A group offers to teach Indigenous people how to dig up graves and get the bodies out
WARNING: This story has parts that are sad.
A forensic anthropology group in Guatemala is reaching out to Indigenous people who might want to find the bodies of children buried on the grounds of former residential schools in Canada.
Fredy Peccerelli, a founding member of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, has been working for almost 30 years to bring home the bodies of the “disappeared,” or Maya civilians who were killed during the 36-year civil war in Guatemala that ended in 1996.
He said he has seen with his own eyes how the pain of losing family members and not knowing what happened to them can spread through generations and communities.
“It doesn’t go away,” he told her.
Peccerelli said that his group’s digs, which are led by Indigenous people, find the remains of an average of 125 people per year, which are then given back to their families and communities.
In Guatemala, the group has dug up and found more than 8,000 bodies, and nearly half of them, or 3,800, have been identified. Because of their work, there have been times when criminal cases have been started.
Indigenous people in Canada have been trying to figure out how to get dead family members off the grounds of former residential schools and back to their homes.
About 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to go to residential schools, and the Catholic Church ran more than 60% of them.
For decades, survivors of the schools have talked about the possibility of unmarked graves on the sites. In 2016, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a report on missing children and unmarked graves.
But it wasn’t until Tk’emlups te Secwepemc announced in 2021 that they had found what they think are 215 unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., that the country and the rest of the world started to pay attention.
Peccerelli was one of the people outside of Canada who followed the news closely as it came out.
He said that his first thought was that the First Nations should create an independent forensics team led by Indigenous people, like the one his organization has.
Peccerelli said, “No one will treat searches with as much respect and dignity and for as long as it takes as First Nations people.” “It’s the best way to do it.”
He also said that his group has worked with other groups in Mexico and Rwanda to teach people how to collect DNA, dig up graves, and bring back the bodies of people who have died.
It would do the same thing in Canada.
Indigenous people should be in charge of searches
Indigenous people should be at the forefront of searches for the bodies of children, and Peccerelli isn’t the only one who thinks this.
Kimberly Murray, the federally appointed special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves and burial sites, has used the work of the Guatemalan organization as an example of how things could go in Canada.
Murray was quoted in a recent report from the Senate’s Indigenous Peoples committee as saying that he was worried about how the federal government might handle possible searches of residential schools.
The government signed a technical agreement with the International Commission on Missing Persons earlier this year. This is an organization based in The Hague that works to find people who have gone missing because of war, human rights abuses, or natural disasters.
The group was hired to talk to Indigenous communities about the different ways they can find and bring back missing children.
But Murray said that Ottawa didn’t first talk to Indigenous-led organizations and advisory bodies that have worked with survivors and missing children. She also said that she didn’t think the international group had the “cultural competency” or experience to hold engagement sessions with Indigenous communities in Canada.
She was also worried that the federal government would be too involved in the work and would keep control of any data collected by the group, even though the government said the work would be done on its own.
A lawyer from Saskatchewan is glad to get hel
Donald Worme, a lawyer from Saskatchewan who is a member of the Kawacatoose First Nation, agrees that the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala should do more work in Canada.
Worme said in a recent interview that Tk’emlups te Secwepemc hired him after the 215 anomalies were made public, mostly to help with communications and the legal implications of what was going on.
Worme said, “We had to figure out for ourselves right away what was going on and what other places had done about it.” “There was no plan in Canada,” he said.
Worme started to look in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where people who had been killed in the Tulsa Riots were being dug up at the time. Then he looked at the Rwandan Genocide and other mass killings that had happened all over the world.
He started gathering experts from all over Canada to talk about how to find missing people and unmarked graves. Eventually, he found the Guatemalan group. But COVID-19 stopped anyone from doing anything other than talking.
Still, he said that possible graves can’t be dug up without the help of Indigenous Peoples. In the Senate’s report, he is said to have said the same thing.
Worme said, “We can’t leave the sacred work to be done by people who don’t have the deep and specific knowledge they need to do it.” “It’s holy work, and people see it as their duty.”
Residential school denial is getting more common
At the same time, he said, some Canadians are making residential school denial even worse, which hurts that sacred work.
Murray’s interim report said, “There is a lot of violence.” “And it happens through email, the phone, social media, opinion pieces, and sometimes in person.”
Murray gave a number of examples, such as when people tried to dig at the site of the old residential school in Kamloops.
Worme said, “Canadians can’t just go into graves on their own.” “Residential school denial doesn’t just show up in denial,” he said. “It shows up in real acts of hatred, like disturbing possible graves.”
He also said, “I find it strange that people are willing to go dig up graves because they want some kind of attention, but we don’t have them at the Brady Landfill in Winnipeg looking for the three Indigenous women” who are thought to be buried in the Prairie Green Landfill after being dumped there by an alleged serial killer.
But exhumations would show the communities that Indigenous people and people who went to residential schools love and hope for their ancestors who didn’t make it home.
Still, “there are some people in Canada who don’t even think we’re human,” Worme said. So, I’m not sure if they will ever believe.
WATCH: The remains of a child were found at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan.
Between then and now, searches have already started in Canada.
Last month, people from Minegoziibe Anishinabe, a First Nation northwest of Winnipeg, started working with archeologists and scientists from Brandon University to search the grounds of the old Pine Creek Residential School.
Minegoziibe Anishinabe is thought to have been one of the first places in Canada to start a search like this.
There is a national Indian Residential School Crisis Line that can help survivors and others who were affected by the schools. People can get emotional and crisis referral services by calling 1-866-925-4419, which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for mental health counseling and crisis support.by online chat.