THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507070138
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Oliver Perry, chief emeritus of the Nansemond Indian tribe, is on a mission to bring home again the excavated remains of 64 members of the Chesapeake Tribe who lived in Great Neck hundreds of years ago.
The remains have been unceremoniously stored in boxes at the State Department of Historic Resources in Richmond since they were uncovered by archaeologists in the 1970s and '80s.
Perry, who also is the co-chairman of the Virginia Council on Indians, has the go-ahead for a reburial from both the historic resources department and the National Parks Service's Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee.
Now he must find a burial site.
``We have no funds for land,'' Perry said. ``And we need a site that would be in perpetual care and close to where they lived.''
The Chesapeake Indians were known to have lived in the Great Neck area of Virginia Beach. Tribe members were seen by the first settlers when they landed at Cape Henry in 1607. So, a site near the First Landing Cross at Fort Story or in First Landing/Seashore State Park would be ideal, Perry said.
Perry has approached Fred Hazelwood, manager of Seashore, who said he is considering the possibility. ``Once Indians are buried there,'' Perry added, ``it becomes a sacred site.''
Of the 64 individuals, 52 were excavated by Norfolk archaeologist Floyd Painter in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The other 12 were excavated in 1981-82 by the Department of Historic Resources.
For the past several years the federal repatriation act has required that Indian remains be returned to their tribes, when possible. Since there are no living members of the Chesapeake tribe, the Nansemond tribe, which was a nearby neighbor and ally of the Chesapeakes, requested permission from the historic resources department to re-inter the remains.
The Nansemonds also sought and received permission from the other seven recognized tribes in Virginia to designate Perry as the liaison to negotiate the return of the individuals. Perry, in turn, has kept the city's Human Rights Commission apprised of the plans.
Under Perry's leadership, the first reburial of Indian remains in the state took place 1 1/2 years ago when 18 individuals from the Paspahegh Tribe were re-interred in Williamsburg. In June, Stafford County leased land to the American Indian Society of Washington, D.C., for a memorial and reburial site where remains of Potomac Indians could be buried when uncovered by developers in that rapidly growing county.
Perry hopes to have a site and a reburial ceremony for the Chesapeake Indians sometime this fall. Then, he'll begin working on finding a site in Southampton County for 97 Nansemond Tribe individuals held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Oliver Perry, chief emeritus of the Nansemond Indian tribe, says a
site near the First Landing Cross at Fort Story would be an ideal
burial ground for the remains of 64 members of the Chesapeake
Tribe.
by CNB