that it will teach them the deep significance of repatriation work. As a result, I was very happy to receive the invitation to submit this article from one of my former students. That meant to me that I helped her legacy live on and inspire my students in their work. As I explain below, I also consider Maria to be one of my three mothers, so sharing these stories is deeply valuable for me as well. |  |
In the fall of 2001, I was working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Our department chair sent the faculty an email stating that as faculty members of a Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, we were eligible to nominate people for the Nobel Peace Prize. He asked if we knew anyone we would like to nominate. I immediately thought of Maria and decided on the spot to nominate her. I emailed the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to make sure I could, in fact, nominate people. They responded that I could. So, in 2002 I wrote the first of two letters nominating Maria Pearson for the Nobel Peace Prize. My second nominating letter was in 2003.
I nominated Maria in honor of her lifetime dedication to advancing global peace by stopping the genocidal desecration of Indigenous graves around the world. At the time, she lived in Ames, Iowa and served on the American Indian Advisory Committee for Iowa State University. Since I had a joint appointment with the American Indian Studies Program, I got to know Maria through her work on that committee. Through our conversations, she told me about her work protecting Indigenous graves and repatriating Native Ancestors and cultural items.
Through my work with Maria, I learned the stories I will share here with you, although she wrote about them, too. She had stories about her inspired leadership with legislators, archaeologists, anthropologists, physical anthropologists, and with other Native Peoples. She recounted stories about her monumental legislative and policy advocacy victories. She related stories that conveyed she was a calm spokesperson for peace and dignity fighting for all Indigenous Peoples. I learned about how her work started in the early 1970s. It is with great love and honor that I share with you this reflection on the 20-year anniversary of my second nomination of Maria Pearson for the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime dedication to Indigenous Peoples, peace, and repatriation.
The roots of the modern repatriation movement are those of the cottonwood
At the heart of Maria’s story is the sacred cottonwood tree, a tree sacred to her Oceti Sakowin, also known as the Seven Council Fires of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people. When Maria and her husband were looking for a home in Marne, Iowa, they looked at a house with large, mature cottonwood trees in the backyard. Maria always told us that she decided they would buy the house as soon as she saw those trees. It was important to Maria to be in the presence of those trees and for good reason.
One night, her husband John, a district engineer with the then-Iowa Highway Commission, told her about what would come to be known as the Glenwood Incident. During a highway construction project south of Council Bluffs, the remains of 26 Caucasian pioneers were disinterred and respectfully moved to a nearby cemetery for reburial. The remains of a Native woman and her baby and associated belongings, however, were not re-interred. The Native woman and her baby were instead sent to the State Archaeologist for study. Maria could not understand this discriminatory protection of Euro-American but not Native graves.
That night, Maria went outside to pray under the cottonwood trees. I want to make this point clear: She did not go outside to clear her head or to think things over. She specifically went outside to pray under the cottonwood trees. She always told the story in the same manner: She heard a wind coming from a distance, and then the leaves on the trees started tinkling like crystal.
Then she heard her grandmother’s voice speaking to her, “Girl, I told you that you would have to stand up for what you believe in. You must protect the places where your Ancestors lie.” Her conversation with her late grandmother that night set her on her journey to “protect the places where your Ancestors lie.”¹
Maria could never be scared away from fighting the good fight
It was not an easy path. While advocating for the protection of Native graves in Iowa, her home was shot at while she and her children were inside. As an example of the scorn she faced, Maria often told a story about an event with Don Wanatee of the Meskwaki Nation.² They were meeting with a group of professional archaeologists from Iowa. Maria did not relate this part of the story in her written account of the event, but as they walked to the auditorium, Don told Maria that she would have to talk for them. He related that the Meskwaki were in ceremony the night before, and the spirits said he would lose his voice.
In her written account, she related that as Don was speaking about why grave protection was important for his people, the woman who introduced them said, “I’m sick and tired of you Indians trying to ram your culture down my throat! I don’t give a damn whether you dig up my grandmother and take her wedding ring or not.” Don was so stunned that he lost his voice and could not speak. Just as the spirits had foretold, he could only stand there and gasp for breath. So, he told Maria she would have to speak for them, got up, and walked out.
Maria stood up, looked at that woman, and, as she recounted:
“You invited us here to this meeting and then you insult us in this manner? Well, I came here to tell you something and I’m going to say it. You say you don’t give a damn whether or not we dig up your grandmother and take her wedding ring. Number one, we DO give a damn! Indians do not steal from the dead nor do we disturb the dead. Second, your culture does not lie in this land, it lies across that ocean. You go over there and practice your grave robbing if you want and I won’t bother you. Otherwise I’ll fight you until there is no damn breath left within me to see that this does not occur again in my land.”³
I especially love the story about how Maria was being prepared for an operation the day after she met the Governor for the first time. As she was being prepared for the surgery, she could see a reporter in the hallway through the glass in the hospital room door. So, she said in a voice loud enough for the reporter to hear, “I want to see my lawyer!” Her doctor was shocked. He said, “You are going into surgery, Maria. What do you need a lawyer for?” Maria said, “Well, you could kill me in surgery. I could die. And I want to will my bones to the State of Iowa: that way the state archaeologist won’t have to dig me up and in so doing cause mental trauma to my children and grandchildren. You can give my bones to the state archaeologist since he likes Indian bones so well.”
Just as she’d planned, she brought a huge spotlight to the issue of repatriation when the Des Moines newspaper ran the next day with the following headline: *“Running Moccasins Wills Her Bones to the State of Iowa.”*⁴ Maria created a stage for her advocacy in her characteristically powerful and humorous way. Here, she used it to teach the general public that her grave could be defiled by the state simply because she was Native.
Maria was unrelenting in her pursuit of peace and justice for Native Peoples and our Ancestors. Through my work with Maria, I learned many stories of her inspired leadership with legislators, archaeologists, anthropologists, physical anthropologists, and with other Native Peoples. I learned about how her work started in the early 1970s. That is why she worked closely with the then-Governor of Iowa, Robert D. Ray, on the Iowa Burials Protection Act of 1976, Iowa Code, Ch. 263B.7–9 & 716.5 (Iowa Act). The Iowa Act was the first legislative act in the U.S. to specifically protect Native graves and provide for the repatriation of remains.⁵ Emboldened by her success, Maria would come to play a key role in lobbying national leaders and being one of the catalysts in creating the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. Maria was also featured in the 1995 BBC documentary Bones of Contention.⁶
While drafting the Iowa Act, the initial plans were to rebury Native Ancestors held by museums in two graves, one on the east side of Iowa and one on the west. After the first set of negotiations, Maria realized they needed two more graves to represent the four cardinal directions. So, she went back and told the Governor that they needed to have four gravesites rather than just two. In this way, Maria secured four gravesites for reburial in Iowa, starting with the Native girl originally dug up in the Glenwood Incident. She made sure the sites were closed to the public so the graves could never be disturbed again.⁷
Maria’s international repatriation legacy
To Maria, fighting for repatriation meant not only the return of Ancestral remains and sacred items here in the U.S. but opposing genocide all around the world. I remember fondly Maria recounting her visit to the Middle East where, she told me, she was so delighted to have her achievements recognized by the handsome, mustached Arab men for her work to protect the dead of the world’s oppressed peoples. Maria was also recognized and honored by the Māori of New Zealand who adopted her into their Nation for her work securing dignity and respect for Indigenous dead around the world.
The issue of repatriation was fundamentally an issue of peace for Maria. She understood the will of our Ancestors to be two-fold, in my opinion. First, the Ancestors needed to rest where they were meant to. Second, there needed to be peace among the living. Maria dedicated her life to fighting the desecration of Native graves.
Ningaban Maria, gi-zaagi’in giin
After I nominated Maria for the Nobel Peace Prize, she took me under her wing and began mentoring me spiritually and as an activist. I appreciated the many lessons she taught me, especially that you must choose your battles wisely. She taught me many other things, but they are too personal for me to relate publicly. So, I will refrain from doing so.
We used to have gatherings for the Native community in Ames at our house, which Maria would attend, of course. We always had a rollicking good time having simultaneous cribbage tournaments and Scrabble tournaments. My son, Ken, has given me permission to relate the following story. Ken was in high school at the time, and he would play Maria in cribbage. The two would simply razz each other.
At one such gathering, Maria turned to her friend and said, “I’m thinking about adopting him the next ceremonial season.” My jaw metaphorically hit the floor. I knew that when the Oceti Sakowin people adopt you, that relationship is closer than one’s blood relations because they chose you to be a relative. I also knew when they adopt someone, they are adopting that person’s entire family in turn. Maria probably would have adopted Ken as her grandson. That would have made me Maria’s son and I would have had to have treated Maria better than my own biological mother. Sadly, that never came to pass because Maria started her own spirit journey before the next ceremonial season.
Even still, I think of her as my mother and include her in my daily morning prayers as my mother, along with my two other mothers, my biological mother, Cecelia Gross (née Beaulieu), and my academic mother, Inés Talamantez. I consider myself blessed to have had such three wonderful mothers. My son Ken still talks about Maria, and I still think about her on a regular basis. I always include her story in my Introduction to Native American Studies course and other courses as I can fit it in. Maria was a good friend, a good mentor, and most importantly of all, a good relative. I thank her for all her good work on behalf of Indigenous Peoples worldwide and for being so good to me and my family.
So, I will end with some words for Maria in my people’s language of Anishinaabemowin:
Ningaban Maria, miigwech!
(My late mother Maria, thank you!)
Ningaban Maria, gi-zaagi’in giin.
(My late mother Maria, I love you)
Sources
1 Pearson, Maria D. “Give Me Back My People’s Bones: Repatriation and Reburial of American Indian Skeletal Remains in Iowa,” in The Worlds between Two Rivers: Perspectives on American Indians in Iowa, ed. Gretchen M. Bataille, David Mayer Gradwohl, and Charles P. Silet (University of Iowa Press, 2000): 133.
2 The Meskwaki are also known as the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa.
3 Pearson, “Give Me Back My People’s Bones,” 138–39.
4 Id., 137–38.
5 Ames History Museum, Maria Pearson collection.
6 Bones of Contention, BBC Documentary (1995).
7 Pearson, “Give Me Back My People’s Bones,” 140.
Read more about Maria Pearson’s life and advocacy here:
About Maria’s Residency at the Ames Museum:
https://ameshistory.org/content/maria-pearson
Maria has been memorialized at Iowa State Universities Plaza of Heroines:
https://plaza.las.iastate.edu/directory/maria-pearson/
Substack article “Maria Pearson, Running Moccasins, Banned Histories of Race in America”
https://samuelj.substack.com/p/maria-pearson-running-moccasins
I nominated Maria in honor of her lifetime dedication to advancing global peace by stopping the genocidal desecration of Indigenous graves around the world. At the time, she lived in Ames, Iowa and served on the American Indian Advisory Committee for Iowa State University. Since I had a joint appointment with the American Indian Studies Program, I got to know Maria through her work on that committee. Through our conversations, she told me about her work protecting Indigenous graves and repatriating Native Ancestors and cultural items.
Through my work with Maria, I learned the stories I will share here with you, although she wrote about them, too. She had stories about her inspired leadership with legislators, archaeologists, anthropologists, physical anthropologists, and with other Native Peoples. She recounted stories about her monumental legislative and policy advocacy victories. She related stories that conveyed she was a calm spokesperson for peace and dignity fighting for all Indigenous Peoples. I learned about how her work started in the early 1970s. It is with great love and honor that I share with you this reflection on the 20-year anniversary of my second nomination of Maria Pearson for the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime dedication to Indigenous Peoples, peace, and repatriation.
The roots of the modern repatriation movement are those of the cottonwood
At the heart of Maria’s story is the sacred cottonwood tree, a tree sacred to her Oceti Sakowin, also known as the Seven Council Fires of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people. When Maria and her husband were looking for a home in Marne, Iowa, they looked at a house with large, mature cottonwood trees in the backyard. Maria always told us that she decided they would buy the house as soon as she saw those trees. It was important to Maria to be in the presence of those trees and for good reason.
One night, her husband John, a district engineer with the then-Iowa Highway Commission, told her about what would come to be known as the Glenwood Incident. During a highway construction project south of Council Bluffs, the remains of 26 Caucasian pioneers were disinterred and respectfully moved to a nearby cemetery for reburial. The remains of a Native woman and her baby and associated belongings, however, were not re-interred. The Native woman and her baby were instead sent to the State Archaeologist for study. Maria could not understand this discriminatory protection of Euro-American but not Native graves.
That night, Maria went outside to pray under the cottonwood trees. I want to make this point clear: She did not go outside to clear her head or to think things over. She specifically went outside to pray under the cottonwood trees. She always told the story in the same manner: She heard a wind coming from a distance, and then the leaves on the trees started tinkling like crystal.
Then she heard her grandmother’s voice speaking to her, “Girl, I told you that you would have to stand up for what you believe in. You must protect the places where your Ancestors lie.” Her conversation with her late grandmother that night set her on her journey to “protect the places where your Ancestors lie.”¹
Maria could never be scared away from fighting the good fight
It was not an easy path. While advocating for the protection of Native graves in Iowa, her home was shot at while she and her children were inside. As an example of the scorn she faced, Maria often told a story about an event with Don Wanatee of the Meskwaki Nation.² They were meeting with a group of professional archaeologists from Iowa. Maria did not relate this part of the story in her written account of the event, but as they walked to the auditorium, Don told Maria that she would have to talk for them. He related that the Meskwaki were in ceremony the night before, and the spirits said he would lose his voice.
In her written account, she related that as Don was speaking about why grave protection was important for his people, the woman who introduced them said, “I’m sick and tired of you Indians trying to ram your culture down my throat! I don’t give a damn whether you dig up my grandmother and take her wedding ring or not.” Don was so stunned that he lost his voice and could not speak. Just as the spirits had foretold, he could only stand there and gasp for breath. So, he told Maria she would have to speak for them, got up, and walked out.
Maria stood up, looked at that woman, and, as she recounted:
“You invited us here to this meeting and then you insult us in this manner? Well, I came here to tell you something and I’m going to say it. You say you don’t give a damn whether or not we dig up your grandmother and take her wedding ring. Number one, we DO give a damn! Indians do not steal from the dead nor do we disturb the dead. Second, your culture does not lie in this land, it lies across that ocean. You go over there and practice your grave robbing if you want and I won’t bother you. Otherwise I’ll fight you until there is no damn breath left within me to see that this does not occur again in my land.”³
I especially love the story about how Maria was being prepared for an operation the day after she met the Governor for the first time. As she was being prepared for the surgery, she could see a reporter in the hallway through the glass in the hospital room door. So, she said in a voice loud enough for the reporter to hear, “I want to see my lawyer!” Her doctor was shocked. He said, “You are going into surgery, Maria. What do you need a lawyer for?” Maria said, “Well, you could kill me in surgery. I could die. And I want to will my bones to the State of Iowa: that way the state archaeologist won’t have to dig me up and in so doing cause mental trauma to my children and grandchildren. You can give my bones to the state archaeologist since he likes Indian bones so well.”
Just as she’d planned, she brought a huge spotlight to the issue of repatriation when the Des Moines newspaper ran the next day with the following headline: *“Running Moccasins Wills Her Bones to the State of Iowa.”*⁴ Maria created a stage for her advocacy in her characteristically powerful and humorous way. Here, she used it to teach the general public that her grave could be defiled by the state simply because she was Native.
Maria was unrelenting in her pursuit of peace and justice for Native Peoples and our Ancestors. Through my work with Maria, I learned many stories of her inspired leadership with legislators, archaeologists, anthropologists, physical anthropologists, and with other Native Peoples. I learned about how her work started in the early 1970s. That is why she worked closely with the then-Governor of Iowa, Robert D. Ray, on the Iowa Burials Protection Act of 1976, Iowa Code, Ch. 263B.7–9 & 716.5 (Iowa Act). The Iowa Act was the first legislative act in the U.S. to specifically protect Native graves and provide for the repatriation of remains.⁵ Emboldened by her success, Maria would come to play a key role in lobbying national leaders and being one of the catalysts in creating the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. Maria was also featured in the 1995 BBC documentary Bones of Contention.⁶
While drafting the Iowa Act, the initial plans were to rebury Native Ancestors held by museums in two graves, one on the east side of Iowa and one on the west. After the first set of negotiations, Maria realized they needed two more graves to represent the four cardinal directions. So, she went back and told the Governor that they needed to have four gravesites rather than just two. In this way, Maria secured four gravesites for reburial in Iowa, starting with the Native girl originally dug up in the Glenwood Incident. She made sure the sites were closed to the public so the graves could never be disturbed again.⁷
Maria’s international repatriation legacy
To Maria, fighting for repatriation meant not only the return of Ancestral remains and sacred items here in the U.S. but opposing genocide all around the world. I remember fondly Maria recounting her visit to the Middle East where, she told me, she was so delighted to have her achievements recognized by the handsome, mustached Arab men for her work to protect the dead of the world’s oppressed peoples. Maria was also recognized and honored by the Māori of New Zealand who adopted her into their Nation for her work securing dignity and respect for Indigenous dead around the world.
The issue of repatriation was fundamentally an issue of peace for Maria. She understood the will of our Ancestors to be two-fold, in my opinion. First, the Ancestors needed to rest where they were meant to. Second, there needed to be peace among the living. Maria dedicated her life to fighting the desecration of Native graves.
Ningaban Maria, gi-zaagi’in giin
After I nominated Maria for the Nobel Peace Prize, she took me under her wing and began mentoring me spiritually and as an activist. I appreciated the many lessons she taught me, especially that you must choose your battles wisely. She taught me many other things, but they are too personal for me to relate publicly. So, I will refrain from doing so.
We used to have gatherings for the Native community in Ames at our house, which Maria would attend, of course. We always had a rollicking good time having simultaneous cribbage tournaments and Scrabble tournaments. My son, Ken, has given me permission to relate the following story. Ken was in high school at the time, and he would play Maria in cribbage. The two would simply razz each other.
At one such gathering, Maria turned to her friend and said, “I’m thinking about adopting him the next ceremonial season.” My jaw metaphorically hit the floor. I knew that when the Oceti Sakowin people adopt you, that relationship is closer than one’s blood relations because they chose you to be a relative. I also knew when they adopt someone, they are adopting that person’s entire family in turn. Maria probably would have adopted Ken as her grandson. That would have made me Maria’s son and I would have had to have treated Maria better than my own biological mother. Sadly, that never came to pass because Maria started her own spirit journey before the next ceremonial season.
Even still, I think of her as my mother and include her in my daily morning prayers as my mother, along with my two other mothers, my biological mother, Cecelia Gross (née Beaulieu), and my academic mother, Inés Talamantez. I consider myself blessed to have had such three wonderful mothers. My son Ken still talks about Maria, and I still think about her on a regular basis. I always include her story in my Introduction to Native American Studies course and other courses as I can fit it in. Maria was a good friend, a good mentor, and most importantly of all, a good relative. I thank her for all her good work on behalf of Indigenous Peoples worldwide and for being so good to me and my family.
So, I will end with some words for Maria in my people’s language of Anishinaabemowin:
Ningaban Maria, miigwech!
(My late mother Maria, thank you!)
Ningaban Maria, gi-zaagi’in giin.
(My late mother Maria, I love you)
Sources
1 Pearson, Maria D. “Give Me Back My People’s Bones: Repatriation and Reburial of American Indian Skeletal Remains in Iowa,” in The Worlds between Two Rivers: Perspectives on American Indians in Iowa, ed. Gretchen M. Bataille, David Mayer Gradwohl, and Charles P. Silet (University of Iowa Press, 2000): 133.
2 The Meskwaki are also known as the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa.
3 Pearson, “Give Me Back My People’s Bones,” 138–39.
4 Id., 137–38.
5 Ames History Museum, Maria Pearson collection.
6 Bones of Contention, BBC Documentary (1995).
7 Pearson, “Give Me Back My People’s Bones,” 140.
Read more about Maria Pearson’s life and advocacy here:
About Maria’s Residency at the Ames Museum:
https://ameshistory.org/content/maria-pearson
Maria has been memorialized at Iowa State Universities Plaza of Heroines:
https://plaza.las.iastate.edu/directory/maria-pearson/
Substack article “Maria Pearson, Running Moccasins, Banned Histories of Race in America”
https://samuelj.substack.com/p/maria-pearson-running-moccasins
