Urban Growth Vs. Indian Burial Ground

RICHLAND, Tri-Cities - Columbia Point's Indian past is literally imbedded with the buried bodies of the Chamnapum tribe.

Can that past co-exist with Richland's plans for putting condominiums, shops and office buildings on part of Columbia Point - a 400-acre site that contains an Indian burial ground?

Or will the two cultures clash?

The answers will surface in the next few months as the two cultures consider whether development can be compatible with a burial ground.

"We take very, very seriously the issue of the archaeological significance and the environmental significance of Columbia Point," said City Manager Joe King. "We're not building on a burial ground."

But, he added, "There should be ways to develop around an Indian burial ground."

Yakima and Umatilla Indian spokesmen say Indian burial sites have great religious and historical significance.

"Why would I want to bother George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Wherever they are buried at, I cannot put my tepee on it," said Johnson Meninick, a Yakima cultural specialist.

Henrietta Mann, director of the New York City-based American Indian Religious Freedom Project, explained that Indians believe that when a body is buried a spiritual bond is created with the earth, the buried bodies and their living descendants.

"They're going back to the womb of the Earth mother. We don't have any concept of the ground being a hell," Mann said. "Whenever we go back to Grandmother Earth, we'd like to stay there."

Richland recently signed a 20-year contract with Prowswood Management Inc. of Utah to create a mix of condos, offices, shops and parks at Columbia Point, where a tiny tribe called the Chamnapum lived and fished until displaced by whites.

Preliminary city estimates are that 80 to 150 acres of the 400-acre area would be developed. The rest would be left alone or made into parks.

Richland leaders face these dilemmas:

-- The Yakima and Umatilla Indian nations each claim they are the sole legal guardian over the site.

-- Boundaries of Indian burial grounds are not neatly defined. No one is sure if the main burial site south of Interstate 182 technically includes all of Columbia Point.

-- Can limited development - such as a trail in the burial area - be reconciled with Indian religious beliefs against disturbing graves?

The United States negotiated three treaties in 1855 - one with the Yakimas, one with the Nez Perce and one with the Umatillas, Walla Wallas and Cayuse, which now are the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Those treaties defined the reservations and gave hunting, harvesting and burial rights throughout the rest of Eastern Washington to the tribes.

The treaties give the Indians a legal say on issues affecting those rights. But Kent Richards, Central Washington University history professor, said the treaties did not set precise boundaries to each tribe's territories.

The Yakimas and Umatillas disagree on the boundaries. Jim Chatters, a Richland archaeologist specializing in Indians, said the two nations have equally valid claims and the city needs to deal with both tribes equally.

Richland officials have speculated that development in the burial area could be limited to trails, historical markers or a historical center.