Wilfred Greene, the 70-year-old chief of the Wampanoag Nation's Seaconke Indian tribe, stands next to a mound of rocks that local tribal leaders and historians say mark a historic Indian burial ground in the woods in North Smithfield, Rhode Island in this May 16, 2007 photo. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)
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“Maybe the piles are related to that (tribal history). Maybe they aren’t,”
If they didn’t keep track of it, it couldn’t be that important... ;)
One of the protesting 'tribes' has only been recognized within the past year...and they already want their own free trade zone?
The only known significance of the site is that local indians lost two major fights there nearly 400 years ago.
No one, including two small tribes living in the area, knew about this 'sacred ground' until someone wanted to build houses.
A tiny band of accidentally (thanks to the Pilgrims) significant indians presumes to have filled up a 230 acre 'national cemetery'.
Unfortunately, once the claim has been made, they can count on the force of US government and lots of grad student experts to support their claims.
I don't have a lot of faith in the idea that digging on nearby private land will prove anything because most of the participants will already 'know' what they will find. What would be interesting would be to learn if there were evidence of similar piles of stone near similarly rocky fields in either England or across the channel.
When I was a kid on my Grandfather’s farm one of the jobs he had us kids do was to put rocks on the wagon and then we rode down and threw them in a pile ,lots fun!
