MUNCIE, Ind. – No smooth path connects the competing cultural interests of Native Americans and non-natives, says a close observer of the continuing controversy.
Colleen Boyd, orginally of Seattle, directs the Native American Studies Department at Ball State University and is married to a member of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
“Alas, there is no real way to avoid this issue,” she told Peninsula Daily News last week.
Put simply, she said, the ancestors of today’s tribes settled in the same places that attract non-Natives today.
“It is almost a given that wherever a riverway empties into the salt chuck [water], there is likely to be a winter village,” she said.
“Where there are living sites, there are bound to be human remains and grave goods.”
